Lorraine Bergstrand

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lorraine Bergstrand was the inaugural mayor of Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada. Ms. Bergstrand helped Haldimand County make the transition from county to single-tier municipality. During the late 1990s, she lobbied strongly to get a 400 series highway to connect to or come close to Haldimand County. Ms. Bergstrand is also running as a Liberal candidate for Haldimand-Norfolk in the 2007 Ontario general election against Toby Barrett, Steve Elgersma, and Jan Watson.

[edit] Background

Lorraine was married to Randy Bergstrand in 1974, and they have lived together in the town of Dunnville, Ontario since 1977. She entered politics in 1989 as a councillor for Dunnville.

Prior to being elected as the mayor of Haldimand County, Ms. Bergstrand served as the mayor of Dunnville. She has also served in various other political positions, including regional councillor for Haldimand-Norfolk region. She has also held a number of positions in the private sector.

[edit] 2000-2003 Term in office

As the first mayor of the newly created municipality, she was influential in organizing the administration of the amalgamated region and developing positive relations with the provincial government^{[citation needed]}.

She was instrumental in bringing more Long Term Care beds to Haldimand County while at the same time taking the burden for those beds from the property tax base^{[citation needed]}. Haldimand County is now the recipient of three new Long Term care facilities while the property tax burden for those beds was drastically reduced^{[citation needed]}.

Ms. Bergstrand with the unanimous support of her council also passed a progressive but unpopular anti-smoking by law^{[citation needed]}. A similar province-wide anti-smoking law was later passed by Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and made effective on June 1, 2006 at 12:01 AM.

Ms. Bergstrand was defeated by Marie Trainer in the 2003 Haldimand County mayoral election and the 2006 Haldimand County mayoral election .