CORNWALL, Ontario – In the first Cornwall City Council meeting after Bernadette Clement resigned as Mayor, Canadian Senator Clement was invited back to say goodbye.
Clement was elected to Cornwall City Council for the first time in 2006 and served three terms as Councillor before being elected Mayor in 2018. On Tuesday, June 22, Clement as appointed to the Senate of Canada and as such had to resign her position as Mayor.
In her farewell address to Council Clement highlighted the work her colleagues had accomplished and thanked city administration for their support.
“Madame CAO I want to thank you and your team of expert administrators,” she said. “You are strategic professionals are you are all dedicated to your work for the City of Cornwall. When you walk out your door there is nowhere your eyes can land that hasn’t been touched by a city employee.”
“My relationship with each one of you has been a main focus for me over these last three years,” Clement said of her colleagues on Council.
Clement pledged to continue to work on behalf of the community of which she has been a part for 30 years.
“It is most heartening to me to have little girls tell me that they too would one day run for Mayor,” she said. “I will continue to work on your behalf and their behalf to serve this community which I love dearly.”
Her colleagues graciously thanked her for her years of service.
“Forever in my heart will you be madam Mayor,” said Councillor Carilyne Hébert.
Hébert highlighted Clement’s dedication to progressive values and the prosperity of the community.
“This community is almost more recognizable in the most wonderful way,” she said. “Thank you for changing so many lives, mine included.”
“We will put forward what you put forward and begun,” added Councillor Syd Gardiner.
“Keeping Council a cohesive unit, you were the best,” said Councillor Dean Hollingsworth.
“I can see little girls looking up to you and thinking ‘boy, if I could aspire to half of that, what a success I will be,'” concluded Acting Mayor Todd Bennett.
