A sixth MRC Pontiac mayor has been elected unopposed after one of two candidates in Swisha dropped out of the race on Oct. 9.
Roger Peter Lafond has won the mayor’s seat in the far-flung municipality of Rapides-des-Joachims after his opponent, Joe Lance, rescinded his candidacy Thursday afternoon. With five incumbents elected already (see last week’s edition), this makes an even third (6/18) of the council of mayors who have been selected for the next four years.
Lafond said he was surprised his opponent, who happens to be his brother-in-law, dropped out.
“I was in shock, I thought I would have some competition,” he said. “I don’t know why he pulled out or anything.”
The municipality’s director general Alana Bowes, who’s serving as returning officer for the election, said that this is the first time she’s had a candidate drop out after the deadline, and had to ask Élections Québec for advice. She said she was told it’s the same process as when a candidate withdraws before the deadline.
THE EQUITY has reached out to Lance for comment, but he didn’t respond in time for publication.
A long-time resident of L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, Lafond and his wife lost everything in the 2019 floods and moved to Rapides, where she had family. Over the years, he’s worked in several industries, from trucking, to heavy equipment, to construction.
He said his priority will be to improve services to the isolated community, particularly policing. Currently, officers from the Sûreté du Québec detachment in Campbell’s Bay must drive roughly an hour through Ontario to reach the village. He pointed out that they already receive EMS and fire services from Ontario municipalities, adding that there could be some kind of agreement worked out for policing as well.
“In emergencies, when a life is threatened, when there’s an accident, when there’s whatever, instead of the police coming all the way from Campbell’s Bay, which is almost two hours, we can have police here within minutes.”
He said that at a regional level, he would like to see more promotion of Pontiac’s tourism, as well as more recognition of Rapides-des-Joachims status as an isolated community.
“That, I would say, is about 90 per cent of the challenges we have, if not more,” he said, referring to their remote location.
Lafond added that outgoing mayor Lucie Rivet Paquette had been encouraging him to run for office.
