Author name: Brome County News

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

When Granby businesswoman and mother of two Penny Lamarre began experiencing debilitating fatigue in May 2018, at age 44, she thought she just needed to catch up on her sleep.

“I was sleeping 20 hours a day…and I thought I was just really tired,” she said. “I had a friend who was a nurse, and she said, ‘You need to go to the clinic.’ I thought I had mono. I went to the clinic in the morning; by 11 a.m., I had my blood test. At 1 p.m., my family doctor called and said they would be transferring me in an ambulance.”

Lamarre was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a form of cancer which attacks the blood and bone marrow. She was told that without treatment, she could have as little as one week to live. She was given drugs to “reboot” her immune system, a painful process which left her vulnerable to fungal infections that made it hard for her to open her mouth. “In October, they said, ‘We’ll wait to see if the treatment works.’ In July 2019 I had a setback; I started chemo again and then they launched a search to find a bone marrow donor.” In the meantime, she got her affairs in order and thought about who would raise her children – who were nine and eleven at the time – if she wasn’t around anymore. Then she got the call that gave her a new lease on life – a match had been found in Germany. On Dec. 12, 2019, after the donor’s cells were sent by courier across the Atlantic, the transplant took place in Montreal.

Six years out from a bone marrow transplant and a yearlong recovery process, Lamarre said she has “98 per cent” of her life back, after a long process of rebuilding physically, mentally and financially. “I just turned 50, and now I’m working on building my body back up. I used to ride my bike a lot, play dek hockey and dance; I’m just now getting back into it. I spent four years not working – I got two years of disability pension payments, I sold things and had to start a GoFundMe.” The memory of getting turned away from a food pantry she used to contribute to in better times because she had $50 in her bank account set aside to pay a utility bill still stings. “I found that hard…but I had a lot of help from friends who brought me food and things like toilet paper.” She now has a “nice life” with a life-coaching business and a sideline as a travel agent.

The cells which saved her life were donated by a German college student named Johanna, now a physiotherapist. “The recipient can request [their donor’s contact information] two years after the transplant,” Lamarre said. “We had a Zoom call and it was a magic moment … since then, we’ve met a few times. She came to visit last year and I showed her Montreal and Quebec City. She has a baby now and I sent her some baby stuff. It’s a privilege for me to have this person in my life.”

Lamarre is sharing her story as part of a Héma-Québec campaign to encourage young people to donate bone marrow. Héma-Québec spokesperson Josée Larivée said prospective donors can request a kit from the blood bank and submit a cheek swab sample; they will be contacted if they are a match for a patient. Donors must be between the ages of 18 and 35 to submit a sample, although if you are a match for a patient and you are over 35, you may still get a call. Quebec donors may be matched with recipients in Quebec, in the rest of Canada or in Europe.”

“The bank has 55,000 samples from people who have raised their hands and [sent in] a cheek swab,” Larivée explained. “[Héma-Québec is] a member of a worldwide bank with 42 million samples. We are looking for a genetic profile as identical [to the patient] as we can get, and that’s why we need a large diversity of donors; a North African patient needs a North African donor and a Haitian needs a donor from the Black community. In Quebec, there are genetic commonalities in Bas-Saint-Laurent, in the Gaspé, in the Magdalen Islands and in the Beauce, for example, so if you live in one of those regions, you may be helping your neighbours.”

Bone marrow transplants are used to treat patients with leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia, certain types of immune deficiency and some other cancers, after other treatment methods have failed or have taken a heavy toll on their immune system. Once a match has been found and a donor has agreed to the procedure, there are usually two options – the donor either undergoes a brief surgical procedure to extract bone marrow from their pelvic bone, or takes a drug over a period of several days that multiplies stem cell production before having blood drawn. Sometimes doctors will request one or the other; sometimes the donor will choose the procedure that they’re most comfortable with. The cells are then injected into the recipient’s vein, and the patient’s body can begin the long, difficult work of rebuilding their immune system – Lamarre was hospitalized for three months and dealt with six months of intense fatigue after her own transplant.

“You kill the patient’s immune system and you inject the donor’s cells…so my body is functioning with your blood,” Larrivée said. After Lamarre received her own bone marrow transplant, her blood type changed, a lifelong reminder of the link between her and Johanna.

Larrivée encourages young adults under 35 to sign up for the stem cell registry. “Once you get their attention, young people are community-minded, but you do need to get their attention and their time,” she said. “Give yourself a challenge to convince one person.”

People who are interested in donating and who meet the age requirement can visit

hemaquebec.ca/en/stem-cells-donation/what-to-expect-when-you-give-stem-cells to learn more about the process and request a cheek-swab sample kit.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The Pettes Memorial Library in Brome Lake is forging ahead with a planned expansion project despite the fact that a provincial grant program from which they were hoping to get funding has been discontinued.

Pettes Memorial Library director Jana Valasek told the BCN she and her colleagues had been working on the expansion – which includes a new annex, renovations to the existing building and improved landscaping – for the past six years. By the end of 2024, an application was submitted to the Ministry of Culture and Communications (MCC) for a grant of around $2 million through the Programme d’aide aux immobilisations (PAI; Infrastructure Assistance Program). “There was no hint there was going to be a problem …until we learned that the government completely shut the program down.”

“Last year we hired a project management team – we completed the [functional and technical evaluation], the next step would be to hire the architects and we had that all set out, but then everything stopped in its tracks,” Valasek said. “We have had to rethink things a little bit, but we are working on seeing how we can move ahead.”

Valasek painted a picture of a library that had largely outgrown its current space. “We desperately need space to hold programming or events,” she said. “We have no meeting room, no place to welcome classes of children or groups or any kind of programming like having a guest speaker come. We have one room with a table that seats ten people which also serves as the [staff] lunchroom. We just need to have a bigger space dedicated to programming.  I would really like to develop the children’s space to make it more specialized and welcoming.”

She said the current plan was to move forward with the renovation in phases, relying on fundraising and smaller grants that are available for specific upgrades, like improving accessibility or modernizing the heating system. “We are going to focus on building the annex and having a new children’s area and a welcome desk where people can walk in from the park more easily … although we will keep the Victorian front door,” she said, adding that no longer being bound by the terms of the MCC grant would make some aspects of the project simpler. “Hopefully we will build next spring,” she said. “This is not stopping us.”

She said it was too early to share a precise estimate of how much the project would cost or how much an eventual fundraising campaign would have to raise, but several large donations had already been received. The Town of Brome Lake (TOBL) has already set aside $1 million to fund the project; at the most recent council meeting, an additional $600,000 was earmarked “for future expenses related to the downtown revitalization project, the redevelopment of Coldbrook Park and the Pettes Memorial Library project,” according to TOBL communications director Ghyslain Forcier.

Program to reopen with new format

Maryse Dubois, a spokesperson for Brome-Missisquoi MNA Isabelle Charest, confirmed that the PAI had been suspended, and that a “new-look” PAI would be rolled out with a call for applications in the fall. “The program’s objectives remain the same, but certain procedures have been improved to provide greater predictability for partners and reduce the number of steps required before approval,” she said.

“Since 2019, my team and I have been closely monitoring the Pettes Memorial Library expansion project. Numerous meetings and discussions have taken place between my office, the project committee and the MCC,” Charest said in a statement, noting that she met with the expansion project committee last month. “In the current context, the government had to make the responsible decision to focus its investments in the new version of the PAI this year on maintaining existing infrastructure rather than on expansion projects …. The library team has already taken important steps in structuring its financial package. I remain fully committed to supporting the realization of this flagship project for the Brome Lake community.”

To learn more about the Pettes Memorial Library expansion project or to pledge your support, contact the library directly at pettes.bpl@gmail.com or 450 243-6128.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Transforming a city park into a “magic forest” for the holidays and giving residents more opportunities to test out recreational activities for free are near the top of Bromont’s priority list after its first participatory budget call for projects went out earlier this year.

“We wanted to create a ‘department of little treats,’” said Councillor Michel Bilodeau (Mont-Brome), the municipality’s point person for the project, drawing on imagery from his previous career as director of the Fête du chocolat de Bromont. He mentioned that his colleague Councillor Claire Mailhot (Lac-Bromont) had first pitched the idea more than two years ago. “This year, we said we were going to do it.”

Participatory budget initiatives, where cities earmark $50-60,000 for citizen-driven projects, have been established in Montreal, Longueuil, Laval, Granby and several smaller towns across the province – including Cowansville and Sutton – over the past few years. “We wanted to take the concept of what already existed and make it more ‘Bromontois,’” Bilodeau said. “We’re not reinventing the wheel here.”

Bilodeau said he was hoping to get ten or so submissions; the 32 projects received exceeded the committee’s expectations. Twelve were chosen by the selection committee. In addition to budgetary considerations (the projects have a combined budget of $60,000) and logistical feasibility, the committee evaluated projects based on creativity, on whether they fit with current town priorities and on how many residents they would benefit – a project for the whole town received more points than a project designed for a single neighbourhood.

Residents could submit projects in three categories – by and for seniors, by and for youth, and “collective,” by and for the general public. In the seniors category, the committee chose two proposals – installation of a wheelchair-accessible swing and several new benches around town. The three projects chosen in the youth division were a soapbox derby car race, a colour run at the elementary school and support for a floor hockey program. In the “collective” category, seven projects will be funded – top-ups to existing funding for the Santa Claus Parade and the Course du Quartier du Lac, opportunities for residents to test out existing recreational activities for free on Saturdays (“Samedi de bouger”), free pickleball sessions in Adamsville, planting along the hiking trail behind the École de la Chantignole, funding for portrait artists in public spaces (inspired by the portrait artists of Place Jacques-Cartier in Montreal or Rue du Trésor in Quebec City), and the “whispering forest of owls and elves” – a magical holiday trail in the Parc des Oiseaux. The projects are expected to be completed by January 2026, Bilodeau said.

“Youth is important, and this is a way of getting them interested in how they can contribute ideas and actions to make the town better,” Bilodeau added. “It makes us all really happy. Hopefully next year, the next council will go in the same direction.

“The city launched a real call for creativity and collective action, and the community responded loud and clear,” Mayor Tatiana Contreras said in a statement. “The projects presented that were not selected will still be forwarded to the various divisions concerned as suggestions, and who knows, they might even be able to be carried out!”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A year after the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS announced seasonal closures of the CLSCs in Brome Lake and Sutton and a partial closure of the CHSLD de Bedford, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS has said similar closures have been avoided for this year, although there will be service reductions in some areas. The CIUSSS would not share a full list of closures and service reductions; according to a partial list obtained by the BCN, nursing services will be unavailable at the CLSC in Sutton from June 16 to Aug. 24, and lab services will be reduced. Lab services will also be reduced at the Bromont CLSC.

“Every year, we plan the summer period to ensure our staff have vacations while continuing to provide care and services to the population,” CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS spokesperson Élizabeth Dubé said in a statement. “No CLSC in Estrie will be completely closed.”

More alarming to local health care professionals, one of the three operating rooms at Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital will be out of service this summer due to a shortage of respiratory therapists.

Dubé said BMP, “like many other [hospitals] in Quebec, has been facing a chronic shortage of respiratory therapists for several months.” The third operating room “will be closed during the summer to provide the teams with a well-deserved break. Exceptionally this year, the adjustments began on May 5, rather than mid-June, due to the shortage of respiratory therapists.”

“For more than a year, we’ve seen staff running out of steam,” said Dr. Anne-Patricia Prévost, a family doctor in Cowansville who is the president of the Association des médecins omnipraticiens d’Yamaska. “I think it was also closed for part of last summer, and they went to recruit some respiratory therapists from Sherbrooke, but this year, they weren’t able to have them.”

