Ex-NDP MP will be Hudson director general
Philip Toone is Hudson’s new director general. The former NDP MP for Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine begins the job in December. Toone’s predecessor in Hudson, Jean-Pierre Roy, resigned in September after three years at the helm. Hudson Treasurer Claudia Ouellette acted as interim DG until the selection committee came to a decision. The selection committee, which included the town council and Mayor Jamie Nicholls, agreed to hire the Morgan Philips Group after District 5 Councillor Jim Duff requested that an independent recruitment firm be hired to do the search. Nicholls said Morgan Philips flagged 20 potential candidates. Eight candidates were interviewed after which the short list was whittled by half. The final decision was not unanimous. Duff and District 3 Councillor Chloe Hutchison disagreed with the choice. “I’m convinced (Toone) is the best candidate, politically,” Hutchison said. “But I’m not sure he is the best candidate for the longterm. It’s not just about smoothing things over, we need to go back to the beginning and restructure the way the town (departments) function. We need someone with strong administrative and management skills.” Nicholls said Toone is a very good fit because he spent four years as a parliamentarian, is an attorney and notary and served as director general in Ormstown in the Chateauguay Valley. Nicholls knows Toone because they served as NDP MPs during the same mandate. (Nicholls was the MP for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.) “(Toone’s) integrity and his ability to work across party lines was exemplary,” Nicholls said. And Toone is fluently bilingual — his mother is a francophone and his father an anglophone. “That is very important,” Nicholls said. “Members of the English-speaking community are underserved in public service in this province and this is primarily an English-speaking community.” Hutchison said she is unhappy with the way the selection was made. She said the criteria to find a suitable candidate was altered late in the game and not sufficiently debated in caucus. She said her preferred candidate on the short list is a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA) with nine years of organizational administrative experience, although the candidate in question had not served as a director general. Nicholls is hoping Toone’s arrival will help stabilize Hudson which has experienced a fair share of turbulence since a former director general was arrested in 2014 and later jailed for defrauding the town of more than $1 million.