After heading the municipal council of Longueuil for eight years, Mayor Caroline St-Hilaire has announced she will not seek another term in this year’s municipal election.
And news of her departure has been greeted with regret from her counterpart in Montreal.
Mayor Denis Coderre said he always appreciated the politician’s fiery character, a trait he encountered regularly when the two sat on opposite sides of the House of Commons.
“We tangled often in the Commons because she was with the Bloc (Québécois while I) was a Liberal. But I always admired her integrity, her rigour. She’s a woman dedicated to her fellow citizens,” he said.
Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault also praised St-Hilaire, stressing her “excellent work.”
Speaking to an audience of businesspeople Wednesday, St-Hilaire said she wanted “to pass the torch because Longueuil is doing well.”
She said she was ending her term feeling she had done her duty, leaving behind a community that was more “human, efficient and accomplished.”
St-Hilaire said that during her tenure, her city was no longer snubbed by “higher levels of government.”
Afterwards, she posted a message online thanking her constituents for their trust. “I love my people,” she wrote. “I love Longueuil.”
The 47-year-old St-Hilaire, a native of Longueuil, sat in the Commons for more than a decade from 1997 to 2008 as Bloc Québécois MP.
In 2009 she decided to enter municipal politics, becoming the first female mayor of Longueuil.