In Quebec hospitals, respiratory therapists help patients who are coming on and off ventilators, conduct tests, administer and adjust medication, monitor patients who are anesthetized and maintain respiratory support equipment. “Doctors and nurses are trained to do a lot of those tasks, but putting those tasks on their plate has an impact too,” Prévost said.

She said about five surgeries per day were normally conducted in the third operating room. “That makes 30 a week. If [the closure] lasts until October, that’s a lot of surgeries, a lot of people who will stay on waiting lists.”

“It’s a real shame – because of vacation and the personnel [shortage], they’re ‘undressing’ the regional centres to bring personnel to Sherbrooke to avoid service cuts there,” said Prévost, who attended an interprofessional meeting where the planned service modifications were presented. Prévost said the closure could potentially lead to bottlenecks at other area hospitals, and have painful consequences for patients and the health care system. “For the patient who needs a knee replacement, for example, we try physiotherapy and other things… but if they have to wait for two years, they’re moving less, they’re gaining weight, they can develop other complications … they’ll make more follow-up appointments and consume more medication … and this is taking time that we would give to new patients.”

Dubé said full operations at BMP are expected to resume in early fall, and that emergencies would be “taken care of without delay.” She noted that 11 respiratory therapists had been hired by the CIUSSS in the past week, with seven assigned to BMP.

No resumption of nursing services at CLSC Lac-Brome

There have been no nursing care services offered at the CLSC Lac-Brome since spring 2024. When the CLSC reopened in October 2024, it reopened for laboratory services only. At the time, CIUSSS spokesperson Nancy Corriveau told the BCN a consultative committee would be put in place to “clearly define the needs of the population and reassess our service offering.” That idea was ultimately scrapped and there are no plans to resume nursing care at the CLSC.

“Following a further assessment, we have decided not to create the announced community consultation committee,” Dubé said. “We have a duty to adapt our care and services according to the needs of the population and the context of our resources. Thus, we no longer have routine nursing care at the CLSC Lac-Brome service point, but we do have a [laboratory sample] collection service. For an appointment requiring routine nursing care, the population is always invited to contact the CLSC de Cowansville at (450) 266-4304, the CLSC de Sutton at (450) 538-3994 or the CLSC de Bromont at (450) 375-1692. These surrounding CLSCs are located approximately 20 minutes away by car.”

The loss of nursing care services in a town like Brome Lake is worrisome for Prévost. “This is a big deal, because we have a very large territory, and having services in the villages is important,” she said. “We have some transit, and we have medical transportation volunteers, but it’s not like a big city.”

Dubé said no major CHSLD closures were anticipated over the summer, but that “a few beds might not immediately be given to the next [resident] when they are freed up” at the CHSLD de Sutton.

Defending access to care in Bedford

After a series of closures and cutbacks in the past year, advocates for health care access in Bedford have formed a nonprofit to fight future cuts.

“The decline in healthcare services in the Bedford area over the past 10 years has prompted a reaction: the loss of three seniors’ residences, the retirement of two physicians who were almost miraculously replaced, the closure of CHSLD beds during summer 2024, the cancellation of the CHSLD expansion project in June 2024, not to mention the glaring lack of intermediate resources, are just a few examples of concern,” said Normand Deragon, spokesperson for the Bedford Pole Citizen Health Committee (BPCHC). “The result of our action [last year] is not so much what we gained, but rather, what we did not lose. For example, we now have two new doctors at our CLSC in replacement of recently retired physicians, and in contrast to last year, no beds will be closed at our CHSLD during the summer vacations. … As you say in English, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

“With a population where 25 per cent of residents are aged 65 or over, we are worried about what the future holds for our region. This explains the reason for our mobilization to safeguard healthcare services in the Bedford area,” said BPCHC president Pierrette Messier-Peet.

The new nonprofit plans to “explore the possibility” of bringing a new seniors’ residence to the area, and raise awareness of the services offered by the CLSC de Bedford and other local service providers.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The Coalition Avenir Québec government took another step to distance itself – and the province – from Canadian multiculturalism last week when it passed Bill 84, An Act respecting integration into the Quebec nation.

“For the first time, we are enacting our model, which is called national integration. And we are returning Canadian multiculturalism to where it should have remained, that is, in the limbo of history,” minister for the French language Jean-François Roberge told a National Assembly press conference. “It is a model that has always been harmful to Quebec.”

The stated purpose of the bill, introduced in January, is to “establish the Quebec national integration model, which fosters the vitality and preservation of Quebec culture as the common culture and vector for social cohesion.” Notably, the bill amends the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms to ensure that rights and freedoms are “exercised in accordance with the Quebec model,” and says government grants must be distributed in a manner “consistent with the Quebec national integration model or one of its foundations.” The state is expected to “take measures aimed at ensuring the preservation, vitality and sharing of the French language and Quebec culture” The law sets out a series of obligations for municipalities, schools and publicly funded organizations to contribute to the integration of newcomers; individual Quebecers are also expected to “collaborate in welcoming immigrants and foster immigrants’ integration into the Quebec nation.” Under the law, the government will develop a national integration policy before the 2026 election.

The bill states that the law will be applied in a way that recognizes Indigenous rights and is “respectful of the institutions of the English-speaking community of Quebec.” It also enshrines into law a “common culture,” characterized by “distinct social values” and the importance of equality between women and men, state secularism and French as the common language. It describes Quebec culture as the “crucible” that enables Quebecers to form a united nation. It lays out a list of expectations for immigrants – they’re expected to learn French if they don’t already speak it, participate in the vitality of Quebec culture and “participate fully, in French, in Quebec society.”

Roberge rejected arguments that the bill encouraged immigrants to assimilate. “We want people who come here from everywhere to be able to bring their colour, to make their contribution from their culture of origin,” he told reporters. He said the law laid out a “social contract” that immigrants should be aware of before moving to the province. “They arrive here knowing that they have duties, responsibilities, … that the government has responsibilities, but that they must accept this social contract. Otherwise, well, it’s not a good idea to come here.” 

The law passed without the support of Québec Solidaire and the Liberals. Liberal immigration critic André A. Morin criticized Roberge for opening the door to changes to the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms and for not holding extensive consultations on the law. “For me as an MNA and a jurist, the idea that we will temporize Charter rights [in accordance with] a model that will be refined by a policy that hasn’t been written yet, I’m not giving you a blank cheque.”

“If you want people to recognize themselves in this law, then consult them,” he added. “I said make a wider consultation, and that’s not provided for in the law. … This says, ‘We’ll make a policy but we won’t consult you, just trust us. That’s wrong.”

The Ligue des droits et libertés (LDL) and the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI) issued a joint statement criticizing the law, calling it a “deliberate attack on the system of the protection of human rights in Quebec.”

“There are still serious problems with the assimilationist nature of Bill 84, the reduction of rights in favour of values, the attacks on charters and the rights of the population, as well as serious concerns for the autonomy of the community,” they said.

“Although it is difficult to anticipate the legal scope of the amendments made to the Quebec Charter, they could establish a hierarchy of rights and threaten several human rights, including the right to equality and freedoms of conscience, expression and religion,” said LDL head of political dossiers Paul-Etienne Rainville.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The Quebec Liberal Party critic for environment and climate change is calling on the CAQ government to offer more support to municipalities with concerns about the impact of “forever chemicals” on their water supply, after spot testing from a Université de Montréal research team led to drinking water advisories in several municipalities.

Virginie Dufour tabled a bill at the National Assembly on Friday which would require the government to conduct a sweeping evaluation of the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the province’s drinking water, residue from water treatment plants and runoff from dumps. The bill would require municipalities, public utilities and dump operators to participate in the evaluation by having their water (lixiviate or runoff, in the case of a dump) sampled by an accredited lab.

After the evaluation, the bill would require the government to establish norms for PFAS concentration in drinking water, conduct regular testing and sanction violators.

Dufour said “thousands” of water sources in the province hadn’t been adequately tested for PFAS. “We don’t know what water sources are contaminated… if we know some of them, it’s because [Université de Montréal chemistry professor Sébastien] Sauvé tested them for research, but we don’t know the portrait of all the water sources in Quebec.” She emphasized that she didn’t want municipalities to bear the burden of funding PFAS testing, suggesting the provincial government could fund it, using the proceeds from joining a class action lawsuit against several PFAS producers, currently before Quebec’s superior court. “At the beginning, it will be up to the government to pay, but ultimately, we want the companies to pay,” she said.

She pointed out that Quebec and Canada have yet to establish hard and fast safety thresholds for PFAS levels in drinking water. The Quebec government has fixed an informal “objective” of no more than 30 nanograms per litre.

PFAS have been commonly used in fire retardants and in waterproofing, leakproofing and packaging common household goods for decades; Canada has moved to ban the importation of some PFAS-containing products in recent years, but PFAS residue can linger for long periods in the environment. According to a Health Canada fact sheet, studies suggest long-term PFAS exposure may affect the liver and metabolism, the nervous and immune systems as well as the birth weight of infants. Dufour called on the government to conduct more research into the environmental and health impacts of PFAS.

At a National Assembly press conference, Sauvé said his team had tested drinking water at “a few hundred” wells and municipal water lines across the province and found “half a dozen” where PFAS levels were problematic. “People have a right to know whether their drinking water might be contaminated…The name ‘forever chemicals’ scares people, but there are ways to treat water to remove chemicals. Before removing them, we need to know where they are.”

Paul Sarrazin is the prefect of Haute-Yamaska and the mayor of Sainte-Cécile de Milton. Thirty-seven households in his municipality, all on well water in proximity to a decades-old dump, are under a Quebec government drinking water advisory. The local primary school is also taking measures to clean its water and supply bottled water to students. Residents and elected officials learned of unsafe PFAS levels in the local water supply after Sauvé’s study.  “Our case is not unique in Quebec,” he said. “This is a complex dossier…and the purpose of this bill is to investigate where the sources of contamination are so we can identify them and take measures.” said Sarrazin, whose municipality is part of the lawsuit. “There are municipalities that are going to need to upgrade their water treatment plants [and] our citizens should not have to pay the price.”  Sarrazin said.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A citizens’ group in Bromont is concerned that the municipality may not be doing enough to push back against the construction of new wireless communication towers on its territory.

A proposed Videotron cell phone tower project was shelved in 2023 amid widespread public opposition; now, Mayor Tatiana Contreras said Rogers has expressed interest in building a similar tower, although no formal written request has been filed with the city. On May 21, at a special meeting primarily held to formally swear Contreras in as mayor – the former councillor was acclaimed by fellow councillors to succeed Louis Villeneuve, who stepped down to seek federal office and was elected MP for Brome-Missisquoi – councillors also tabled a three-page bylaw aimed at regulating permit requests for cell phone towers.

Contreras said discussions on developing a bylaw had been ongoing “since the Videotron debate.”

The proposed bylaw states that towers 15 metres tall or higher must be constructed so as to “ensure the harmonious integration of antennas and communication towers into the natural and built landscape … to preserve the visual quality of the area and the character of sensitive areas” and to “reduce the environmental, social, and security impacts associated with the installation of communication structures, particularly through rigorous planning.” It states that companies which propose projects must justify their necessity; show they have been “designed in such a way as to have a minimal impact on plant and animal life and wetlands;” “minimize their visual impact” including the use of discreet colours, non-reflective materials and limited light pollution;  and minimize the cutting of trees around the site.

