We share a bridge. Let's share a table.

Hawkesbury is halfway between Montreal and Ottawa, at the one road bridge over the river between them. About an hour and a quarter to downtown Montreal, and about the same to downtown Ottawa. Across the water is Quebec: Grenville, Grenville-sur-la-Rouge, Lachute, and their county government, the MRC d'Argenteuil. On land we have one neighbour: Champlain Township wraps around us on the west, the south and the east, with L'Orignal and Vankleek Hill inside it. East Hawkesbury Township starts about a kilometre past our eastern line, with Champlain land in between. Above all of it sits the United Counties of Prescott and Russell, the bigger local government this town belongs to, run from L'Orignal.

Seven municipalities are dispatched from our fire hall

GrenvilleGrenville-sur-la-Rouge MRC d'ArgenteuilLachute

Ottawaabout 1 h 15 Ottawa River the one bridge Montrealabout 1 h 15

Champlain

Hawkesbury our fire hall

East Hawkesbury

Russell Casselman The Nation Alfred and Plantagenet

United Counties of Prescott and RussellThe Counties pay it back to the dollar

What we already do together

Start with the Counties, because a lot of what people call the Town is not the Town. The ambulance is theirs: the province handed land ambulance to the United Counties of Prescott and Russell on 1 January 2001. Social housing is theirs, including the waiting list for units where the rent follows your income. Planning is split: they approve new lots and subdivisions, the Town handles zoning and permits. They run the county roads. In July 2026 they put $468,000 into the $1.8-million storm sewer job on Main Street. The mayor of Hawkesbury sits at that table with one seat of eight. That seat is the most valuable thing in this article.

It runs the other way too. Our fire department runs the regional dispatch centre for seven municipalities across the two counties: Hawkesbury, Champlain, East Hawkesbury, Alfred and Plantagenet, The Nation, Russell and Casselman. The 2026 budget carries that centre at $1,191,200 of expense and $1,191,200 of revenue, up from $640,602 the year before, a rise of 85.95%, and the Counties reimburse the operating cost. The jump pays for more dispatchers and the move to the new 9-1-1 system in early 2026. Both councils voted it through in the fall of 2025. A small town runs a service for the whole region and gets paid for it.

Hawkesbury and the Village of Grenville have an automatic aid and mutual aid agreement for fire calls, meaning each side's trucks answer the other's calls, approved by by-law on 25 April 2022, as reported by The Review. The fire chief called it an optimization of resources. On 8 May 2023 the Town renewed its mutual aid agreement with Brownsburg-Chatham, Quebec, replacing one signed in 1995.

The police detachment here serves five municipalities, and its board has ten seats, five of them one per municipality. The library card is free to people in Hawkesbury and in East Hawkesbury Township, and Champlain residents pay a small yearly fee that gets reimbursed.

A friendship pact signed on 30 August 2012 links the MRC d'Argenteuil, the MRC de Papineau and the United Counties of Prescott and Russell on tourism, culture, heritage and the Ottawa River. They were still at it on 29 August 2024, at the Grenville canal, and the work is real: the Cycl-O-Route cycling route and cleanups on the river. Across the water, Parks Canada's Carillon lock counts 27,915 visits a year.

Hawkesbury and Champlain signed a first agreement in December 2025 about land and about water and sewer service, and the final agreement was not signed as of 10 August 2026. That file has its own page on this site.

The Hawkesbury plant, on the Ottawa River, supplies this town and three separate systems owned by Champlain Township, each on its own pipeline: Vankleek Hill, L'Orignal and the Laurentian Park. That arrangement has run for years, and it is the plainest answer to anybody who says the neighbours have no reason to work with us. Sewer is separate: Champlain runs its own.

In 2021 the Counties closed their tourism office and shut down their economic development department, and when the new regional tourism body offered to write a plan, the county's top manager said they were not really interested in taking it on. Then on 24 September 2025 the Counties and the Prescott and Russell Development Corporation launched Destination Prescott and Russell, with $200,000 from the federal agency FedDev Ontario. The Counties call it an eighteen-month pilot partnership. That door was open as of 4 September 2026. Eighteen months from 24 September 2025 runs out in March 2027, about four months into the new council's term.

Add it up and more is signed than most of us know. Almost all of it sits at the Counties, or in fire and police. Almost none of it is about jobs, events or investment at the Town's own level.

The gaps

Everything in this section is what the public record showed on 4 September 2026. First, the Quebec side. Ask what else this Town signs across the bridge and the public record answers: two fire agreements. Meanwhile, on their side, the MRC d'Argenteuil's 2025 draft strategic vision puts our name on a list. « Argenteuil fait face à une concurrence en matière de développement économique avec ses zones limitrophes (Hawkesbury, Mirabel, Saint-Sauveur et Saint-Jérôme). » In plain English: Argenteuil says it competes for economic development with the areas on its edges, and Hawkesbury is named first. I do not hold that against them. On our side, nothing on the public record answers it.

Second, next door. Beyond the land file and the library card, nothing on the public record shows a joint event, purchase or grant application with Champlain or East Hawkesbury. Three municipalities that share a dispatch centre, a police board and the same stretch of highway have no standing meeting about work, customers or money.

