In a video of a media scrum circulated on Social Media minutes after the judgment was rendered, Good said the eleventh-hour challenge, which she said was raised by Mayor Justin Towndale, was a “weaponization” of election rules.
Updated with a statement from Mayor Justin Towndale.
Sarah Good’s bid to become Cornwall’s next mayor will go ahead after the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled Friday that no default occurred in her 2022 campaign financial filing.
The City of Cornwall had asked the court to decide whether the filing complied with the Municipal Elections Act, 1996. In a release issued Friday, the City said that, as a result of the decision by Justice Bergeron, Good remains a certified candidate for mayor in the 2026 municipal election.
“The City sought direction from the Court so that the application of the Municipal Elections Act in these circumstances could be determined independently,” said Tim Mills, the City’s chief administrative officer. “The Court has now provided that direction, and the City will follow its decision and continue to administer the municipal election impartially and in accordance with the law.”
Mills also thanked the court “for making accommodations to hear this matter.”
Speaking to reporters outside the Cornwall courthouse moments after the ruling, Good said she was relieved.
“I’m excited. I’m pleased. I’m relieved. I’m really relieved,” Good said. “Now I can focus on doing the campaign work.”
Good learned only four days before the ruling that her candidacy was in question, and she represented herself in court.
“I feel like I just went to law school for the last four days or so,” she said.
It was stated publicly for the first time on Friday that the concern about Good’s filing had been raised by Mayor Justin Towndale. Towndale is seeking a second term and is one of Good’s rivals in the race. The two have served on council together for nearly four years.
Good said she had considered Towndale a friend.
“It’s definitely changed my view of the morals and ethics that he has,” she said. “I have very much wanted to make this a clean race. I’m not in it to bash anyone. But I think he’s made it very clear the level of respect, or the lack of respect, that he has for me as a person and as a candidate.”
Good said she followed procedure on all of her paperwork, that no default was ever raised at the time, and that the proper process for dealing with such issues was not followed. She called the timing of the challenge “really, really troubling.”
“I feel it was a weaponization of the Act in an attempt to disqualify a candidate who has a very good shot, I think, of becoming Cornwall’s next mayor,” she said.
Towndale responds
In a written statement emailed to The Seeker Friday evening, Towndale confirmed he was the person who informed the city clerk about the filing in August. He said he owed “the public, and Ms. Good an explanation.”
Towndale said that in mid- to late August, several people in the community told him Good was missing an audit from her 2022 campaign. He said he read the Municipal Elections Act, which appeared to require such complaints to go through the Compliance Audit Committee within a set timeframe, and left it there.
He said that when Good filed her nomination, some of the same people followed up with him. He asked the clerk about it the next day, saying he did not want the issue to carry past Nomination Day on Aug. 24. He said he could have had someone else ask in order to keep his name out of it, “but ultimately, I knew I had to take responsibility as Mayor, and ask myself.”
According to Towndale, the clerk reached the same conclusion he had, and he let the matter drop. “To me, the door was closed and I had a clear answer,” he wrote. He said he had not spoken about it or used it in his campaign.
Towndale said he did not learn the City had taken the matter further until Sept. 29. That was when the City’s legal counsel told him the City had consulted outside lawyers and applied to the Superior Court, with a hearing already set for Oct. 2.
“This was a shock to me,” he wrote. “I did not know or expect that the City would pursue this to the Superior Court.”
He stressed that he never made a formal complaint. “To be clear, I did not file a complaint. There is no formal complaint. I never put anything in writing or submitted anything to that effect.”
Towndale rejected the suggestion that he acted out of malice. “It’s also easy to look at my actions and think that they were malicious. They were not,” he wrote. “I like Ms. Good as a person and I like her as a Councilor. I have nothing bad to say about her. Believe it or not, I agree with the dismissal.”
“I wish Ms. Good all the best in the campaign,” he wrote.
Back on the campaign trail
Good said she was “very hopeful” the matter is over.
Good plans to celebrate Friday evening at the Children’s Treatment Centre Thanksgiving dinner and dance with her husband. She said her campaign would be back out door-knocking in the North End on Saturday.
“There’s no real room at this time in the campaign to slow down,” she said.
She also saw a possible upside to the attention the case has drawn. “Maybe this is going to put Cornwall on the map,” she said. “Come visit Cornwall.”
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