Contreras said the municipality could refuse to grant a permit to a noncompliant project, although any such refusal could be overridden by Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). “The federal [government] could go over our heads if we refuse, but at least we would be able to say we refused.”

Pascal Gélinas is a spokesperson for the citizens’ group Comité Vigilance Bromont, formed during the debate over the Videotron tower. He argued that the proposed bylaw lacked teeth and didn’t take into account the potential effects of radiation from cell towers on human health.

“It’s a bit silly; all it says is that you need to protect sugarbushes and wetlands, to privilege industrial and commercial zones and avoid residential areas as much as possible,” Gélinas said. “When you write ‘avoid this as much as possible,’ that’s not a regulation – that’s a wish.” He also noted that the proposed bylaw did not cover antennas shorter than 15 metres.

Gélinas, a former filmmaker and producer for the Radio-Canada science program Découvertes, pointed out that there is still uncertainty around the health risks posed by exposure to the sort of radiation that cell phone towers emit. Some scientific studies have shown a possible link between exposure to cell phone radiation and certain forms of cancer.  “Any antenna should be at least 500 metres from any house, school, daycare centre, seniors’ home, park, hospital or playground,” he said. “The health aspect is no joke – we can’t close our eyes just because most people don’t feel the effects at the moment. When in doubt, we need to not do this.”

Gélinas was also concerned about the speed and lack of public consultation around the tabling of the original draft bylaw. “There wasn’t really any discussion; I spoke and Ms. Contreras said it was not the time, point of order, she said don’t be shy to send her something in writing, which I’m going to do –  I feel like their decision is made; they are scared because the federal [government]  is involved, but the federal government is telling them, ‘Make your own rules.’ One thing the town did do right is that they said Rogers had to wait [while a bylaw was developed].”

Contreras said a public consultation will be held on June 17, before the final bylaw is tabled. “We hope people who have concerns come and talk to us then.” She added that the municipality planned to follow all Health Canada recommendations regarding cell towers.

“I’m not optimistic [about the public consultation] but I’d like to be,” Gélinas said. “For Bromont and other towns, it would be a great thing to set an example, to show some spine and protect people.” 

The BCN was unable to contact representatives for Rogers or ISED before press time.

By Ruby pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Brome Lake residents who plan to apply for vignettes to take their boats out on the lake this summer can now do so online through the municipality’s new web portal.

Town of Brome Lake (TOBL) director of communications and citizen relations Ghyslain Forcier said the framework for the portal had been in place since late last year, but the online vignette application service had only been live since May 20. He said the web portal would eventually allow citizens to access other municipal services, such as phone and email alerts for non-emergency situations, garbage collection schedules and reminders and potentially pet licence applications.

Residents who create an account on the web portal to apply for a vignette will also be able to save their data, meaning that they won’t have to re-enter their information when applying for a vignette next year.

“At this point, 500 people have already created accounts, and applied for 700 vignettes,” Forcier said. “These are people who have not had to come to the town hall with a paper application. This frees up time for our frontline staff, makes for less foot traffic in and out of the town hall and people don’t have to stand in line.” People who apply online for vignettes can choose to come to the town hall and pick up their vignette or to receive it by mail. Brome Lake residents are required to get vignettes for any motorized or non-motorized watercraft they plan to take on the lake, including paddleboards; after June 15, boaters who haven’t yet applied for a vignette may face fines. 

Forcier invited people who are having trouble setting up an account to call the town hall; those who can’t or don’t want to set up an account can still print and mail the vignette application form or pick up a paper form in person at the town hall; however, their data won’t be saved from year to year.

Forcier said the town’s new website, which went live late last year and included the “shell” of the web portal, cost $32,000; the addition of the vignette application tool cost an additional $1,750.

“We’ve wanted to improve our online services and accessibility for a while,” Forcier said. “We’re very happy with the results.”

New boat washing station

On May 23, ​​the town also announced the purchase of a new  self-service wash station, accessible at all times and relocated to 704 Lakeside Road, next to the Tourism Welcome Centre “With its chemical-free decontamination equipment for interior compartments, pipes, and engines, as well as its wash progress display, the station features advanced, state-of-the-art technology,” town officials said in a statement. Residents who have motorboats will be able to request free wash station access when applying for their vignette. Non-resident motorboat users will pay a fee of $20 for a single wash or $200 for a season pass. The service is free for non-motorized watercraft.

“These changes mark another step toward better protecting our lake while simplifying life for our citizens,” Mayor Richard Burcombe said in a statement. “The new citizen portal and self-serve wash station demonstrate our commitment to modernizing our services and preserving Brome Lake’s natural wealth for future generations.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of East Bolton has received a grant of nearly $1.7 million from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to fund the building of a new municipal garage. Orford MNA Gilles Bélanger made the announcement on behalf of Municipal Affairs Minister Andrée Laforest on May 23.

The wooden garage will have a surface area of approximately 345 square metres. It will eventually house an archives room, an office, storage rooms, and utility rooms, in addition to a storage space on the mezzanine; there will also be outdoor parking.

The municipality qualified for the grant through the Programme d’amélioration et de construction d’infrastructures municipales (PRACIM), receiving a top-up worth eight per cent of the grant due to the use of wood in the structure, and an additional top-up reserved for towns with a population of less than 2,000. The grant will cover 78 per cent of the expected cost of the project and construction is expected to continue through the fall.

“Thank you to East Bolton for this project, which is another step toward ensuring the sustainability of municipal services offered to residents, and thank you to the people of the municipality for their commitment to their community,” Laforest said in a statement.

“The arrival of this modern garage will allow the municipality to consolidate several of its services in a single location. I am pleased to see that this new infrastructure will help improve the efficiency of East Bolton’s operations,” Bélanger added.

East Bolton mayor Vinciane Peeters said she was “delighted to see this project take shape.”

“This new municipal garage will be a valuable asset to our community, providing essential services and strengthening our ability to respond to emergency situations. Furthermore, the use of wood will blend perfectly with our environment, thus respecting our commitment to sustainability,” she said in a statement. Peeters was not available for a follow-up interview before press time.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiaitive

A group of Dunham residents are bracing for “a heck of a fight” against the Brome electrical substation project as currently proposed by Hydro-Québec.

Denis Dumouchel, who has lived in the area for 40 years, is the spokesperson for the recently formed group Résistance Dunham. In the past two months, he and his fellow volunteers have distributed more than 750 yard signs to people opposed to the project.

He and his neighbours have concerns about the environmental, social and economic impact of the transmission lines for the new substation, which will supply electricity to Sutton, Brome Lake and Cowansville and replace existing substations in Sutton and Knowlton. Both currently proposed routes for the transmission line pass through Dunham; according to Dumouchel, both would pass over a pipeline. “We know there’s a low likelihood [that an accident would happen during construction], but as long as there’s reasonable doubt, we’re concerned,” he said. He added that residents were worried about electromagnetic radiation generated by the 120-kV line, damage to the landscape from the construction of 40-metre pylons and impact on property values, tourism and the local economy. “In the years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen agrotourism grow a lot. It took years and years to get where we are now, and if you break the landscape, you break that.”

Dumouchel is encouraging Hydro-Québec to consider an alternative plan pitched by the Town of Sutton involving 69-kV lines; a Hydro-Québec representative has previously told the BCN Sutton’s current proposal is not feasible for technical reasons, but the town plans to submit a detailed study later this week in hopes of persuading the utility.

On May 20, Hydro-Québec held a question-and-answer session in Dunham which lasted nearly five hours and attracted more than 200 participants. Dumouchel and Mayor Pierre Janecek were in attendance. “I congratulate the citizens [who attended] because there were a lot of good questions and a lot of good answers,” the mayor said. “The [Hydro-Québec] representatives were professional; they know their stuff.”

Janecek said that under two of the scenarios Hydro-Québec is currently proposing, “eighty per cent” of the transmission line would pass through the territory of his municipality, with no tangible benefit for Dunhamites. “The line is to supply Sutton and Brome, not us.” He shared Dumouchel’s concerns about declining property values, which could potentially impact tax revenue, and “disfigurement” to the landscape. “Dunham is a tourist town, and no one wants to see a trench or pylons crossing the woods.” He acknowledged that “nobody” wanted the transmission line in their backyard, and his counterparts in surrounding towns are also fighting to have the line built someplace else. “We are working to win, and so are the others, but there will be a winner and a loser somewhere. We’ve said our piece.”

Janecek said Dunham was also working on an alternative proposal, for which he would be able to provide details in the coming weeks.

Hydro-Québec regional affairs representative Ève-Marie Jodoin said the citizens’ concerns were “legitimate.”

“We know it’s a region that is very sensitive and has a lot of deeply involved citizens who have their region at heart,” she said. “We need to put [the line] somewhere; that’s why we have three proposals, and we’re collecting comments to see which one will be most compatible.” She explained that the utility determines the locations of new substations and transmission lines based on a “balance” of technical, economic, agroenvironmental and social acceptability criteria. “Since April, we’ve received a number of proposals, people saying, ‘Did you look at this, did you look at that, have you thought of this?’ We look at all of them.”

Jodoin said another consultation may take place in the fall to “present an optimized line, or explain why we couldn’t use one or the other [suggestion].” Hydro-Québec aims to have sites for the substation and the transmission line selected by the end of the year, with construction expected to begin in 2027.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The municipalities of Frelighsburg and Saint-Armand are encouraging residents to get their dogs and cats vaccinated against rabies amid a sharp spike in raccoon rabies cases. According to the Quebec government, at least 22 raccoons infected with the disease have been discovered in Estrie and Montérégie since December 2024. The virus is spread by the saliva of infected animals, and is fatal to unvaccinated animals. The Quebec environment ministry has been planting edible “vaccine baits” in parts of Estrie and Montérégie frequented by raccoons as part of its efforts to slow the spread.

Saint-Armand will hold a cat and dog vaccination clinic in partnership with the Bedford Veterinary Clinic on May 24. Pet owners who sign up in advance (by phone at 450-248-2344 or online on the town website) will be able to get one cat or dog vaccinated for free, and additional animals vaccinated at cost while supplies last; clinicians will volunteer their time. Frelighsburg plans to hold a similar clinic later this spring on a date to be determined, with support from the SPA des Cantons and a volunteer veterinarian who will measure out doses adapted for each animal. Both clinics are being held for the first time.

“The goal is to get as many animals as possible vaccinated,” said Marie-Hélène Croteau, director general of the municipality of Saint-Armand, where 12 cases of rabies in raccoons have been documented since December. “We don’t want the budget to be a barrier.”

“Vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent rabies and protect both animals and the people around them. We strongly encourage eligible pet owners in Saint-Armand to take advantage of this opportunity to ensure their pets are protected,” the Bedford Veterinary Clinic said in a statement.

“We are letting people know about the importance of getting their pets vaccinated, but for a lot of people, unfortunately, the financial aspect goes ahead of the safety aspect,” Frelighsburg mayor Lucie Dagenais told the BCN. “The cost of around $150 is prohibitive for some people, because before the animal gets vaccinated, it has to be examined by a vet.” Veterinarians recommend vaccinating dogs and cats against rabies once around 12 weeks of age and a second time a year later; booster shots are recommended every three years. Dagenais warned area residents to keep small children and pets away from wild animals.