Third, the two cities. There is no club for a town our size to join, as far as the public record shows. Ottawa Tourism says accommodation providers outside the City of Ottawa boundaries are not eligible for membership, and it has no regional category. Our tourism region is now run from Kingston. On the Quebec side, no MRC d'Argenteuil municipality belongs to the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, the body that plans for the Montreal region. Big cities do not sign agreements with small towns. They deal with people who bring them something.

Fourth, our own buildings. A drop-in swim at the sports complex pool costs $4.00 if you live here and $7.00 if you do not. Since 4 August 2026, a non-resident also pays a fee to walk the indoor track. Those rates are fair: our taxpayers built that place and they carry it. But nothing on the public record shows a council next door ever buying a share for its own people. So a family from up the road pays the visitor price, their council pays nothing, and we collect a fee instead of a partner.

What I will do

1. My pen The neighbours' table. The Town level is missing. So: a standing meeting of the mayors of Hawkesbury, Champlain, East Hawkesbury, Grenville and Grenville-sur-la-Rouge, and the prefect of the MRC d'Argenteuil. Three of those six chairs are decided on 26 October, mine included, so the invitation goes to the office and not to a person. The Quebec side is not in an election. Quebec votes for its municipalities on the first Sunday in November every four years. It voted on 2 November 2025 and it votes again on 4 November 2029, so the people across the bridge are in their chairs for three more years. Our own new council takes office on 15 November 2026, which is what the first hundred days are counted from: they run out at the end of February 2027. The first meeting inside those hundred days, then twice a year, in public, minutes published in both languages. Ontario's Municipal Act gives the head of council the job of representing the municipality at official functions, so no vote is needed to send an invitation. Done looks like: minutes of the first meeting posted on the Town's website inside the first hundred days.
2. Council voteApplication Write the Town's economic development plan with the neighbours in the room. The 2026 capital budget carries a new line called Economic Development Strategic Plan at $100,000: $50,000 from grants and $50,000 from reserves. It gets written once. It should not be written alone. The Counties' own economic development strategy says it plainly: coordinate across the region and you can go after major projects and program money. And the province pays for partnership in points: Ontario's Rural Ontario Development program scores partnership, meaning another community or organization putting money or work into the project, and it says plainly that a letter of support does not count. So every application goes in with a partner wherever partnership is scored. Done looks like: the plan adopted with a partner section, and a joint application offered in writing to a named neighbour, inside the first year.
3. My penApplication The Quebec corridor, asked for in writing. On 11 June 2025, Quebec's Minister for the Economy, Christopher Skeete, told The Review that the Grenville to Hawkesbury corridor is a candidate for pilot trade reforms, including a pilot project to extend business hours. His words: "We need to get together, have a conversation about harmonizing where we can." No date and no next step were given. In my first month I will ask in writing for this Town's seat at that pilot, addressed to whoever holds the economy file in Quebec when I take office, and publish the letter and the answer. The first joint project I want is a shared calendar of events across the bridge with Grenville, built with Destination Prescott and Russell. Done looks like: the letter and the reply published inside the first hundred days, and a written proposal for a shared events calendar on Grenville's council table before the end of the first year.
4. My penCouncil vote A written offer on the arena and the pool. I will put a written offer in front of Champlain, East Hawkesbury and Grenville: your council buys a share of what the building costs to run, and your residents pay our resident rate at the door. Neighbours here already sign service deals. The Nation's own fire service is run through Clarence-Rockland's department, under an automatic aid agreement and a 2023 by-law. Done looks like: a written offer sent to each of the three, and published, inside six months.
5. My pen Ottawa and Montreal: the door is people. I have spent thirty years building businesses between Montreal and Ottawa, and I will put my own network of businessmen and organizations across Montreal and Ottawa to work on Hawkesbury's file. That means phone calls: employers who need space, builders who need land. Our hospital is a teaching site with academic ties to the University of Ottawa and to La Cité, the same thread the campus idea pulls on. Done looks like: a published list, inside one year, of the employers and builders from those two cities who came to look.

When I drop each one. The table: two rounds of invitations bring nobody. The economic development plan: council sends that money somewhere else. The corridor letter: six months pass with no answer. The arena and pool offer: nobody signs within a year, and the non-resident rates stand. Ottawa and Montreal: nobody comes. In each case I say so in public, in the same place I made the promise, and you can judge me on it.

The honest ledger: what a mayor can and cannot deliver here

My whole platform runs on the real powers of the office. Ontario's Municipal Act lets a municipality enter an agreement with other municipalities to jointly provide, for their joint benefit, anything they each already have the power to provide alone.

Every promise on this page comes from the left column.

What I cannot promise, and what I will try

I cannot promise you anything about the bridge. It is not a Town road and no mayor of Hawkesbury signs for it. What I will try for is a Hawkesbury voice at every table where it is discussed, on the record. I cannot promise a bus line. What I will try for is the answer: transport on the neighbours' table in my first hundred days, the study money applied for, and a yes or a no in public. A merger with Champlain, with East Hawkesbury or with anybody else is not mine to promise and not on this page. I cannot promise a number of jobs, because I would be making it up. And the industrial park is not a promise on this page: it has its own page on this site.

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