The Town of LaSalle has made available its post-event report on last year’s byelection to fill the council seat left vacant after the passing of councillor Sue Desjarlais in April 2025.
Council chose to fill the vacant seat through a byelection, which was held on Oct. 20, 2025, and resulted in Mike Seguin being elected.
A major Canada Post strike hit right before voter information letters were supposed to be mailed.
Mayor Crystal Meloche said while the byelection cost $93,000, the strike meant some savings for the town.
"Originally we were anticipating it be over [$100,000], so it did come in a little bit less which is good, and that was saved dollars from postage, right, not mailing out those voter letters," she said.
"Our timing was really good. We were just preparing to put those out and the strike happened and we were able to keep those letters tight so we didn't have to worry about reprinting and that would have cost us more money."
The postal strike caused staff to pivot and set up an extended-hours pickup centre, where more than four thousand letters were handed out.
Meloche commended town staff for their work.
"It was a great process, really smooth, and it showed people we were able to react to something really quickly," she said.
"We made sure there was lots of opportunity. We extended town hall hours, we had staff working all hours to make sure that people could come in before work, after work, you name it to ensure that people had that chance to vote."
In total, 3,402 ballots were cast, a 12.5 per cent turnout, well below the 30 per cent seen in 2022.
Meloche said the results were in line with expectations.
"I think the results are kind of what we expected as well knowing byelections are tough thing to get enough people to come out and vote, but, at the end of the day I think it's the right process, giving people that opportunity to have their say and that's what we did, and now we move onto the regular election," she said.
The next municipal election will be held Monday Oct. 26, 2026.
The town made the byelection report available online for review here.