Rabies also presents a risk to humans, although human cases are rare – the last recorded human rabies fatality in Quebec was in 2000. According to the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS, there are no plans to carry out a large-scale vaccination campaign to prevent rabies in humans in the near future; those who think they may have been bitten by a rabid animal are advised to wash the bite wound thoroughly with soap and water and call Info-Santé 811 as soon as possible to schedule an emergency vaccination. People who come into frequent contact with animals can get a preventive rabies vaccine at a travel clinic. Further information in English about rabies prevention can be found at quebec.ca/en/health/health-issues/a-z/rabies-in-humans.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Sutton plans to hire a new community outreach worker and implement an online graffiti reporting system as part of a graffiti prevention plan announced at the May 7 council meeting.

Élizabeth Deit is the director of recreation, community life and culture at the town of Sutton. She explained that for the past several years, Sutton has been dealing with a growing graffiti problem, including graffiti with hateful messages. In April, a construction cone was burned on the new basketball court, damaging its composite surface and requiring the replacement of seven tiles. This winter, new bollards along the bike path were tagged, forcing several clean-ups; just recently, according to the municipality, graffiti was discovered in the washrooms in the park chalet. The town has had to shoulder cleanup costs for vandalism.

Deit said the town needed a “game plan” to manage vandalism. That game plan, she explained, will focus on prevention and intervention, rather than punishing people who create illegal graffiti.  

The town plans to scale up “rapid and systematic” graffiti removal on public property, share information on the town website and notice boards to raise awareness and encourage reporting of vandalism, hold workshops for at-risk populations on the consequences of illegal graffiti in collaboration with the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), increase protection and surveillance of areas at risk of vandalism, establish an online reporting tool and promote public art projects, such as murals and “legal graffiti,” to discourage illegal graffiti and “enable graffiti artists to participate in beautifying the town while increasing their sense of belonging.” The online reporting tool is already up and running (sutton.ca/vandalism) and most other elements of the plan will be implemented this summer.

The outreach worker will be tasked with speaking with people, particularly at-risk youth, who spend time in the municipal park on evenings and weekends. “When there’s an [official] presence in the park, there is no graffiti … but the SQ has a big territory to cover and they can’t be everywhere, ” Deit said.

“Vandalism affects a lot of departments [of the municipal administration] and the more people we have working together to address it, the better, and the more efficiently we can use the resources we have,” she said.

In a statement, the municipality noted that anyone who commits an act of vandalism in Sutton faces a fine of anywhere from $150 to $1,000 under the town’s peace, order and nuisance bylaw, and anyone who “willfully damages or destroys property” could be charged with mischief under the Criminal Code; if convicted, they face a prison term of two to 10 years and a criminal record.

People who notice graffiti on public property in Sutton are encouraged to report it using the online reporting tool. Graffiti on private property can be reported to local law enforcement at 450-310-4141.

By Ruby Pratka

Local journalism Initiative

Former Mont-Soleil Councillor and former deputy mayor Tatiana Contreras succeeded Louis Villeneuve as mayor of the city on May 12, becoming the second woman and the first person of colour to lead the town of 12,000 people.

Louis Villeneuve, mayor of the municipality since 2017, stepped down earlier this spring to run for Parliament; on April 28, he was elected MP for Brome-Missisquoi. With less than a year to go before the next municipal election – scheduled for Nov. 2 – the municipality had the option of scheduling a byelection or of having city councillors hold an internal vote to choose a mayor among themselves. Councillors chose the latter option, and Contreras was acclaimed mayor after previous acting mayor and Pierre-Laporte Councillor Nicolas Robillard decided not to throw his hat in the ring.

“It is with humility and in full collaboration with the city council that I accept this responsibility. Our shared goal is to ensure stability and to continue, together, to represent the Bromont community with sincerity and legitimacy. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Nicolas Robillard, who has led this transition with conviction,” said Contreras in the city’s official announcement.

“Given that I do not currently wish to run for mayor in November, contrary to Tatiana Contreras’ clear intentions, it seemed only right to give her ample opportunity to take over the mayoralty and flourish as mayor. My priority remains to contribute to the development of our city, in harmony with the people of the Pierre-Laporte district and my current commitments,” Robillard said.

Contreras is an entrepreneur who moved to Bromont in 2015 and fell in love with the town for its community spirit. She was first elected in 2021 and served two years as deputy mayor, which she said prepared her for serving as mayor and gave her a deeper understanding of key issues.

“I wanted to run because I thought it was the thing to do, to start working on the things I wanted to do,” Contreras told the BCN in a brief interview. “I’d like to ensure continuity and stability for our teams and for the citizens, and stick to the game plan that we started….to ensure a smooth transition.” She said Villeneuve left “big shoes to fill,” adding that the municipality was “lucky to have an MP who knows our local issues as well as he does.”

“The things that I have at heart are optimizing the citizen experience, preserving nature, keeping nature accessible and ensuring connectivity between neighbourhoods, and active transport is part of that vision,” Contreras said, adding that heritage preservation was also among her priorities. Responding to an opinion piece in La Voix de l’Est from a Bromont resident concerned about short, confrontational question periods at the town council, Contreras said she “had heard those concerns” and was open to suggestions.

“We’ve all heard those concerns and we can only improve; our goal is to address people’s worries,” she said.

Contreras added that her partner is anglophone, her children attend English school and she lives in a bilingual household. She said constituents are welcome to come to her with questions or concerns in English. “I don’t always know the technical terms …but people can talk to me in English, no problem.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Sutton has a new director general. Former assistant director general and director of legal affairs Jonathan Fortin was formally named to the position on May 8. Fortin succeeds Pascal Smith, who stepped down in April to take another job closer to where he lived.

Geneviève Bonnichon, named assistant director of legal affairs in January, succeeds Smith as clerk and director of legal affairs; the town is still seeking candidates for the position of assistant director general.

The town also named longtime public works co-ordinator Patrick Roy as public works foreman, and urban planning and land use planning advisor Harry Pressoir as interim director of urban planning during Claude Théberge’s leave of absence.

“We carried out a detailed evaluation of potential candidates for the position of director general, and the decision was unanimous,” Mayor Robert Benoit said in a statement. “Jonathan, whose administrative rigour we appreciate, is the best candidate for this strategic position. We are counting on him to ensure the continuity of good municipal management and staff stability. Geneviève will naturally take Jonathan’s place as head of the town clerk’s [office] and legal affairs department. As for Pat Roy, his new title of foreman simply recognizes the role he was already fulfilling, and Harry Pressoir is ideally suited to head up the urban and land use planning department during the prolonged absence of its current director, Claude Théberge.”

Fortin is a lawyer who began working for the municipality in 2019. He was named director of legal affairs in 2021 before being promoted to assistant director general in March 2022. He got the permanent job when Smith had an opportunity to work closer to home. “He lives in Montérégie, and he was spending two or three hours on the road every day to get to and from work,” Fortin explained. “We got along well, so that was kind of sad, but it’s understandable.” Smith’s departure reflects a major human resources challenge that Sutton and similar towns face – hiring qualified personnel who live close by. “We have the disadvantage of having the U.S. border on one side and mountains on another,” said Fortin, who lives in Cowansville. “The employees who work here ideally live in Sutton, but if not, we have to look toward Cowansville, Brome Lake, Bromont, Granby, Shefford, Waterloo…and even then you’re 30, 45 minutes away. So yes, it’s a challenge in terms of human resources.”

Fortin explained that his role and the role of his department is to put into practice the decisions made by elected councillors. “We need to move forward in support of [their] decisions. There’s an analysis process, and then we can say ‘Here’s our recommendation, and you can go to the left of it or the right of it or follow it down the middle, but whatever you decide, we’ll support you.’”

He told the BCN the biggest challenges his office is facing are to definitively solve the problem of piping water to the mountain sector, and to stabilize and manage the town’s growth. “We’ve been experiencing a residential and tourism boom over the last couple of years, and the pandemic exacerbated that. We could say Sutton is in a teenage phase – in transition from a small-town to a medium-size town – and with tourism and everything, we’re seeing how best we can manage, like any teenager, to live in our growing body with all of the emotions that come with that.”

“I would say priority number one is solving the water problem in the mountain sector, but as for priorities two, three, four and so on, we’ll leave that to the new council after the elections,” Fortin said, adding that he expects strategic planning and affordable housing to be near the top of the list.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The Town of Brome Lake (TOBL) plans to expropriate land from the Brome Lake Ducks (BLD) duck farm to build a new fire station, TOBL director general Gilbert Arel confirmed last week. The exact size, dimensions and location of the land to be expropriated will be determined after analysis by surveyors.

Arel explained that the town asked the farm’s owners as far back as 2016 if they were willing to sell land to the town for the fire hall; when the farm wasn’t willing to sell, the town planned to build the fire station on land it purchased adjacent to the community centre. However, he said changes to provincial regulations about building near wetlands made some of that land off limits.

Arel said there were “not a lot of options” in terms of possible locations for the fire station. “It needs to be big enough – 85,000 to 95,000 square feet – and it needs to be near the high-risk buildings downtown,” he told the BCN. “I proposed a few ideas, and [councillors] wanted me to make an offer to the duck farm. We started negotiating with them, but when we made an offer, they said they did not want to go that route anymore.” By that time, he said, the town had gotten a grant from the provincial government that required them to build the fire station within a certain time frame.

“For reasons that belong to them, they could not go ahead with the sale of that land. We said, ‘We understand, but we have the authority to go ahead with an expropriation.’ They said, ‘We understand.’ …  If we had known [BLD] was not interested in selling, we would have looked at other options. One of the reasons [we couldn’t] was because of the timing of the grant.”

Legally, the municipality has the right to expropriate most private land “for any municipal use,” including the expansion of water, sewage or road infrastructure or any work required by a municipal bylaw. The town is required to give BLD a formal notice of expropriation and submit a detailed plan for the expropriation to the provincial administrative court (Tribunal administratif du Québec; TAQ), and BLD is entitled to financial compensation. According to a description of the procedure on the Quebec government website, the TAQ “has exclusive jurisdiction to determine the compensation payable in the event of an expropriation.”

At the May 5 council meeting, a contract for just over $32,000 was awarded to Laboratoire Montérégie to conduct geotechnical studies on the site. At the time, a council representative described relations between the duck farm and the town as “excellent.” Councillor Louise Morin said she “felt bad” to expropriate land from the duck farm, but “they understand it, so it’s not a problem.”

“Unexpected and regrettable”

Angela Anderson is the general manager of Brome Lake Ducks. In an email exchange with the BCN, she said the company was not pleased with the situation, but did not want to get into a “he-said-she-said” spat with the town.

“Brome Lake Ducks has always maintained a professional and collaborative relationship with the Town of Brome Lake. As [Mayor Richard] Burcombe has stated previously, we have supported the town over the years, by donating land for the community center and the daycare. We fully support the town’s decision to build a new fire hall. […]  We also hold the utmost respect for the fire department and the dedicated individuals who serve as members of the TBL fire squad,” Anderson said. “That said, we were deeply disappointed by the town’s decision to proceed with the expropriation of our land for this project. Given our longstanding relationship and history of cooperation with the town, this course of action was unexpected and regrettable.”

She said BLD had initially been open to exploring the potential of selling the land to the town. However, by the time the town made an offer earlier this year, she said, “we had since reassessed our position and made the decision to retain the land. This was done to maintain greater operational flexibility—particularly the potential for future cultivation to help offset our feed costs. From our understanding during discussions with Mr. Arel and Mr. Burcombe, the town pursued multiple leads on different land opportunities and ultimately made the decision to expropriate our land due to time constraints and the risk of losing the grant. While we recognize the importance of making timely decisions to ensure the fire hall project moves forward, I want to be very clear that this does not mean we are pleased with the decision to expropriate our land.” 

