After Sorel-Tracy, Saint-Sévère in Mauricie. For the second time in its history, the Quebec Municipal Commission filed a request for disqualification for attack on the honor and dignity of the office against a former mayor in Superior Court, this time for having accessed the computer of the general director.
Former mayor Jean-Yves St-Arnaud “admits to having committed the acts which are the basis of our appeal,” said CMQ spokesperson David Dusseault.
The village of Saint-Sévère became famous last year, when it found itself struggling with around twenty young cows on the run.
He made local headlines again a few weeks ago, due to two complaints against his mayor to the Municipal Commission. The CMQ investigated and Mr. St-Arnaud resigned.
The complaints allegedly referred to access to the email box and messaging of the DG’s Facebook account, without its knowledge, reported The Nouvelliste.
The procedure filed against the former mayor, at the Shawinigan courthouse on Wednesday, “is related to having accessed the general director’s computer,” mentioned Mr. Dusseault.
The CMQ is therefore asking the court to declare Mr. St-Arnaud disqualified from holding office as a municipal elected official for one year.
“This is the second time that the Municipal Commission has filed an appeal invoking the same provisions that were invoked in the case of the mayor of Sorel-Tracy, for conduct that seriously undermined honor and dignity. of the function. »
The former mayor of Sorel-Tracy, Serge Péloquin, had hidden a recording device in the city clerk’s office. In June 2022, he was declared “disqualified from exercising the function of member of the council of any municipality” for one year.
It has only been two years since an elected official can be declared disqualified from sitting for reasons of an attack on the honor and dignity of his office. This reason was added just before the 2021 municipal elections, with the adoption of Bill 49, which modified the Act respecting elections and referendums in municipalities and the Law on ethics and professional conduct in municipal matters.
Jean-Yves St-Arnaud was elected mayor of Saint-Sévère in 2017, after serving as a municipal councilor. He was also elected prefect of the MRC of Maskinongé in 2021. Both positions will be subject to elections.
The general director of Saint-Sévère, Marie-Andrée Cadorette, gave notable interviews during the episode of the cows on the run, recounting the bureaucratic mazes that her small municipality of 340 inhabitants had to face to resolve its problem of runaway ruminants. .