Continuity in Sainte-sabine
Sainte-sabine mayor Laurent Phoenix first took office in 1987. Since then, he has repeatedly been acclaimed mayor of the small agricultural community between Farnham and Bedford. He has faced election just once, in 2013.
“I want to keep working for the improvement of our roads and streams and water quality, keep working for everybody and continue what I’m doing,” says Phoenix, a retired heavy equipment operator. Public service seems to run in Phoenix’s family; his father was mayor of Sainte-sabine from 1963-73 and his grandfather served as the town secretary for two decades in the first half of the twentieth century.
He says his proudest achievements include bringing a library to the village, having all the former dirt roads paved and overseeing the recent replacement of eight bridges. “Also, the village has grown; there are more places where people can build,” he adds. “There are a lot of people coming from the city to live out here; we have large properties and people come out here because they like to have a lot of space.”
Residents rely on wells, but Phoenix says the water table in the village is relatively high, and residents of newer properties, which have artesian wells, have been spared the worst impacts of the regional water shortage. “We’re lucky, because here, we only have to drill a couple of feet [to hit groundwater],” he says. “The older houses with surface wells have had some problems.”
Although Sainte-sabine is not directly involved in the Bedford pole initiative, it shares some municipal services with Farnham and the nearby canton of Bedford. “We don’t have a fire station, but we work with the Farnham fire station; we also co-ordinate recreational services with Farnham,” says Phoenix. “About a year ago, we made an agreement with the canton of Bedford [to share] a garbage truck. That saves us a lot of work; we need to share.”
The mayor’s current top priority is re-paving a major street, Rue Martin. “That’s the main thing for next year, but we have to try to get subsidies [from the provincial government],” he explains. “Sometimes that’s a long process.”
As Phoenix begins his 34th year in office, he doesn’t see many clouds on the horizon. “We have 55 square kilometres and about 1,200 people and we like it that way,” he says. “Things are going well; I’m just trying to do my best and take projects as they come.”
Sainte-sabine by the numbers: Population: 1,085 (2016) Anglophones as a percentage of population: 4.6 per cent
Bilingual status: No
Land area: 55.34 km3