She said BLD’s lawyers and the town’s lawyers were currently reviewing the file.

Arel said he expects the TAQ procedure to take three or four months, although the final negotiation of compensation could take a year or more.

The new fire hall is expected to cost between $10-12 million, with $4 million contributed by the provincial government and smaller amounts contributed by Brome Village and the town of West Bolton, which will share the fire hall. Calls for tenders will be sent out either before or shortly after the Nov. 2 elections. If all goes according to plan, he said construction should be completed by the end of 2026.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

English-speaking Quebecers everywhere in the province who need someone to talk to now have access to a toll-free 24-hour active listening helpline in their primary language.

Montreal-based helpline Tel-Aide has been offering bilingual, 24-hour active listening services in the Montreal area since 1971, although overnight service was suspended from 2022 through this spring due to staffing issues. 

Since May 1, through a $660,000 grant from the provincial government via the Secretariat for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, Tel-Aide has been able to bring back its overnight service and offer toll-free assistance in English to anyone who requests it.

Tel-Aide Montreal is the only bilingual active listening helpline in the province. Although callers from the regions have always been able to access English-language service by calling the Montreal call centre, the cost of a long-distance call was a deterrent for some people, explained Tel-Aide spokesperson Jennifer McMahon, herself a member of the anglophone community from Bromont.

“There are a few Tel-Aide centres in the province, but we’re the only one that offers service in English,” McMahon explained. “There are not many free active listening services in English in the province. There are crisis intervention or suicide prevention lines, but we are mostly there for active listening.”

She explained that active listening helplines exist for “people who are feeling lonely or overwhelmed or going through a rough patch” but who aren’t necessarily in crisis. The service is confidential and anonymous – callers can provide as much or as little personal information as they see fit.

“Loneliness is a huge issue in our society, and people don’t necessarily have emotional support when they’re struggling,” she said. “An active listener provides their full undivided attention, there’s no pressure, they respect your pace.” An active listener doesn’t actively propose solutions, but “asks open-ended questions to help the caller see what their options are, and helps people put words to what they’re experiencing.” If someone is in crisis or needs additional support, an active listener can refer them to locally available resources or transfer them to a crisis line.

“With this funding, we’re able to bring back 24-7 service, which is important, because at night, anxiety doesn’t stop. It can feel especially lonely,” McMahon said. “There are Canadian active listening helplines in English, but people there don’t necessarily understand Quebec. It’s hard for people in Quebec who are not fluent in French to get a listening ear. Now, our mission is expanding the service to the whole province because everyone deserves to be heard.”

Tel-Aide’s active listening service can be reached toll free at any time at 1-877-935-1101. To learn more about Tel-Aide or about becoming an active listener, visit telaidemontreal.org.   

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

On May 1, International Workers’ Day, Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet announced a minimum wage hike. As of the beginning of the month, minimum wage for untipped positions is $16.10 per hour, an increase of 35 cents. Minimum wage for tipped positions rises to $12.90, an increase of 30 cents.

According to the Ministry of Labour, the increase of 2.2 per cent will impact 217,400 Quebec workers, including over 118,000 women. “Thanks to this measure, these workers’ disposable income will increase by as much as $484 per year” for those working full time, a ministry statement said, adding that the new minimum wage is expected to be just over half of the average hourly wage.

However, anti-poverty groups say the increase, which amounts to an extra $40.30 per month, doesn’t go far enough to help low-wage workers struggling to deal with several years of inflation and record rent increases.

“For a lot of people, [$484 per year] probably doesn’t even cover their rent increase,” said Marie-Ève Godbout, co-director of Action Plus Brome-Missisquoi, a Cowansville-based nonprofit which advocates for the rights of social assistance recipients and low-wage workers. “This is the smallest increase in ten years, and it’s indecent to scale it up so little when we have a housing crisis and inflation. There are people working full time who can’t afford both food and housing.”

A person working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, with take-home pay of $16.10 per hour would earn $32,200 per year. According to a 2024 report from the Montreal-based Institut des recherches et informations socioéconomiques (IRIS), which compiles cost-of-living data around the province, a single, childless person with a car living in Bedford or Cowansville would need around $42,000 to pay for basic expenses, participate in society and put money aside for emergencies. In Bromont, that number is nearly $52,000. “It’s inconceivable that someone who works full time can’t live decently,” Godbout said. Action Plus advocates for a universal basic income, which Godbout said would reduce pressure on the health and legal systems as people took fewer risks to survive. “Poverty is expensive for society.”

Jean-Philippe Benjamin, co-coordinator of the Sherbrooke-based Table de concertation contre l’appauvrissement de l’Estrie (TACAE), said the increase “wouldn’t change a lot” for low-wage workers, many of whom work in the retail and service industries. He suggested boosting the solidarity tax credit and strengthening the social safety net alongside a minimum wage increase to better support low-wage workers.

Serge Petitclerc is the spokesperson for the Quebec City-based Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté (CPQSP), of which the TACAE is a member. “The previous minimum wage of $15.75 wasn’t enough to allow people to work their way out of poverty,” he said. “We can add 35 cents, but still, that’s $4.50 a week … the rent increase will eat that right up.” In January, the province’s housing tribunal estimated that rents would rise about 6.5 per cent, or $65 per month ($16.25 per week) for a person paying $1000 per month in 2024.

“Twenty per cent of people seeking help at food banks are working people, and with such a small salary increase, you’ll have more workers turning to food banks because rent is too high and salaries aren’t high enough,” he predicted.

Petitclerc noted that some people stay in minimum-wage jobs or low-wage jobs their whole careers, while others take part-time low-wage work to fit around their studies or other responsibilities. He argued for a higher minimum wage which would allow low-wage workers “not just to pay rent and eat, but to have a dignified life, which means having recreational activities, going out to eat from time to time, going camping for a week in the summer.”

He said a decent hourly wage would be closer to $28 per hour. “We won’t get there in a year, but these are things that can be planned over time – say, raise it to $18, then $20, then $22 and so on; that’s sensible long-term planning.”

“We’re close to a recession, mainly because of what’s going on with our southern neighbours, but we’re not really talking about the social safety net; we’re hearing a lot about tax cuts which will mainly benefit people who are relatively well off,” said Benjamin, the TACAE representative. “We’re definitely worried about this discourse.” 

The Conseil du patronat du Québec, which represents the province’s major employers, did not immediately comment on the increase.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Education Minister Bernard Drainville announced a new plan to improve school safety and the working environment in schools on May 1. Under the plan, students in public and private schools in the youth sector will no longer be allowed to use cell phones, headphones or other personal mobile devices on school property as of September 2025. Students will be required to call teachers “sir” and “miss,” use the formal vous when addressing them in French, and use “marks of politeness” with classmates and school staff. Language on gender equality will also be added to the updated codes of conduct in schools, which will be in force as of January 2026. Students who violate the code of conduct may be required to take “reparatory” action, such as writing an apology letter or doing chores around school. 

Additionally, Drainville said the ministry plans to have “SWAT teams,” mainly made up of retired educators, on call to help schools address systemic behavioural or cultural issues.

“As minister of education, and as a father, I have the responsibility to act so that our kids and the adults who accompany them have the right to an environment where they feel safe,” he said at a press conference at École secondaire de Rochebelle in Quebec City.

He said the plan was part of the government’s ongoing response to violence in schools and to cyberbullying, a “preventive” anti-bullying strategy which will contribute to “creating a culture of respect and civility.” He noted that several of the proposals in the strategy had been put forward by the recent parliamentary commission on the impact of screens on youth or by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) youth commission. He mentioned that as many as 400 schools in Quebec have some form of a cell phone ban in place.

Drainville said the ministry intended to “leave latitude” to individual schools to enforce the code in ways that worked for them, to enforce the phone ban, ensure students could communicate with their parents in an emergency, manage exceptions for those who need their phones for medical, pedagogical or family reasons, and promote the plan to parents. “Parents need to actively collaborate with school staff to support the application of the code of conduct,” he said.

Sophie Veilleux is a longtime teacher who is now president of the Syndicat d’enseignement de la Haute-Yamaska (SEHY), which represents teachers at French-language schools in the Centre des services scolaire de Val-des-Cerfs (CSSVDC) service area. She said that as far as she knew, teachers had not been consulted while the policy was being developed. “What I deplore is that this kind of thing should be discussed in schools, not imposed,” she told the BCN. “Yes, there are incivility issues and bullying issues, but a lot of students who act out are calling for help, so why don’t we put our energy into providing services [for those children]?”

Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB) board chair Michael Murray said the minister’s strategy was “not an ideal approach.”

“It downloads all of the responsibility onto the schools,” he said. “We can’t frisk the students coming into school, and we don’t want to be like some schools in New York City where they have metal detectors at the entrance,” he said. “We expect parents will object, because they like to stay in touch with their students during the day.”

Murray said he was concerned that enforcing the policy to the letter would place an additional burden on school staff. “Who is going to supervise a student who has been told to clean up litter – do we have to have an employee following the student?” He also expressed skepticism over the minister’s “SWAT team” proposal, pointing out that a call for retirees to fill teaching jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic “didn’t receive a great response.”

“These are musings by someone who is unfamiliar with the school system – well-meaning, but ultimately impractical,” he concluded.

Government boosts francisation funding

In a separate announcement last week, Drainville said the government would invest $119.3 million to fund subsidized French language courses for adults, known as francisation, offered by school boards and service centres over the course of the 2025-26 school year. The previous year’s francisation budget was $114.4 million, including $10 million in emergency top-up funding added in December.

Last year, several boards and service centres around the province, including the ETSB and CSSVDC, were forced to shut down their entire adult francisation programs after government funding – pro-rated according to student numbers from three years prior – turned out to be insufficient to meet vastly increased demand. The ETSB’s adult education division heavily promoted the program ahead of the 2024-2025 school year, only to have to shut it down in late November.

Murray said the ETSB expected to be able to reopen some classes with increased funding from the education ministry – “not on the scale of what we had before.”  He said it was too early to tell how many classes would open and where they would be located, although the board is actively recruiting teachers. “The location will depend on funding and where the students are. Adult education is year round, so we start the classes as soon as we have the mechanics together – the budget, the teachers and the students – and we continue until we run out of either funding or students,” he said.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

By this fall, Wilson Park in Farnham will host a memorial to the Japanese-Canadian internment camp survivors who were sent there in the years following the Second World War. The Quebec chapter of the National Association of Japanese Canadians recently received a grant from the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) to organize an opening ceremony for the memorial, which they hope will take place this fall. 

Montreal-based theatre artist Julie Tamiko Manning, the grandchild of survivors who was born in Cowansville and grew up in Farnham, has been working with the municipality for the past year and a half on the design of the project. “We are going back and forth with the municipality about what they can maintain, but we’re hoping to have it done by the end of the summer.”

Manning said the memorial will feature a Japanese-style rock garden designed by Montreal-based artist Stephen Kawai, also the descendent of survivors, a bench for contemplation and a tree – most likely a crabapple tree. Manning explained that the crabapple tree is a symbol of resilience for survivors and their families. “Cherry trees wouldn’t grow in this climate, so families planted crabapple trees instead, because they also flowered beautifully in the springtime. There are still cherry trees on my parents’ property in Farnham.”

Manning’s grandparents were among the 22,000 Japanese Canadians, mostly living in British Columbia, who were sent to internment camps during the Second World War. In 1946, they were allowed to leave, given the choice between returning to war-ravaged Japan or being resettled east of the Rockies. (Japanese Canadians’ right to free movement within Canada wasn’t restored until 1949.)

