Every member of the 2022-2026 Renfrew Town Council is running again for office later this month.  Five of them are running for the jobs they currently hold, while two others take a crack at the mayor position challenging the current incumbent Tom Sidney.

On the councillor side itself, the four incumbents seeking to retain their place at the table are joined by six challengers, some of whom hold previous elected council experience, and others who have made marks for themselves in the private sector.

This is the manner in which I intend to observe these ten candidates for councillor, as either incumbents, as previous members, our as newcomers to municipal politics.

On October 26th of this month, voters in Renfrew will turn out — we hope — to support a number of the ten people standing as candidates for Renfrew Town Council as councillors.

I say we hope because back in 2022, only forty-some percent of eligible voters bothered to turn up and scratch an X out for a candidate.  If some candidate were ever to address this by aggressively and actively going after a chunk of that un-mapped potential, it could very well be a difference maker.

Let me correct myself.  It will be a difference maker.

There are four men in the running to be Renfrew’s next mayor, one an incumbent mayor and three challengers.  Actually there’s a total of five challengers, but I’ve gone ahead and ruled two of them out with the belief that, aside from pulling a hundred votes or so, aren’t really in the legitimate mix for the mayor’s chair.

Tom Sidney is the current mayor and he’s running again.  Looking to unseat him are current reeve Peter Emon, current councillor Jason Legris, and former councillor and past mayoral candidate Michael Coulas, a local businessman and real estate guy.  These are my Big Four, in that one of these fellows will end up on top, but all four have what I believe to be legitimate paths to get to the top of the polls later this month.

Elections for mayor will often bring out a number of candidates, and the 2026 municipal election appears to be no different with no fewer than six people vying for the job that comes with an impressive chain of office and the title of “Your Worship.”

Being the mayor of Renfrew can’t be an easy thing, and looking at perhaps the past twenty years or so, it seems every occupant of that chair has made it look like it’s an exceedingly difficult proposition.

No two elections are really going to be the same every time out.  Candidates come and go, older ones aging out and newer ones just cutting their teeth.

But there are also third parties that make every trip to the polls something different.  These third parties can range from political junkies — perhaps that’s me — as well as vested interests of various sorts. And people who want to play the role of spoiler or disrupter.  All kinds come out during election season.

Try as we might, there’s a generally accepted wisdom out there that it’s extraordinarily difficult to out-run one’s mistakes.

After all, that’s what life is, a series of decisions, one after another after another for a lifetime, with their totality pretty much serving as a very long and complete résumé of a person’s life and perhaps even their character.  Many of those decisions will be good ones, hopefully far fewer will be bad ones, and the vast majority being in-between ones.

For better or worse, our decisions, and our decision-making, shapes the story of our lives and gives others points of reference for things like our outlook, philosophy, and even our political viewpoint.

With a little more than three weeks to go before Renfrew’s municipal election, I suppose it’s time to start looking into things more closely.

Which isn’t really accurate, in that I have been paying attention, actually quite a bit of it, despite not being an eligible voter residing within Renfrew’s municipal boundaries, living just on the other side of the fence.

CLRCS has never indicated that our community participation support (CPS) programs are closing.  In fact, we have communicated our intention to improve the availability of our CPS programs and expand offerings so that people can receive the support they need to take part in our community in the evenings and on weekends.

Jennifer Lavallee

Community Living Renfrew County South’s Executive-Director Jennifer Lavallee has announced that the activities involving the CPS — Community Participation Supports — aka the Day Program, will not be resumed when general operations resume after a nearly four month long strike.

My goodness, who could have possibly seen that coming?

CLRCS’s website says that an “award” has been issued, and claiming that the strike action by OPSEU Local 472 is at an end.  Over on OPSEU 472’s Facebook page, people are congratulating themselves and thanking their negotiators for “standing up for them.”  On OPSEU’s main website, there’s no mention of a settlement at all.

So what to make of all of this?