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PORT HAWKESBURY – As she gears up for her latest electoral challenge in next month’s municipal elections, Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton is pleased with the recent influx of female candidates and hopeful that her recent leadership role in candidates’ training school will have a lasting impact on efforts to achieve gender balance in municipal politics.

Chisholm-Beaton is the co-chair of an organization called Government FOCUS (Female Objectives Cape Breton-U’namak’I-Strait). Comprised of sixteen officials from municipal councils and indigenous communities across Cape Breton, Government FOCUS hosted a two-day Leadership School for Women in mid-August, in the run-up to this week’s nomination deadline for municipal and school board elections.

Speaking to TELILE 24/7 host-producer Adam Cooke on August 25, Chisholm-Beaton confirmed that the Leadership School for Women attracted 75 participants to the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre, while another 50 participants took part online. She added that these participants came from all walks of life, including a mother and daughter from Port Hawkesbury who attended the conference together.

Chisholm-Beaton added that she was heartened to learn of the decision of two local women to throw their hats in the municipal-election ring in the days leading up to the Leadership School for Women. Port Hood-based musician and community organizer Lynn Chisholm will take on sitting Inverness County Warden Betty Ann MacQuarrie in the county’s District Five, which takes in the communities of Port Hood and Mabou. In the meantime, entrepreneur and former executive director of the Strait Area Chamber of Commerce, Amanda Mombourquette, will make her first municipal run in Richmond County’s District Four, comprised of the communities of River Bourgeois and St. Peter’s and currently held by 12-year council veteran Gilbert Boucher.

Noting that Richmond County’s municipal councilors refused to sponsor any participants for the Leadership School for Women and that the county’s five elected districts are all represented by men at this time, Chisholm-Beaton expressed hope that Mombourquette’s candidacy would spark other women to seek council seats and provide a fresh outlook for the municipality.

In the meantime, Chisholm-Beaton will have a male challenger as she seeks to hold on to the mayor’s post that she won by acclamation four years ago. She will face off against Archie MacLachlan, a first-time political candidate and the current president of Unifor Local 972, which incorporates the majority of the workforce at the Port Hawkesbury Paper mill in nearby Point Tupper.