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A troubling question has not been much considered in the TMR election campaign: would Councillor Michelle Setlakwe be in a conflict of interest if she were elected mayor?
The biggest immediate decision facing the next Town Council is whether the Royalmount project should include a large residential component. The giant construction firm Pomerleau is the builder at Royalmount, and presumably would benefit significantly from a decision to build housing there. Ms Setlakwe’s husband is chairman of the board of Pomerleau.
Ms Setlakwe’s electoral platform includes a promise to hold a referendum on whether to allow Royalmount to include residences. But even if the Town’s people voted Yes, the Council would still have to make important choices. No referendum can answer all the detailed questions that such a major change would involve on everything from zoning to traffic planning and municipal services. These are issues that citizens elect a Council and above all a mayor to handle.
How could Ms Setlakwe, as mayor, recuse herself from all those discussions and decisions which would shape so much of TMR’s future? Yet if she did recuse herself, recognizing the apparent conflict of interest, how could she claim to be doing her job as mayor?
It is a real and worrisome problem.
Michel Faure
TMR resident
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