The Bacon Man's last request
The next municipal election is not until October 2026 but that isn't stopping Ernie 'the Bacon Man' Lamont from making a campaign pitch.
"I'm the guy that's willing to go the nine yards," said Lamont to CTV New while sitting in his bed at Hospice Windsor.
The long-time entrepreneur is recognized for his active presence in local politics. He ran for Windsor’s top job five times.
"How many times do we say if you're going to complain put your name on the ballot? And he did put his name on the ballot and he shared those ideas," said current Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens.
Lamont and Dilkens are known to battle it out on the city council floor.
"If we don't agree on anything else, we agree on the fact that we want our city to be better. We want it to succeed. And I wanted to recognize his contribution and his dialogue throughout the years and go visit him in his final days,” Dilkens adds.
Photos placed in Ernie ‘the Bacon Man’ Lamont’s room in hospice care in Windsor, Ont. on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. (Stefanie Masotti/CTV News Windsor)
Lamont was diagnosed with cancer in 2022. Doctors tell him he has one to three months to live.
He says has one final request. To be transported, on a stretcher, to Windsor City Hall to make one last pitch.
"To bring a second casino across from the new mega hospital. It would create 10,000 jobs year round,” said Lamont. He suggests an aquarium, convention center and indoor amusement park be attached.
As his time nears, some still question how the Bacon Man got his name.
“I was working at Ford selling bacon and cheese. And then my foreman said what do you sell the most? I said bacon. He said ‘why don't you call yourself the bacon man?’ And that was that," Lamont explains.
He hopes residents of Windsor will remember him fondly for years and decades to come.
"I always had your box,” he said. “I always went to city all with the right motivation to make sure that I was doing the right thing."
Photos placed in Ernie ‘the Bacon Man’ Lamont’s room in hospice care in Windsor, Ont. on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. (Stefanie Masotti/CTV News Windsor)
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.