Peter Trent

Peter Francis Trent (born 5 January 1946) is an English-born Canadian businessman and politician. He is the current mayor of Westmount, Quebec. He was first elected as councillor in 1983. He served as mayor from 1992 to 2001, he left politics at that time on account of the forced merger with the City of Montreal. He again became Mayor of Westmount by acclamation on the November 1, 2009 municipal election.

Born in Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, Trent and his family immigrated to Toronto when he was 10. In 1968, at the age of 22 he would leave McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario to work for a chemical company in Montreal. In 1972 he started his own company (with Raymond Charlebois), PBI/Plastibeton Inc. which he would later sell in 1989 to Shell Oil and Lone Star Industries. From 1982-1983, he taught Marketing at Concordia University's Faculty of Commerce and Administration. In 1992 he received a medal marking the 125th anniversary of Canada. In 1994 he was named honorary lieutenant colonel of the Royal Montreal Regiment, and in 1999 honorary colonel. In 2005 he received the decoration of the Canadian Forces.

After the 2002 mergers, Trent resigned from office. He fought for three years for demergers as a non-elected official before retiring from politics. He eventually returned to politics and was elected mayor of Westmount in 2009.

He owns the licences to many worldwide patents, which give him a significant revenue stream, and this has allowed Trent to devote himself to public service.

Trent's book about the merger-demerger period in Montreal, The Merger Delusion was published in the fall of 2012 by McGill-Queen's University Press. the book was shortlisted for the 2012 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. He planned to present ideas in the last book that would be the foundation for a debate starting in 2013 about governing the Montreal region.