Burghardt-Jesson won’t seek another term as Lucan Biddulph mayor

Lucan Biddulph Mayor Cathy Burghardt-Jesson has announced she won’t seek a fourth term as mayor in October’s municipal election. The announcement comes as Burghardt-Jesson enters the final months of her third term as mayor of the growing community.

By Dan Rolph, Editor

The council chambers in Lucan Biddulph will have a new person at the helm this coming October after Mayor Cathy Burghardt-Jesson’s announcement that she won’t seek re-election in the fall.

Burghardt-Jesson was first elected mayor of the township in 2014 when she defeated former Mayor Paul Hodgins. Before becoming mayor was deputy mayor on the township’s five-member council after getting elected in 2010.

“I feel good about it,” said Burghardt-Jesson. “I know that I’ve left Lucan better than when I stepped into it. It’s not just because of me, it’s the collective ‘we.’

During her time as mayor, Burghardt-Jesson also served three terms as warden of Middlesex County and ran as the Ontario Liberal Party candidate for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex in the 2025 provincial election, where she was defeated by Progressive Conservative Steve Pinsonneault.

Lucan Biddulph grew by about 20 per cent between 2016 and 2021 to a population of nearly 5,700, making it one of Ontario’s fastest growing communities in that timeframe. That growth has been the context of much of Burghardt-Jesson’s tenure as mayor and has seemingly continued as the community sees further residential and commercial development.

“When I got on council in 2010 I would never have thought that we would have seen the kind of growth that we have,” said Burghardt-Jesson. “Nobody, I think, could foresee it happening in such an aggressive way. What we have experienced is not just because of decisions of the councils that I’ve sat on.

“What Lucan Biddulph is experiencing is because of collective work that has been done during the 2000s, but certainly, nobody can deny how we’ve been able to capitalize on it.”

In pursuit of growth, Lucan Biddulph has moved forward with a project to expand its wastewater treatment plant, receiving more than $17.6 million from the province for the expansion that is expected to facilitate further development in the community.

“That’s been years in the making. We were certainly fortunate in getting a financial commitment from the province to help us with this project.

“For our users and for those that pay into the system, it’s not like we woke up in January and said we need to do this. This project, to get us to this point, has been seven years in the making. It’s been seven years of developing what it’s going to look like, and it’s been seven years of advocating to the province on the importance of why the province needs to invest in this project.”

Burghardt-Jesson said she stepped into the mayoral role in 2014 with a list of items she hoped to tackle, and one of the items that was at the top of her list was the industrial park at the corner of Saintsbury Line and Fallon Drive. The township has worked to attract businesses to the community with fully serviced and developed lands, and that project is moving into its second phase of seeking bids from businesses that could include warehouses, truck terminals, manufacturers and more.

“I’ve lived in Lucan Biddulph for over 30 years, and there’d always been a sign at that corner,” she said. “Nothing ever happened with it, so that was always a bee in my bonnet.”

Another project that Burghardt-Jesson said she considered an accomplishment of her time as mayor is the traffic light that was installed at the intersection of Saintsbury Line and Highway 4 – a project that took nearly a decade of negotiations to come to fruition.

“The most famous traffic light in all of Ontario, I like to say,” she said.

Burghardt-Jesson said the township has also seen substantial changes in areas that may be less obvious to residents, such as how the township communicates internally, as well as with those in the community.

“There’s much more opportunity for our residents to engage with us,” she said. “Whether it’s through social media, whether it’s through our app, our digital footprint or our community events that we are aways involved in, we always make sure there’s a table there that has what’s going on, where we can hear feedback.

“It’s how we hear from our residents, and how we’re hearing what’s important to them, what they like and what they don’t like. I’m very proud of how we’ve expanded our communication.”

Burghardt-Jesson said the revitalization of the Lucan Biddulph Community Memorial Centre was a particular point of pride for her. Lucan Biddulph received about $5.5 million from the federal and provincial governments to help fund the enhancement of its recreational hub, adding new community rooms, changing rooms, washrooms and a heated and accessible viewing area.  

