By Andrew Macdonald
While in opposition, Tory Tim Houston tried hard to get Antigonish town councillor Sean Cameron to run on his ticket. They had a lunch at Tim Hortons on Beech Hill Road on Nov. 16, 2020.
Cameron was Houston’s first pick to seek the Progressive Conservative nod in Antigonish, but in the end, Cameron opted out and instead recommended Michelle Thompson as the nominee. Of course, Thompson went on to defeat two-term Liberal MLA Randy Delorey and is now health minister.
Cameron, by the way, is an OAF, a term coined by affable undertaker and choir director James (Jimmy) MacPherson who told me it stands for ‘Old Antigonish Family’, descendants of those who founded Antigonish Town in 1889. Sadly, Jimmy died in 2018 at a young 68. Leo ‘Boots’ Chisholm’s son, Matthew, now an Alberta banker, described Jimmy as having “a voice of God”.
In my news scoop on Sean Cameron, he plans to run for mayor of Antigonish. He ran for the job in 2016 in a three-person race, losing by 21 votes to current mayor Laurie Boucher. The third contender, the late Irene MacLeod, split the Tory vote, and I reckon if she had not run, Cameron would have won.
Sean Cameron lost the Antigonish 2016 mayoralty vote by 21 ballots. He is now planning to run in the fall 2024 municipal elections for Antigonish Town Mayor.
Cameron was a staunch opponent of a merged town and county. He is the first declared candidate for Antigonish’s office of chief magistrate. His Worship Cameron has a ring to it.
I would not be surprised if town councillor Mary (nee Kennedy) Farrell makes a bid for mayor. She supported the merger and is a giant vote-getter. Mary was my grade 10 prom date and comes from a long line of stalwart Liberal partisans.
Current Mayor Boucher has indicated she will not reoffer for a third term in office. She was unopposed in the 2020 municipal votes.
Cameron says there are a lot of pressing issues facing Antigonishers, but he believes the merger after-taste will be an election issue, with candidates on both sides vying for town council seats, and with each group taking aim at both supporters and opponents of a merger.
I asked point blank if the 20-year town councillor will run for mayor.
Cameron’s reply: “At this point, I will probably say ‘yes’. I have been asked by numerous people. I think you need experienced leadership who can sit at the council table and take over the reins. And, I am willing to do that. I have the experience.”
Cameron welcomed the decision by Premier Tim Houston to nix the merger.
“The big thing here is that the people, they may have been led by the Let Antigonish Decide group, they had a voice and we were able to focus that energy,” says Cameron.
Premier Houston attended an opposition rally earlier this week in a former school in Heatherton, a meeting organized by Let Antigonish Decide, which called for a plebiscite on the controversial merger.
Houston went right into the lion’s den at the meeting of 500 people.
“Hats off to Tim Houston coming down and facing the music,” says Cameron. “The crowd (of 500 people in Heatherton) was polite, there was one or two outbursts, but they settled down. They were upset, but we wanted to hear him, and the crowd wanted a chance to voice their feelings.
“It’s a very emotional thing. You are removing people’s democratic right to have their voice heard,” referring to the fact the mayor and warden refused to call a plebiscite to decide the controversial merger.
“People were most upset about that,” Cameron tells The Macdonald Notebook.
“Let Antigonish Decide group was on record as not being pro or anti-consolidation….They just wanted people’s voices to be heard.”
He says the group commissioned national pollster Mainstreet Research for two polls that found 76 per cent opposed the merger and wanted a plebiscite. The last poll in February found a majority were ready to vote out the two Antigonish Tory MLAs.
“That is three-quarters of the population,” asking for a plebiscite.
I asked Cameron if the town council will now schedule a plebiscite in this coming fall vote, but he believes the merger idea is dead.
“I think this issue is put to bed. And, I think any future politicians who would want to go behind council and people’s backs will probably be dealt with the same fate. You can’t disrespect people by denying them their democratic rights.”
In 2020, neither of the two challengers in the municipal race broached the topic of an amalgamation.
“I think this election (this fall) could be very well decided on this issue (merger). There are a lot of issues to be concerned with in our town. We have many issues. But, I think people will be casting their votes based on this one issue.”
Cameron has already started to work on his mayoral platform.
“I have a plan in place, and I do not want to launch my campaign plans too early, but this can easily be resolved. Collaboration is the way to go. We have two different forms of government, with the town governed and a rural government. The provincial government has two different sets of rules. Through the Municipal Grants Act, the town gets access to more money because of infrastructure requirements for the town as compared to the county,” explains Cameron.
“We would have gone backwards if we dissolved the town and joined the county without the Municipal Grants Act and we would have received less money.”
Camero says the growth of residential housing is happening on the fringe areas in the county because the town is landlocked and there is no land to build massive housing stock.
He says the county is “piggybacking on the town’s water, sewer and infrastructure, so there has to be a capital investment by the county to continue that growth. The town’s job is not to provide housing, the town’s role is to provide the infrastructure necessary that housing can occur and that developers have access to that infrastructure to make things happen. That is the town’s role, we need to go back to our basic core values.”
Cameron wonders if pro-merger town councillors will run again. “I’ve heard some may not.”
Will ‘Let Antigonish Decide’ target pro-merger councillors?
“I do not think Let Antigonish Decide will purposely target people, no. Individual voters will make that determination based on the actions of the elected representatives now. Did they feel they were represented? Did they feel their emails and questions were answered? That will probably be more of a deciding factor when people go to the polls and select new candidates.”
Heatherton ‘Opened Tim Houston’s Eyes’
Cameron said Houston wanted to respect the majority wishes of the two councils, even though the vote was a narrow move towards a merger. But that changed after Houston spoke in front of 500 people in Heatherton mostly against a merger.
“But, I think after Heatherton, his eyes opened up to the number of disgruntled people, and maybe he was given the wrong information.”
Cameron blames Municipal Affairs department staffers for pushing amalgamation. “Municipal Affairs had their hands in this right from the get-go. Municipal Affairs had been talking behind the council’s back, but only talking to a few select people about this whole process.”
The town councillor says statements from the warden and mayor lead him to believe the merger agenda was driven by the Municipal Affairs department.
Cameron said Warden Owen McCarron, during the first pause in legislation last week, stated ‘We did everything asked of us’.
“It was not the council, I think he was referring to Municipal Affairs. And, even in his last statement jointly put out with the mayor when Houston killed the intended legislation, the warden said: ‘We followed all the procedures laid out for us’. Who laid out those procedures laid out for us? Again, who laid out those procedures? Again it was not (driven) by council. Municipal Affairs were implicit and by default, Municipal Affairs is a department of government, then it is government,” he explains.
“I am very happy Tim had a second thought and he and (Municipal Affairs Minister) John Lohr looked at this and gave the people what they were asking for.”
Antigonish Town Hall. (Antigonish).
