Peggy Revell
During “Women’s History Month” this year, Fort Frances residents don’t have to look too far into the past to find women who fit this year’s theme of “Women in the lead.”
For almost two decades, Sharon Tibbs has served as a town councillor, and most recently as deputy mayor—one of few women who have become involved with municipal politics over they years.
“Women’s History Month,” first declared in 1992, is meant to highlight the accomplishments and contributions women have made to Canadian society. Tibbs currently is serving her fifth term on council since first being elected in 1991.
“I don’t know if passion is the word I’d use,” Tibbs conceded on why she became involved with municipal politics. “But I’ve always had a deep interest in my community.”
It’s an interest that came from being raised in a family that followed politics at all levels of government very closely, she noted. Her father would order papers from Parliament so he could read word for word what the politicians were up to.
“It probably rubbed off from that,” said Tibbs, adding she didn’t think it was any great surprise to her family when she herself became involved with politics.
“It wasn’t any great revelation, or any great thought that came over my head, or I didn’t have any agenda I was taking to the table,” she explained. “I just knew that I had the ability to do it, from other experiences that I had from being a leader.”
Although Tibbs lost the first time she ran for town council, feedback from the community encouraged her to run again.
“I wasn’t successful, but I know that from that experience, I had a lot of people in the next three years say to me: ‘You’re going to run again, aren’t you?’” she recalled.
So run again she did in 1991—and she won a seat as a councillor-at-large.
“There was quite a change in council the year that I came on,” Tibbs noted, reflecting on that first term. Besides herself, many of her fellow councillors at the time also were new and there was a bit of a learning curve, she admitted.
“It was kind of neat. I was lucky to come in with a council that had a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of learning to do,” she said.
After four-straight terms on council, even a failed bid for mayor in 2004 didn’t stop her from running once again in 2006, where she once again was elected to council and became deputy mayor.
There have been 34 councils in Fort Frances since 1903, and several women have served as councillors over the years, noted Tibbs.
“There’s been people before me, but certainly not what you see in politics now where women are taking major leadership roles. It’s quite changed,” she remarked.
With municipal politics being very hands-on, it’s the commitment of time that Tibbs sees as the reason why more women aren’t getting involved with politics at this level. It’s more than just two meetings every month, she warned.
“The preparation to go to that meeting, the research that you do, and the studying that you do and the meetings you go to to make sure that you have all the information to make your decisions, it takes a considerable amount of time,” she stressed.
For the upcoming Local Government Week, Tibbs tallied up the number of hours she spent on council.
“It varies, and it really and truly does,” she said, ranging from 25-35 hours a month.
“. . . and that doesn’t include council meetings or the divisions that you work on,” she added. “So it’s a tremendous commitment of time, and at various times of the day. . . . It could be 7:30 in the morning, it could be noon, it could be 4-6 [p.m.].
“It could be just a total variety, so you have to be extremely flexible and available.
“So when you’re a woman and you’re running a household, which most women do, and holding down a full-time job and raising a family, and all the other things that you’re committed to in your life, it’s time-consuming, it really and truly is,” she explained.
“It would be neat to go back and ask the women who came before me, ‘Why did you do it? Why did you want to make that commitment to?’”
Despite being a woman, Tibbs doesn’t see that as what defines her as a councillor.
“I think of myself as a councillor, not a woman councillor, I don’t like to be termed that way,” she stressed.
“I think that sometimes, we have a feeling that some genders have strengths that the other gender can’t learn, and I don’t believe that,” she continued. “I think that I can, with a little bit of confidence, talk about granular materials for underneath roads, if I really have to.
“But I don’t try to make it, ‘I’m the woman, and listen to me because I am a woman,’” Tibbs vowed. “It’s ‘I’m a councillor and I have knowledge, too, and I want to share it with you.’”
Over the years on council, Tibbs has established a list of things she considers to be her biggest accomplishments, which includes bringing in a paid fire department to town as well as the OPP.
Working with the community on projects, such as the second ice surface and the Townshend Theatre, also are highlights for here.
“Both these projects, they did it in about six weeks. It was amazing how fast they could raise the money,” she recalled.
And it’s something she’s seen once again with plans for the new library here. “The people in this community stepped forward as they always do,” she said.
All of these things go towards helping the community grow and providing a certain “lifestyle,” Tibbs said. And it’s something that ties into another goal she and other councillors have been working on: attracting more doctors to the area.
It ties in with the town’s commitment of funds in the form of an interest-free loan to help establish the municipally-run clinic that will take the burden off of doctors to buy into a practice.
And while admitting there are some difficulties and making decisions, Tibbs said she likes to remain positive.“ Personalities sometimes clash, but I think the best rule that I have is that you have to agree to disagree,” she reasoned.
“[Municipal politics] is not a game, it’s not about winning or losing,” she stressed. “It’s about coming up with the best solution you can with what you have to work with as far as resources, and if it’s good for the community.”
