Pledging loyalty to King Charles III and promising to not to conduct himself in a biased, corrupt or otherwise improper manner, Matthew Shoemaker was sworn in tonight as Sault Ste. Marie's new mayor.
Three former mayors – Debbie Amaroso, Steve Butland and Christian Provenzano – watched as the new mayor was led into the council chambers by a member of the Healing Lodge Singers.
The national anthem was performed by the Algoma Festival Choir.
In his inaugural address, the new mayor quoted Sir William Howard Hearst, a Saultite who served as seventh premier of Ontario from 1914 to 1919:
We are living in our greatest day. But we feel there is a still more glorious future.
Let you and me do our part and bear our burden, whether it may be willingly and with a stout heart and achieve that more glorrious future.
"Council, staff and residents, the city we love and call home, is at the edge of history once more," Mayor Shoemaker said.
"Now, it's up to us to get to work on that more glorious future."
See the mayor's open letter to city residents here.