Gignac turns back three challengers
Garnering half the ballots cast in Ward 6, Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac held on to her council seat on Monday, beating out three challengers. Gignac, 68, first elected to council in then-Ward 5 in 2003 when former councillor Eddie Francis ran for mayor, was re-elected with 3,709 votes, well ahead of closest challenger Jeff Denomme (2,862 votes) by a margin of 50 per cent to 36 per cent. Terry Yaldo had 12 per cent of the vote while Josh Jacquot had one per cent.
Gignac served from 1988-2000 as a trustee and chairwoman of the Windsor Roman Catholic Separate School Board and its successor, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board.
Earlier this year, Gignac put all of her dedicated ward spending money — $100,000 — toward the Miracle Park baseball diamond for the physically challenged on the site of the old Riverside Arena. A fiscal conservative, Gignac is one of six councillors who was seen to vote in lockstep with the wishes of Mayor Drew Dilkens. Gignac ran unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in WindsorTecumseh in the 2015 federal election.
In November 2017, Gignac made the motion calling for an investigation by the integrity commissioner after expressing concern about fellow councillor Rino Bortolin, who referred erroneously to a rape in an alley. She said she contacted the chief of police, who told her no such incident had occurred. While Bortolin apologized for his choice of words, integrity commissioner Bruce Elman said the ensuing debate by councillors showed there was concern his words would be taken as fact by the public. Gignac wasn’t available for comment at press time.