A week after winning the March 11 byelection, Andre Proulx officially became the eighth and final member of the 2018−2022 Thompson city council when he was sworn by provincial court Judge Todd Rambow on March 18.
Following the ceremony, Proulx took his seat between councillors Brian Lundmark and Judy Kolada inside council chambers for Monday's regular meeting.
The local mechanic and business owner received 578 votes in the byelection, beating opponents Chiew Chong and Blake Ellis by 46 and 486 votes, respectively.
“I’d just like to thank everyone, the citizens and family, friends, volunteers, and everybody that helped me out,” he told the public directly on Monday night. “I’m really happy to be able to serve Thompson.”
Proulx and Chong initially tied for this eighth council seat during October’s general municipal election, with both candidates receiving 1,009 votes apiece. The city eventually called a byelection when a judicial recount couldn’t break this deadlock.
Vote on transit fee increase resolution delayed
Even though Proulx didn’t say much during Monday’s meeting, he cast a pretty important vote on a resolution to hike bus fares and eliminate monthly passes.
Coun. Jeff Fountain was the most vocal supporter of this resolution, saying that the city’s current public transit rates of $1.50 for students/seniors and $2 for adults are unsustainable and must increase by 66 and 100 per cent, respectively.
For 15 days in February, he said the city only collected $4,650 in fares even though the cost of providing bus service in Thompson throughout that period was over $30,000, which doesn’t include the money they put into maintaining bus shelters.
“Four dollars for an adult fare is a significant increase, I understand that,” said Fountain. “However, this increase must be made now in order to avoid the disaster of designing a new transit system and then increasing fares only to watch ridership plummet with a new system in place and a long-term contract enabled.”
The city’s five-month public transit contract with Maple Bus Lines is set to expire at the end of June.
Fountain faced heavy opposition from Coun. Les Ellsworth, who mentioned that council should not be making a decision of this magnitude before the city’s holds a public transit meeting, scheduled for April 9.
“In all fairness, I believe that at some point and time you should see an increase in transit, but I think we’re putting the cart before the horse,” he said. “We have not put out a report because we haven’t finished with our research, we haven’t finished our homework, we haven’t consulted yet with a lot of stakeholders, which we are going to be doing in the coming weeks.”
Lundmark piggybacked on Ellsworth’s testimony by saying this resolution should be tabled until after the public transit meeting takes place.
This motion to table passed by a 5−3 margin, with councillors Proulx, Lundmark, Ellsworth, Earl Colbourne and Kathy Valentino voting in favour, while councillors Fountain, Kolada and Duncan Wong voted against it.
Mayor Colleen Smook was out of town on city business and did not attend Monday’s meeting.
The public transit meeting April 9 will begin at 7 p.m. in the Thompson Regional Community Centre’s multipurpose room. Everyone is invited to attend.
The next city council meeting is set for April 1 at City Hall.
