Règlement 2-2026, in force since April 17, 2026, rewrites the internal rulebook for council meetings — two public question periods, a hard cap on meeting length, and a mayor's veto council can overturn. One line in the bylaw's own published text briefly suggested meetings were moving to Wednesdays. They aren't, and we checked.
Règlement 2-2026 — formally the Règlement sur la régie interne et la procédure d'assemblée du conseil municipal — replaces and repeals Ormstown's previous internal-procedure rules. It's adopted under article 491 of the Code municipal du Québec, which lets a municipal council set its own rules for running meetings and keeping order.
Councillor Jane Fairhurst gave notice of motion on January 19, 2026; the draft bylaw was tabled at the February 2 meeting; it was formally adopted and came into force on April 17, 2026 — four days after the Observer's first Council Watch recap, which reported on it in summary while it was still moving through council.
Article 3 of the new bylaw, which sets the schedule for ordinary meetings, contains a drafting oddity: the clause names both "the first Monday" and "Wednesday" of the month in the same sentence, as if a word was meant to be swapped out and never was. Read in isolation, it could suggest meetings were shifting to Wednesdays.
They aren't. The same article gives council the separate authority to fix the year's meeting calendar by resolution — and council already exercised that authority. The official 2026 meeting calendar, adopted December 1, 2025 and published two weeks before Règlement 2-2026 even had its notice of motion, sets all twelve ordinary sessions for 2026 — and every one of them, from January 19 through December 7, falls on a Monday. We checked each date against the calendar.
In short: a wording slip in the bylaw's text doesn't override the calendar council actually adopted. Meetings continue on Mondays at 6:30 p.m. at the Hôtel de Ville, 5 rue Gale.
The most concrete change for residents is structural. Every ordinary meeting now includes two distinct public question periods, each capped at 30 minutes:
Anyone speaking gets up to 5 minutes per question, and may ask a new question once everyone else who wants to speak has had a turn. Can't make it in person? Written questions are accepted by email at greffe@ormstown.ca, by mail, or dropped off at the town hall reception — but the deadline is noon the Friday before the meeting, not the day of. (For extraordinary, single-issue meetings, there's only one question period, restricted to the agenda, with written questions due by noon that same day.)
All ordinary meetings are livestreamed and archived on the municipality's YouTube channel for a minimum of five years, so answers given live remain checkable after the fact.
Meetings now have a hard stop: 3 hours from the opening of the session. If business is unfinished at that point, the meeting resumes at 6:30 p.m. the next business day — picking up exactly where it left off — unless two-thirds of the members present vote to adjourn or suspend on different terms. Council can also vote, by the same two-thirds threshold, to extend a meeting up to twice in one night, by 30 minutes each time.
One of the bylaw's more consequential provisions: the mayor can refuse to approve a decision council has just adopted. To use it, the mayor must notify the municipal clerk in writing within 48 hours of the resolution passing. That triggers a suspensive veto — the decision is paused, not killed.
Council can override it. Re-adopting the same resolution by an absolute majority of all council members (not just those present) lifts the veto and the decision stands. This is a real check on the mayor's office, but it does mean a single resolution can require two votes to take effect if the mayor objects.
The bylaw gives the chair — normally the mayor — broad authority to maintain order and decorum, including the power to expel anyone disrupting a meeting: shouting, using abusive language, interrupting a speaker, debating with the public, or simply refusing to stay on topic are all listed grounds. That authority isn't limited to members of the public — a council member who fails to behave can be expelled too, under article 159 of the Code municipal.
Separately, council members are required to vote on every motion unless they're legally exempt due to a conflict of interest; failing to vote without a valid exemption carries a $100 fine.
Show up at 6:30 p.m. on the first Monday of the month (second Monday in January) at the Hôtel de Ville, 5 rue Gale — or watch live on the municipality's YouTube channel. To ask a question without attending, email greffe@ormstown.ca by noon the Friday before, with your name, address, and phone number.
📞 450 829-2625 · ✉️ ormstown@ormstown.ca · 🏛️ 5, rue Gale, Ormstown