Her grandparents left the camp later than many other families because her grandmother had just given birth. “My assumption is that my family would have gone elsewhere, but because they left the camp so late, a lot of cities weren’t accepting Japanese-Canadian [ex-internees] anymore,” Manning previously told the BCN. “Farnham is where people were sent who didn’t have family or sponsors or a job offer in Montreal.” Eleven families settled in Farnham, although once freedom of movement was restored, most left for Montreal or other parts of the country. “We would love to bring families back for the opening ceremony,” she said.

The project has received support from QAHN, the municipality of Farnham and the Japanese Canadian Legacy Society. The project is “about having something for community members to feel seen and remembered, and about telling the story more broadly,” said Sara Hanako Breitkreutz, manager of the Farnham Nikkei Memorial project at the NAJC Quebec chapter. “Other Japanese Canadians don’t necessarily know about this side of the story, let alone the broader Québécois population.” She added that the organization recognizes that the dispossession of Japanese Canadians happened on land that had already been stolen from Indigenous Peoples. “That’s another connection we want to make, both with the history of colonialism and the ongoing impact on Indigenous Peoples.”

“What jumped out at me about Farnham was that so many people, myself included, do not realize there was a Japanese-Canadian history in Farnham,” said Julie Miller, project co-ordinator of the SHARE (Supporting Heritage Awareness, Recognition and Engagement) grant program, administered by QAHN and funded by Canadian Heritage. “I think people are generally aware of what happened if they are placed in camps but many people aren’t aware that they were relocated as far as Quebec. It’s an important story.”

The Farnham Nikkei Memorial Project was one of ten living history projects across the province that received SHARE grant funding, and one of two in Estrie, along with The Hut in Lennoxville.

 Submissions are open for the second round of SHARE grants administered by QAHN. If you represent an organization and have questions about the grant, contact Julie Miller (julie@qahn.org). For more information on the Farnham Nikkei Memorial, or if you have relatives who were resettled in Farnham after the Second World War, contact Sara Hanako Breitkreutz at NAJCQuebec@gmail.com.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A new bus service is expected to be up and running between Cowansville, Bromont, Granby, Saint-Alphonse-de-Granby and East Farnham by the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year.

The future Circuit Brome-Yamaska is a one-year pilot project developed by the MRCs of Brome-Missisquoi and Haute-Yamaska, financed by the Quebec government’s Fonds Régions et Ruralité. It responds to longstanding demand from transit riders for service between the two MRCs.

Buses will run on a single circular route between the five municipalities; the service schedule, ticket prices, ways to buy tickets and exact location of the stops are yet to be determined, although the service is being developed with students at the Campus Brome-Missisquoi and Cégep de Granby, commuters and patients and staff at local health facilities in mind. A call for tenders is expected to be launched in the next few weeks to find a bus service provider. Once the bus service has begun, the route and schedule may be adjusted to better adapt to how people are using the service.

“This has taken many years of work, but we are extremely pleased to have officially ratified this important inter-MRC agreement. In Haute-Yamaska, we are convinced that improving the regional public transit offering is a key element in achieving a more carbon-neutral region, in addition to being an essential service for our communities,” said Paul Sarrazin, prefect of the MRC of Haute-Yamaska.

Sarrazin said the two MRCs had been working together for several years on resource-sharing agreements before hitting on the idea of a shared transit service. “For the last several years, we have been working more and more closely, and we said, ‘Why can’t we work together on this?’,” Sarrazin said. “The [jurisdictional] obstacles were easily avoided because there was a lot of good will. We want to provide alternatives to solo car use.”

Sarrazin and MRC Brome-Missisquoi transport co-ordinator Khalil El Fatmi said the pilot project wouldn’t replace any existing transit services in the two municipalities, and that it would be co-ordinated as much as possible to allow riders to transfer between services – for example, to use the existing Haute-Yamaska bus service to travel from Waterloo to Granby and then the new Circuit service to go on to Cowansville. “A transport service succeeds or fails because of how easy to use it is, and we want to make it an interesting experience,” Sarrazin said. He said officials don’t have a specific ridership target in mind, but they “hope the demand will be there.”

“We want it to be operational for back-to-school in September, and we’ll give you more details before then,” said Sarrazin. “Things will move quickly over the next few months.”

MRC promotes local carpooling partnership

In other shared transportation news, the MRC of Brome-Missisquoi announced last week that it is rolling out a new carpooling service in partnership with the established online carpool reservation service Amigo Express, the Table des MRC de l’Estrie and several major employers.  The service uses a mobile booking platform called Amigo Local to book rides and let other users know they’re looking for rides. “Thanks to this partnership, Brome-Missisquoi residents will now have access to a user-friendly and secure platform to organize their travel within the MRC and throughout the Estrie region. This local carpooling service is designed to meet everyday mobility needs while promoting an eco-responsible and community-based approach,” El Fatmi said. “This new service complements our current services and aims to expand the options available to everyone, particularly in underserved areas or during off-peak hours.”

Amigo Express founder Marc-Olivier Vachon explained that Amigo Local is “more informal” than the Amigo Express long-distance platform. “It’s about seeing who uses the same route as you do, developing a bank of contacts and chatting with them to co-ordinate. You determine the price and the payment method between yourselves; maybe you want to rotate drivers. Amigo Express doesn’t do the coordination, but our customer service line will be available if there’s a problem.” Signing up for the platform is free.

Although Estrie is the only region to date where Amigo Local is being promoted in partnership with municipalities and major employers, the platform can be used anywhere in Canada. “We have people who use it in Baie-Comeau and in Sept-Iles,” said Vachon.

Vachon said clear communication is key for a fun, safe and simple carpooling experience. “Carpooling is more than just going from a to b … be open-minded and don’t be afraid to start a conversation,” he said. To learn more about Amigo Local, email info@amigoexpress.com or call the Amigo Express customer service line at 1 (877) 264-4697.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The leaders of Canada’s four main political parties held two wide-ranging debates this past weekend at the Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal. The French-language debate on April 16 was moderated by Radio-Canada anchor Patrice Roy and the English debate the next evening by Steve Paikin, host of TVO’s The Agenda.

The French-language debate was overshadowed by several controversies. Less than 24 hours before the debate, it was rescheduled to avoid a potential overlap with the end of a Montreal Canadiens game; the morning of the debate, Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault was ruled ineligible to participate because Elections Canada had not confirmed a sufficient number of Green candidates. The post-debate press conference attracted nationwide attention when several right-wing outlets asked contentious questions and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh declined to answer; the following day’s conference was cancelled after two arguments between reporters in the press room, leading Michel Cormier, the director general of the Leaders’ Debates’ Commission, to say the commission “could not ensure a propitious environment” for it.

It was centered around five themes – cost of living, energy and climate, trade war, identity and sovereignty, and immigration. All four leaders linked the themes to their respective agendas. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised to cut taxes by 15 per cent, eliminate federal sales tax on new homes and reduce regulations to speed the building of houses and resource extraction projects such as mines, and linked Carney’s proposals to those of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet emphasized Quebec’s resource-based economy and cultural and linguistic distinctions; Liberal Leader and frontrunner Mark Carney emphasized the importance of crisis management and the necessity of countertariffs. Singh repeatedly brought up the health system (which Blanchet emphasized was under provincial jurisdiction) and emphasized the NDP’s role in creating the federal dental care program. Carney pledged to reduce taxes for the middle class but defended his decision to walk back a capital gains tax increase.

The trade war segment led to animated discussion. All of the leaders pledged to maintain supply management in the dairy sector, the French language and Canadian sovereignty, and build more homes.

They all weighed in on Quebec City’s tramway and the proposed “third link” between Quebec City and Lévis.  “Quebec City wants a tramway, the Quebec government wants a tramway, the federal government’s responsibility is to send them the money,” Blanchet said. Singh said the NDP supported the tramway but not the third link; Poilievre backed the third link but not the tramway, accusing his rivals of wanting to “ban cars.” Carney said the federal government would continue to support the tramway, but he couldn’t commit to supporting the third link because he hadn’t seen the project yet.

Issues affecting Indigenous people and linguistic minorities were almost entirely off the agenda, except for Poilievre’s defence of Radio-Canada as a crucial link for francophone minority communities. (He defended his plan to defund CBC and made no mention of Indigenous broadcasting.)

The English debate was centred around public safety, the cost of living, energy, crisis management and “tariffs and threats to Canada.” The four leaders agreed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies posed a threat to the country, and both Carney and Poilievre said they supported countertariffs, although not necessarily dollar-for-dollar tariffs. Poilievre criticized the previous Liberal government for weakening the economy and making it more difficult to build pipelines which he argued were essential for the country’s energy independence. Singh criticized the short-lived Carney government for walking back the capital gains tax increase while failing to increase EI. Blanchet argued that Carney’s and Poilievre’s plans for reducing red tape around pipelines and other energy sovereignty projects overrode provincial jurisdiction.

Poilievre and Singh criticized the Liberals for the cost-of-living crisis. “Only 10 years ago, you could buy a house for $450,000, but in the lost Liberal decade, housing costs have doubled,” the Conservative leader said, saying a Conservative government would build houses on federal land and train thousands of tradespeople. His NDP counterpart suggested putting price controls on grocery staples and banning corporate landlords from buying affordable rental housing units.

International affairs were also on the agenda, with Singh calling the conflict in Gaza a genocide, Carney calling for an immediate ceasefire and a resumption of aid, and Poilievre coming out in support of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. 

Toward the end of the debate, candidates discussed gun control, crime and the notwithstanding clause. Poilievre said his government would use the notwithstanding clause to enact tough-on-crime policies. “In fact, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms exists to protect Canadians from people like us on the stage, politicians who may use their power to override fundamental rights,” Carney argued, before the four leaders made their final pitch to voters.

The full debate can be watched on the CBC website. Advance polls began over the weekend; the final day of voting is April 28.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Councillors in the town of Brome Lake have passed a resolution supporting a southern route for the main transmission line of the new Brome substation.

Although the exact location of the substation itself hasn’t been determined, two routes are under consideration for the transmission line – the “southern line” which would begin in Cowansville and the “northern line” which would begin in Brigham.

“The southern line is currently privileged by Hydro-Québec for economic and technical reasons, [and] it’s also privileged by the Town of Brome Lake, given that it presents the least negative impact on bucolic landscapes and the interests of the Town of Brome Lake,” the resolution reads.

Councillors unanimously resolved to inform Hydro-Québec that the town prefers the southern route, and to send a copy of the resolution to the MRC Brome-Missisquoi, to neighbouring municipalities and to MNA Isabelle Charest.

Choosing the southern route is the “better thing to do financially and environmentally,” Brome Lake mayor Richard Burcombe told the BCN. “The distance of the southern line will be six or seven kilometres shorter than the northern one, and why pass through that beautiful land to the north, virgin forest? The southern route is down lower, the [transmission line] will be better hidden.”

He noted that the area under study for the placement of the substation has been enlarged and now includes some land on the opposite side of Route 139. “If it’s possible to have the [substation] on the western side of that [zone] it would make the transmission line even shorter, so that would be the best option.”

Burcombe referenced a resolution passed earlier this month by the town of Sutton, calling on Hydro-Québec to consider alternative locations and modalities for the substation. A Hydro-Québec representative later told the BCN that the utility was considering some of Sutton’s proposals, including adding new batteries or capacitor banks, but that others – such as adding an additional transformer or additional lines – would leave a larger construction footprint than originally planned. “I don’t want to talk about what another municipality did, but I can’t argue with engineers,” Burcombe said. “If we’re going to do something, we should do it right for the next 70 years.”