“Recreation, obviously, is incredibly important to our community,” said Burghardt-Jesson. “Personally, it’s been incredibly important to my family. I raised my children in that building. That revitalization has allowed us to present at a different level. You walk in the doors and all of a sudden you know you’re in a professional setting. You’re in a building worthy of 2026. Whether you’re in the parking lot at 7 a.m. or 10 p.m., the parking lot is full because of the programming and what we’re able to offer to our residents.

“Now, our residents don’t need to go to a neighbouring community to get what they need, and that’s really great to see that it’s not just hockey on the ice. There’s a wide variety of recreation programming.”

Though Lucan Biddulph has gone through undeniable growth over the years, Burghardt-Jesson said the largest highlight from her time as mayor is the 2018 Kraft Hockeyville competition, when Lucan Biddulph showed its community spirit and was named the winner of the nationwide contest, earning a $250,000 grant to upgrade the community’s arena and an opportunity to host the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs for a pre-season match.

“Winning was fantastic, and winning was great, and the game was wonderful, but for me, my takeaway will always be the voting weekend,” said Burghardt-Jesson. “We brought the community together in a way that hadn’t been done before.”

Burghardt-Jesson said Sportsnet broadcaster Ken Reid, who was in Lucan for the competition, spoke to her about the excitement in the town during that weekend.

“He said ‘I’ve never been to a community where the atmosphere has been so electric,’” she said. “You can’t bottle that, and we talk about it to this day. You’ll be in Foodland and somebody will bring it up, or you can be at a Lions Club event and somebody will bring it up.

“The whole thing was about bringing community together, and I will be always proud of that.”

Though Burghardt-Jesson said there may not be projects she’d tackle differently with the power of hindsight, she said learning is an ongoing process, and communication continues to be an area that can be improved despite the improvements that have been seen.

“I don’t mean this to insult anybody, but we do have a more sophisticated resident than maybe we’ve had in the past, and so the expectation of what we have to provide them, we’re still learning about that and how to get information out to them in a way that they understand and that they can respond,” she said.

Burghardt-Jesson said serving as Lucan Biddulph’s mayor has made her learn the value of patience – particularly in the setting of government where she said progress can be a slow-moving process.

“Municipalities are a product of the province, and certainly we have seen with this government in particular, how they have really gotten down into the weeds of how municipalities are managed,” she said. “That can make it very difficult when you want to get a project through when rules are always changing.”

Burghardt-Jesson may have announced she has no intention of seeking re-election, but she still has the better part of a year as Lucan Biddulph’s mayor. In the final months, she said she hopes to see shovels in the ground for the expansion to Lucan’s wastewater treatment plant, which she said will give developers confidence in the community that was listed as one of Ontario’s fastest-growing communities in the 2021 census.

“I want developers and home builders and builders in general to know that we’re committed to that continued growth, and the only way that’s going to happen is when shovels go in the ground for this,” she said.

Other areas she hopes to tackle in her final months as mayor include the urbanization of several areas in town, including on Saintsbury Line where the new school is being built, as well as along Highway 4 toward the Glenns shopping centre.

With her time as a mayor coming to an end later this year, Burghardt-Jesson had words of wisdom for whoever is chosen by residents to be next to pick up the gavel. She highlighted the importance of patience, flexibility and trusting municipal staff.

“We can’t change everything all at once,” she said. “You sit at the head of the horseshoe with humility and openness. Lucan’s council is a council of five, and the mayor is only one voice. It is listening to not only your councillors, but to your residents. Take those phone calls. Have those conversations at the grocery store. Listen to what people are saying.

“Listen to them because they’re going to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, and be open to that.”

As for what’s next for Burghardt-Jesson after leaving office? She said she isn’t certain of what the future holds, but that she won’t be straying far from home.

“I’m committed to our community, so whether my service is in a political way or another way, I will still have an involvement somehow.”