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As election fever rises in Town of Two Mountains leading towards next November 1’s voting day, incumbent mayor Marc Lauzon is losing two people who served on council over the past four years, although he’s gaining a well-known local man for his slate of candidates.
Born and raised locally
Tom Whitton was born and raised in Two Mountains and remains very active in the community as a resident. A chemical engineer with a family of his own now, he graduated from Mountainview Elementary School, and then Lake of Two Mountains High.
Whitton has long coached local sports and is currently vice-president of adult leagues in the Deux-Montagnes Softball Association (DMSA). He is running in the district of Olympia, where Councillor Denis Joanette is not seeking re-election. Councillor Martin Bigras (du Coteau district) is also stepping aside.
New to politics
“I’ve been living here for 38 of my 40 years,” Whitton said during a recent press briefing held at Café Lola on Chemin Oka to announce his candidacy. “I’ve been involved in the community virtually all my life. I learned that through my parents and through my late father who passed away in 1996, who was also extremely active in the community.
“I was quite honoured and quite surprised initially when I was asked by Marc to run in this campaign.” Despite his longstanding community activism, Whitton acknowledged, “I am new to the political process, though certainly in my younger years I was involved at the high school level.
An anglophone candidate
“I’m very happy to be on Team Lauzon for this campaign. I’m very honoured that Denis is here to support me. Denis is putting his full support behind me and for Olympia district. I’m doing this to help the people. What this will do is bring me to a higher level of involvement in the community.”
Whitton is the first English-speaking resident to seek municipal office in Town of Two Mountains since before the last election. Since 2005, the council has been made up entirely of francophones, and no anglophone candidates ran in the last election.
Few anglos at council
Additionally, for most of the past four years and until relatively recently, few anglophones were actually attending (or at least making their presence known) at monthly town council meetings. Asked whether having Whitton on his team was a conscious effort to increase anglophone representation, Lauzon replied,
“It’s not the main thing, of course. The main thing for us first is Tom’s involvement in the community. He’s very willing to help people. It is part of his nature. The fact that he is an anglophone is okay, but he’s perfectly bilingual.”
As for Joanette, who is stepping aside after a single term on council, he said he remains loyal to Lauzon, because of the mayor’s “vision” of how a municipality should be run and because of Lauzon’s integrity. “We had a nice four years together,” said Joanette. “I think we did one hell of a good job, a responsible job for the city’s finances. I really thank you, Marc, for having me on your team.”
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