The exact location of the substation is currently up for debate. Burcombe, Sutton Mayor Robert Benoit and Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard have all expressed reservations about a site under consideration in Sutton Junction. According to a timeline on Hydro-Québec’s website, details of the “optimized” project should be announced this fall. Construction is expected to begin in 2027, and the new substation should start providing electricity to Sutton and the surrounding area in 2028. Hydro-Québec representatives were not immediately available to comment over Easter weekend.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The city of Bromont is developing a new public participation policy in partnership with the Institut du Nouveau Monde (INM), and teens will have a front-row seat, city officials announced last week.

“Bromont residents have a strong sense of civic engagement, and this is a real asset for our community. This is why, along with the members of the council, we want to work to foster this proud civic participation by recognizing it in our policies. We will take advantage of this public exercise to collectively reflect on optimizing our methods of dialogue, which we hope will be constructive and ongoing,” acting deputy mayor Tatiana Contreras said in a statement.

A nonpartisan ad hoc committee formed of elected officials (Mont-Brome Councillor Michel Bilodeau and Adamsville Councillor Jocelyne Corbeil), city employees (Ève Panneton, head of the department of culture and community life, and public affairs assistant Audrey Leboeuf), one representative of the INM (former Bromont resident Marianik Gagnon), representatives of community organizations and four citizens in a personal capacity (to be named later) will be formed this month and tasked with developing the policy. Applications are open until April 27, and two of the four citizen spots on the committee will be reserved for 16- and 17-year-olds.

Leboeuf is the spokesperson for the public participation policy initiative. She said the initiative has been on the table since 2023 as part of Bromont’s ten-year strategic plan. She explained that there are three ways of participating in public life in your community – voting, social participation (getting involved with a community organization, school or local social movement) or public participation (taking part in a participative budget process, urban planning consultation or similar event).  “We want to favour public participation and we don’t have a structure for it,” she said. “We want to see how people would like to be consulted, and that’s something we will see with the ad hoc committee.”

Leboeuf, a former employee of the Val-des-Cerfs school service centre, said she and Corbeil, a retired teacher, had pushed especially hard to make sure teens were consulted. “Young people are the citizens of tomorrow, and we want to make sure we have a constructive dialogue with them,” Leboeuf said. “They inform themselves differently and they participate in society differently. They are the spokespeople of their generation, and if we want to get their interest, we should give them the mic.”

“It was very important for us to involve young people from the very beginning of the process. We want to demonstrate our willingness to welcome their ideas and dreams regarding the implementation of this policy,” said Corbeil.

Leboeuf added that the policy was inspired by similar initiatives in Sherbrooke and in several towns in France. “We’re trying to take the best of what has been done elsewhere and adapt it to the issues that are unique to us and our region. Bromonters are really involved with their city, their community and their social fabric. We want to increase and optimize that involvement…to optimize the processes in place.”

The members of the ad hoc committee will be formally named at the May 5 council meeting. As part of the process, elected officials and city employees will be trained on how to facilitate public participation, and residents of all ages will be able to present their own ideas about public consultation at a forum in late May. Leboeuf didn’t want to speculate about the ideas that would come out of the committee meetings or the forum. “I don’t want to speak for residents; let’s give them the microphone instead.”

The final public participation policy, developed with input from the committee and the public forum, will be adopted by councillors in August or September. 

Those who are interested in serving on the committee can apply online at bromont.net or pick up a paper application package at City Hall or at the Bromont Community Centre.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Brome Lake residents who own boats will not have to pay an additional fee to take their boats out on the town’s eponymous lake this summer, town officials have confirmed. A bylaw to that effect was passed at the April 7 council meeting.

Residents must register their boats and get a vignette to benefit from free access. Residents with vignettes will also be able to wash their boats at the municipal boat-washing station for free.

“Vignettes will be free for residents, and residents will have the moral obligation to make sure their boat is clean before using it on the lake,” director general Gilbert Arel said in a video recap of the council meeting. Arel said further information about how to obtain a vignette and how to use the new boat-washing station will be shared later. “I know we’re already in April, but there are still a few things to be worked out, and we invite you to keep an eye on communications from the town. It’s no use coming to get your vignette at the town hall right now because [the vignettes] are not available yet.”

Non-residents will be able to purchase a vignette allowing access for $100.

At the boat-washing station, non-residents or residents without a vignette will pay $20 to wash a motorboat or $5 to wash a non-motorized boat. Non-resident boat owners who use the station regularly and don’t want the inconvenience of paying separately for each washing can buy a season pass for $200.

“Everything is free for Brome Lake residents,” Mayor Richard Burcombe told the BCN. “That was what was changed in the bylaw. The fact is, we heard what people were saying and we decided to make it free of charge for residents if they stay on Brome Lake, and that’s what most of them will do.”

Non-resident users and residents without vignettes must get a washing certificate before taking their boat out on the lake or face a fine. Although washing certificates are not required for residents with vignettes, Burcombe strongly encouraged boat owners to have their boats washed before taking them out on the lake, to prevent the spread of invasive species such as zebra mussels. “I don’t believe we’ve detected any zebra mussels here yet, but there are a lot of boats that come in and use the access points for non-residents … and it’s good to keep invasive species out.”

The same bylaw also made parking free for all Brome Lake residents “in all parking spaces located on the territory of the town of Brome Lake or held by the town,” on the condition that the parked car or truck is registered with the municipality. There is a $5 registration fee. Non-residents using the same parking spaces will pay $6 to park for a maximum of two hours or $20 for a day pass valid until midnight.

Courtesy

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

New Democratic Party organizers in Brome-Missisquoi are breathing a sigh of relief after successfully recruiting a new candidate with just days to go before the registration deadline. The previous candidate, Magog-based artist Joanne Brouard, pulled out shortly before the April 7 deadline for personal reasons. Zoé Larose will now run for the NDP in the riding.

According to Elections Canada, candidates must submit a nomination package including a personal information form, proof of identity, a statement of support signed by 100 voters from the candidate’s riding, signed declarations from a campaign agent, auditor and delegate and a statement of endorsement from their party (unless running as an independent). The deadline to submit these documents was 2 p.m. on April 7; candidates who missed the deadline could not appear on the ballot.

Larose does not have a biography on the NDP website and attempts to get in touch with her through the party and on social media have so far been unsuccessful.

NDP press attaché Olivier Clavet said such situations, where the party had to replace a candidate at the eleventh hour, were unusual but not unheard of. “It’s happened one or two times out of all the candidates we’ve recruited,” he said. “We did have to get all of the signatures again.”

The NDP is polling a distant fourth in Brome-Missisquoi, according to poll aggregator Canada338. The riding last elected an NDP MP in 2011, when “Orange Waver” Pierre Jacob won the riding. Brome-Missisquoi has had Liberal MPs since 2015.

The aggregator estimates that the Liberals, with 47 per cent support, have a greater than 99 per cent likelihood of holding on to the seat left vacant by Pascale St-Onge. The Conservatives are polling second in the riding at 23 per cent, followed closely by the Bloc Québécois at 21 per cent. The NDP and the Green Party have four and three per cent support respectively. Bromont Mayor Louis Villeneuve is running for the Liberals, former CFL player Steve Charbonneau for the Conservatives, actor Jeff Boudreault for the Bloc Québécois, Larose for the NDP, acupuncturist and activist Michelle Corcos for the Green Party and entrepreneur Jack McLeod for the People’s Party of Canada.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

For his 30th birthday last year, Farnhamite Gabriel Laguë invited 400 of his closest friends and neighbours to a party at Microbrasserie Farnham, and booked five local bands.

“When I was 18, I went backpacking with a friend and told him I wanted to make a music festival. It was an old dream. When I turned 30, I thought, why not do it?”

He enjoyed the birthday party-slash-festival so much that he decided to make it an annual tradition. The first official edition of the Festival Belle Banlieue is planned for Sept. 26-27 at the Microbrasserie. Eclectic Quebec folk singer-songwriter Bernard Adamus will headline the festival, alongside the festive country band Tailgate Radio and six yet-to-be-named local acts from around the Townships. The full program will be released April 30.

Laguë, a serving army nurse and former volunteer at Soif de Musique in Cowansville, has been working on the festival on evenings, on weekends and on his vacation days. He said he was motivated by the enthusiasm of Farnhamites for his original idea. “Everyone knows everyone in Farnham, and whenever something is going on, people show up,” he said. “We don’t have a festival in Farnham. I want to create an opportunity for people in Farnham to get to go to a real festival without going to a big city. In Farnham, we have great artists, great local businesses, great beer… there’s no reason we can’t do it!”

Mayor Patrick Melchior and town employees were among the guests at Laguë’s original shindig. “I wanted to show them what we could do with a small budget,” Laguë said. For this year’s festival, the town has provided a grant of $5,000, and the Microbrasserie Farnham will provide staff to sell food and drinks. The rest will be managed by Laguë, with help from his longtime friend and Soif de Musique cofounder Edouard Lagacé, in an advisory role; a technical director; and a security team made up of Laguë’s friends. They have also found a few local corporate sponsors and are eager for other local businesses to get involved “in some way that highlights their strengths.”

“The goal is for it to be festive and fun, with no misbehaviour, for everyone to have a good time, to get the party started,” he said. “It’s a first attempt, and I know there will be some kinks to work out. Financially, our goal is to break even…and potentially do something bigger for the town’s 150th birthday next year.” 

He added that the name “Belle Banlieue” (which translates to “beautiful suburb”) is “both a nod to and a declaration of love for our reality. Farnham is often seen as just a suburb, but it has a strong identity, a vibrant culture and a close-knit community. We wanted to reclaim this pride and show that the suburbs are beautiful, festive and creative.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A week after the town of Sutton passed a resolution formally calling for Hydro-Québec to consider alternatives for the Brome substation, Hydro-Québec says it is “evaluating” some of the proposals, but others appear technically infeasible.

The Brome substation, which is expected to be built in 2027, will replace the existing Sutton and Knowlton substations and provide electricity to Sutton, Brome Lake and Cowansville. Hydro-Québec intends to build the substation on rural land near the boundaries of Brome Lake, Brome village and Sutton. Earlier this year, the mayors of Sutton, Cowansville and Brome Lake expressed concerns about the proposed location, asking Hydro-Québec to consider alternate locations. “The three municipalities agree that Hydro-Québec’s current proposed site targets a particularly bucolic area where the presence of this substation, much larger than the previous ones, and new towers up to 45 metres high, risk disfiguring a landscape that makes our region so attractive,” according to a statement released in February by the town of Sutton.

On April 2, Sutton councillors passed a resolution asking the utility to look into alternatives to building a new substation, including adding new transformers, batteries or capacitor banks to existing substations; building additional 49-kV or 69-kV lines and increasing investment in solar energy.

Hydro-Québec regional affairs advisor Ève-Marie Jodoin said the utility was looking into the idea of adding new batteries or capacitor banks, although the other solutions proposed by councillors did not seem feasible from Hydro’s perspective.

“When we have space, it’s possible to add new transformers, but even if we have space, it’s not necessarily the best solution in the long term,” she said. “Adding a transformer would need to be part of a scenario that would include other kinds of construction, and we can’t really address that at this stage.” Creating additional 49-kV or 69-kV lines, at a time when Hydro is transitioning from the century-old 49-kV network to a 120-kV network, would “have an even bigger footprint” in terms of construction than the proposed substation.

