Marie Trainer, sitting Ward 4 councilor and former mayor of Haldimand County, has died.
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In a social media post, Trainer’s son, Steven, said his mother died on Thursday, nearly two months after being involved in a serious collision.
“At 7:30 this morning our beloved mother passed away from complications due to her September 7th car accident,” Steven Trainer wrote on Oct. 31.
Trainer’s 40-year political career began when she was elected as a Hagersville ward councilor in 1985.
She was mayor of the town of Haldimand from 1991 to 1993 and led the amalgamated Haldimand County as mayor from 2003 to 2010.
The self-styled “People’s Mayor” won two countywide mayoral elections before losing in 2010 to Ken Hewitt.
Trainer made national headlines thanks to controversial comments during a 2006 standoff at the former Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia, a planned subdivision taken over by Indigenous land defenders from nearby Six Nations.
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She unsuccessfully ran for a ward council seat in 2014, finishing third, with her son John on the mayoral ballot and son Steven up for council in a different ward.
Trainer returned to office in June 2023 in a Ward 4 byelection, edging out former Ward 4 councilor Tony Dalimonte by 34 votes.
The seat was open because the former councillor, Natalie Stam, resigned in March 2023 — less than five months after the election — due to poor health.
At the time, Trainer told the Sachem she had been a booster of Stam’s and wanted “to finish Natalie’s term.”
Trainer was an outspoken critic of a proposal from developers to build 15,000 homes near the Stelco steelworks in Nanticoke.
In a statement issued Thursday, Haldimand County said residents are “deeply saddened” by Trainer’s death.
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Flags at the county administration building in Cayuga are flying at half-mast “to honor Councilor Trainer and her decades of service to the community,” the statement read.
Trainer came from a farming background and had “deep roots in the community” of Hagersville, the county said, praising her advocacy for “sustainable land use and preserving the community’s traditional rural values.”
Haldimand’s chief administrative officer, Cathy Case, credited Trainer’s determination to the end, noting she took part in council meetings from her hospital bed.
“Marie will be remembered as a kind, dedicated civilian servant with unwavering determination,” Case said.
“She confronted challenges head on and never backed down from being involved and advocating for the community.”
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Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley said Trainer would be much missed and long remembered “for her dedication to public service and determination to make the community she knew and loved the best it could be.”
Trainer, a great-grandmother, was in her late 70s.
Her death means Ward 4 residents will soon have a third representative within the same term of council.
A Haldimand County spokesperson did not respond to questions about how Trainer’s now-vacant seat will be filled with just under two years left in the current term of council.
After Stam’s resignation, councilors debated appointing a replacement before deciding to hold a byelection.
JP Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
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