Remembering Guy Desjardins – Your Messages / Posts Honoring Clarence-Rockland’s Mayor

The City of Clarence-Rockland, employees, members of council, area service clubs, residents, business owners lost one of the greatest mayors over the weekend, Guy Desjardins.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Guy’s family. We want to thank those that sent us messages, from video, to audio, e-mails, and social media posts remembering Mr. Desjardins.

Hello,

Thank you for providing time on your show to commemorate the passing of our Mayor, Mr. Guy Desjardins. It’s a bit of struggle in finding the right words to express the sorrow I feel at the moment but here goes.

Guy was a larger than life, community oriented people person, a humorous but yet a no nonsense French Canadian farmer, seasoned politician, devoted family man and a beloved husband and father.

Although Guy’s political career started off as a Councillor for Ward 6 (St-Pascal), his rise to the Mayor’s seat in 2014, and the County Warden’s seat in 2016, is what really put him in the spotlight and where we learned how truly he cared about the residents, the city and its employees. Guy came in as Mayor at a critical time for Clarence-Rockland. Confidence in Council was at a long time low and the city was the laughing stalk of the country. We were making the news for all the wrong reasons and someone like Guy was needed to steer the boat back on course. To top it all off, Guy inherited a brand new, and very much green Council at the time where 5 of the incoming Councillors were new to politics so Guy’s patience and political savyness was front and center….and it showed as the city slowly came back from the dark days of the previous administration to one of the best cities to live in anywhere today.

Guy and myself didn’t always see eye to eye in the beginning. Like so many new politicians, I was a young curious, sometimes overzealous and eager Councillor wanting to change the world quickly and had no problem in voicing my opinions when they differed from Guy’s. We clashed sometimes, but never in public because we respected each other to take our disagreements outside of Council….especially one year when I voted against the city budget, something that rarely happens apparently lol.

Through the years we discussed city subjects, County subjects, provincial and federal matters while attending conferences and meeting Ministers and he understood that we don’t necessarily need to see eye to eye on everything to vote on an issue.

Sometimes his stance changed, but not often lol. Sometimes mine changed, or we just decided to agree to disagree and move on. I will remember fondly our provincial conferences as I served as Guy’s wife Aline’s “bodyguard” or caretaker lol. That’s what Aline would call me. Guy’s nights would end later then what Aline was prepared to endure so I was always tasked with ensuring she made it safely back to the hotel every night after supper or events. Aline and myself had the chance to discuss a lot of things during those sometimes long cold January nights in Toronto but one thing was very clear to me, she loved her “Ti-Guy”.

It’s no secret that Guy was the cook of the family. He loved it but he also liked to tease Aline and referred to her sometimes as his dishwasher, the first thing he would save from a home fire…..Guy could get away with these types of jokes all the time with a laughter and his infectious smile while the rest of us just bowed our heads or looked upwards thinking “oh boy this will make the papers tomorrow”. That was Guy though, never malicious, just the joker to lighten the moment or to make someone feel at ease in a tough situation.

Merci Guy pour ta contribution à la vie publique pour notre cité et notre région. Je suis certain que tu veilleras sur nous d’en haut et qu’on va continuer de sentir ta grosse main en arrière de nous pour nous guider dans nos décisions pour le bien de nos résidents.

Merci Guy, et repose en paix.

Andre