As Marie-Élaine Pitre prepares to take office, outgoing mayor Éric Westram reflects on eight years of leadership
By Matthew Daldalian
As Rosemère’s newly elected mayor Marie-Élaine Pitre prepares to be sworn in with her six-member Vision Rosemère team on Monday, Nov. 10, the town is closing a political era, and beginning another.
Pitre’s win on Nov. 2 capped a decisive election that ended Éric Westram’s eight-year run as mayor.
The new mayor represents a generational handover in a community where, as she put it, “people are quite older.”
Marie-Élaine Pitre, Rosemère’s newly elected mayor, will be sworn in with her Vision Rosemère team on November 10 (Courtesy City of Rosemère)
“I feel that it’s a collective expression of trust,” Pitre said. “People have put their trust in us, and this is awesome.”
She believed her team’s positive and issue-driven campaign stood out amid the regular noise of local politics.
“People showed that they want human politics,” Pitre said. “We worked really hard to make sure that we were doing it, showing our ideas.”
Within days of taking office, Pitre said her administration will dive straight into the 2026 budget process while setting priorities around redevelopment, climate resilience and citizen services.
“We have Place Rosemère, it’s a big issue that we want to work on,” she said. “We also have to take care of our citizens and protect them against climate change.”
Her first months will test how quickly Vision Rosemère, which won all six council seats, can translate its unity into action.
Pitre claimed internal respect will guide council debates even without opposition members. “We don’t have the same ideas on everything all the time,” she said. “But we are able to debate in a respectful way and always in the interest of everyone.”
For Éric Westram, who led the town through two mandates beginning in 2017, the handover brings both introspection and relief. In an interview after his defeat, he said the result reflected a “wave of change” that extended beyond Rosemère.
“People up to a certain point think that a change is a necessity,” he said. “Maybe without even thinking it all the way through.”
The outgoing mayor, who spent 20 years in elected office and 45 years as a resident, said his campaign was straightforward and focused on experience and fiscal discipline.
“It was very simple, but it was straight to the point,” Westram said. “We wrote and said exactly what we wanted to do.”
Westram attributed part of his loss to frustration with long-running local disputes. Most notably over the former golf-course property. He said the debate overshadowed other priorities and invited what he referred to as “propaganda” and “false information” online.
“It has become the focus point of the election, unfortunately,” he said. “There’s way more other things to look at and to decide than this situation on the golf course.”
Westram said he plans to step back from political life but remain active in the community he helped lead for nearly a decade.
Outgoing Mayor Éric Westram said he plans to step back from political life (Courtesy city of Rosemère)
The outgoing mayor spoke with emotion about saying goodbye to municipal staff and residents. “I have a lot of respect for the people that work for the city of Rosemère,” Westram said. “If you didn’t have those employees… the city is more than just removing snow and collecting garbage.”
As for what comes next, Westr bn7am said he’ll take it “one day at a time,” potentially dividing his days between coaching soccer, tending his garden and, for the first time in years, watching council meetings as a citizen.
“Life is life,” he said. “One day you’re a hero, next day you’re pushed aside, and I have to respect that choice.”
With her swearing-in set for Nov. 10, Pitre now inherits both the expectations and unfinished files of her predecessor.
Between the promise of renewal and the weight of continuity, Rosemère’s next chapter begins — with one mayor moving on, and another just beginning.