Solar energy, “cannot replace the scenario we have proposed,” Jodoin said. “Is it something we can do complementarily? Certainly, but not on its own – it takes up a lot of space, we would have to find a place to put [the panels], and it’s hard to have [year-round] in Quebec for climatic reasons.”

Jodoin described Hydro-Québec’s working relationship with municipalities in the area and with the MRC Brome-Missisquoi as “very good,” and said Hydro representatives planned to meet with the Town of Sutton in the coming weeks. She said Hydro intends to finalize the location of the substation and the associated transmission lines by the end of this year. “Hydro-Québec will make that decision … We are the ones responsible for finding the location that will have the least social, economic, environmental and agricultural impact in terms of what we have heard from citizens.”

Sutton Mayor Robert Benoit said in a brief email exchange that no dates had been set for additional meetings between Hydro and the municipality as of this writing.

Jodoin added that citizens who would like to share their concerns and haven’t been able to do so at previous consultations should be able to do so via the Hydro-Québec website, in French or English, at least until the end of April. 

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Quebec’s English-language school boards and education advocates are in a celebratory mood after the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in their favour in a long-running court battle with the provincial government.

In February 2020, the Legault government passed Bill 40, which replaced elected school boards with service centres overseen by government-appointed directors general and unelected volunteer boards. At the time, the bill’s backers argued that it would increase the efficiency of governance in the educational system and remove the need for costly school board elections that relatively few people bothered to vote in. The Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) and its member boards, however, saw an attempt to remove English-speaking communities’ control over minority-language education as laid out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Several months after the bill passed, a court suspended its application to English-language school boards while a legal challenge, brought by QESBA, Montreal’s Lester B. Pearson School Board and a concerned parent, made its way through the courts. In August 2023, Superior Court Judge Sylvain Lussier struck down large parts of the law as it applied to English boards, in line with QESBA’s argument that the law unjustifiably limited the charter rights of official language minority communities. In September of that year, the government appealed the ruling.

In a ruling handed down April 3, appeals court judges Robert M. Mainville, Christine Baudouin and Judith Harvie essentially upheld Lussier’s conclusion, finding large parts of the bill inoperative with respect to English-language boards. The judges found that the school board governance scheme set out in Bill 40, infringed on the community’s right to control its education system and disincentivized parents and community members from getting involved. The community is “entitled to independent school boards that must, at a minimum, allow minority language representatives to exercise exclusive authority relating to minority-language education and facilities,” they wrote, in a ruling that extensively cited previous rulings involving francophone school districts in other parts of Canada. “The Court cannot accept the argument that the linguistic minority is represented through the staff hired by a service centre.” They also found that Bill 40 “radically alters existing structures…in response to political imperatives specific to the French-speaking majority” and the government failed to show, in its appeal, how the new system would help schools obtain educational objectives.

QESBA president Joe Ortona said the school boards “could not have asked for a better ruling.”

“We have been functioning since 2020 as if Bill 40 did not exist, and we plan to continue functioning that way, since the provisions we challenged continue not to apply for us,” he said. “We have local elected representatives who are accountable to the English-speaking community and that is how it should be. Our Section 23 rights matter.”

Eva Ludvig is the president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), which was granted intervenor status in the case.  “The QCGN had reminded the court that although Quebec has broad authority over education, that authority is not limitless,” she said in a statement on the day of the ruling. “If a law interferes with minority-language rights, the burden is on the province to justify it… and that is a high bar to meet. This is why today’s ruling is such a landmark win for our community.”

English Parents’ Committee Association president Katherine Korakakis said the ruling was a “historic victory, not just for parents, but for every member of our community who believes in shaping our children’s future.” Eastern Townships School Board chairperson Michael Murray said the ruling was “very satisfying,” particularly because it imposed a broad definition of the English-speaking community.

He added that the five-year-long legal battle “has been a huge distraction from our primary mission, which is to educate anglophone youth – the energy and the money we have spent to arrive at the same place where we were before the government began imposing Bill 40.  The government is within its rights to make changes where the majority community wants and supports them, but the minority community has protected rights, meaning it should not apply ipso facto to us.”

The Quebec government has 60 days to decide whether to ask the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal. Murray and Ortona said they hoped the government would decide to meet with school board representatives to plan a way forward instead of appealing. “The two-speed system which has been in place since Bill 40 has been working pretty well,” Murray said. “That would be a starting point for discussions … it would be an enormous relief for us to have this succession of legal battles terminated so we can get back to the basics of operating our schools.”

The Quebec government has 60 days from the date of the ruling to apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the ruling “out of respect for the judicial process.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The federal election campaign is heating up in the riding of Shefford, which includes Granby, Waterloo, most of the MRCs of Rouville and Haute-Yamaska and the southwestern section of Val-Saint-François.

Until mid-March, polls suggested that Bloc Québécois incumbent Andréanne Larouche would retain her seat without much difficulty, but the momentum has shifted toward the Liberals in recent weeks, with 338Canada showing the seat as “LPC likely” as of this writing. Polls show the Liberals at 43 per cent, the Bloc at 32 per cent, the Conservatives at 17 per cent and the NDP at three per cent. A Liberal stronghold for much of the 20th century, the riding has alternated between Liberal and Bloc MPs since 1979, although it briefly swung Conservative from 1997-2000 and NDP from 2011-2015.

In alphabetical order, the candidates are Félix Dionne of the Liberals, Patrick Jasmin of the NDP, Larouche for the Bloc, Susanne Lefebvre of the People’s Party of Canada, James Seale of the Conservatives and Audrey-Ann Turcotte-Brochu of the Green Party.

Dionne, who stepped aside from his Granby city council seat to run for the Liberals, is an engineer who grew up in Shefford and worked for ten years for the federal government, mainly for Industry Canada. He moved back to Shefford to help his father and brother run a network of Tim Hortons franchises. Going to community events led him to take an interest in politics and run for city council, where he was given responsibility for commercial and tourism development. “As a civil servant I saw how we could develop programs, and as a business owner, I used the programs,” he said. “I’m very pragmatic, less attached to symbols and more to results. I want to see what we can get for Shefford, to use every program, every opportunity to make sure we don’t leave money on the table.”

“I worked on economic development, housing and infrastructure on city council, and those are the biggest issues in Shefford,” he said. “The other issue is our southern neighbour, the danger that’s stalking us… we have a lot of companies who have cross-border [operations] and we need to protect jobs. We also have a lot of farmers and agricultural communities. Mr. [François-Philippe] Champagne announced the party’s agricultural platform in Shefford, and I was proud that they came here. We explained our commitment to protect supply management.”

Dionne is a self-described centrist who said he believed Liberal leader Mark Carney was “the man of the moment” to “recenter” the party and defend Canadian interests amid the trade war with the United States.

Dionne said he was bilingual but learned English as an adult working in Ottawa; since coming back to Quebec, he hasn’t needed the language as much. “Some people have asked if I’ll do English campaign videos, and they’re right to ask – it’s my job to communicate with [anglophones] and I need to hurry up because it’s a short campaign.”

Jasmin is a communications professional and former paramedic who has lived in Shefford since 2019; he is running for the NDP in the riding for the second time. His mother’s family is anglophone and his children attended English school. He said the “American situation,” the rising cost of living, the housing crisis, the future of the agricultural sector and climate adaptation were the most pressing local issues.

“We’re all worried about climate change and how you can continue to be a farmer, and the support you need for climate adaptation,” he said. “We need a government that is ready to get involved, not saying we have to cut, cut, cut, lower the taxes of the privileged classes and subsidize oil – when we do that, we’re limiting the ways we can help the community. The NDP is the party that is the most ready to assume that responsibility to say, ‘Yes, we’ll invest in social programs.’ We can’t say we’re going all-in on renewable energy and ditch fossil fuels without working with workers on the economic transition and social programs and health care. I’ll keep working, whatever the polls say, and I hope people will hear that message.”

In a brief interview between campaign stops, Larouche said she hoped to continue the work she was elected to do in 2019 and 2021. “Minority governments go by fast, and I don’t feel like I’m at the end of everything.”

She said the housing crisis in urban areas, support for farmers in rural areas, and rising costs and the threat of job losses everywhere were the riding’s most pressing problems. She said the Bloc would work to protect supply management and increase allocations for people living on fixed incomes.

The two-term incumbent described herself as “an on-the ground MP, who would work in everyone’s interest,” and her Liberal rival Dionne acknowledged she was “very present.” She argued that a strong Bloc caucus would be to the benefit of both francophone and anglophone Quebecers. “We are a people of entrepreneurs; we have our own economic model and we need to maintain that. The anglophone community shares our entrepreneurial culture and they can defend Quebec as well.”

PPC candidate Lefebvre is described on the party website as a businesswoman who grew up in a bilingual and devoutly Christian family. She is a mother and grandmother and an advocate for healthy lifestyles and nutrition. “Like other PPC candidates, she opposes unnecessary foreign expenditures and believes that resources should be directed toward Canada’s economic development, healthcare system, and social safety net. She strongly opposes mass immigration and believes that anyone wishing to settle in our beautiful country should go through the legal processes,” her party biography reads. “Susanne stands for a peaceful Canada, where peace, prosperity, and human dignity are at the heart of national priorities and for a better and fairer future for all.”

Conservative candidate James Seale acknowledged an interview request but was not available to comment at press time. Seale ran for the PPC in the Montreal riding of Outremont in 2019. In a Facebook post, he describes his “multifaceted career” with military deployments in Germany, Israel, Bosnia and Haiti. After leaving the military, according to the post, he earned an MBA, CPA, and a master’s diploma in supply chain and operations, alongside becoming a certified fraud investigator. “His focus on fiscal responsibility and transparent governance stems from a deep-seated belief in maximizing value for taxpayers. Seale’s commitment to open dialogue and the defence of free speech underscores his belief in a robust and engaged citizenry,” his biography states.

Green candidate Turcot-Brochu, who did not respond to an interview request, is the director of communications and funding of the federal Green Party. “I’ve been actively engaged in my community for over a decade, serving on boards of directors for non-profits focused on women’s rights, women in sports and food security. These causes are close to my heart and continue to fuel my drive for change,” she writes in a party biography.

The federal election will take place April 28.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The race is on to replace former Liberal Cabinet minister Pascale St-Onge in Brome-Missisquoi. As of early last week, all five federal parties with parliamentary representation have presented their candidates in the riding; St-Onge announced in February that she did not plan to run again. 

In alphabetical order, the candidates are actor Jeff Boudreault for the Bloc Québécois, Magog-based artist and former journalist Joanne Brouard for the New Democratic Party (NDP), former Montreal Alouette and director general of the Fondation pour les sports adaptés Steve Charbonneau for the Conservatives, environmentalist and vice-president of the Ordre québécois des acupuncturistes Michelle Corcos for the Green Party and Bromont Mayor Louis Villeneuve for the Liberals. Entrepreneur Jack McLeod will run for the People’s Party of Canada (PPC). As of March 31, no independent or smaller-party candidates have registered in the riding with Elections Canada.

Since its creation in 1984, the riding has gone to the Conservatives from 1984-1993, the Bloc Québécois from 1993-1994, the Liberals from 1995-2006, the Bloc again from 2006-2011 and the NDP after the 2011 “Orange Wave.” Since 2015, it has been represented by three different Liberal MPs. Although polls late last year suggested the Bloc would reclaim the seat, poll aggregator 338Canada now rates it as a safe Liberal seat, with the Liberals polling at an average of 42 per cent compared to 25 per cent for the Bloc, 22 per cent for the Conservatives and 3 per cent each for the NDP and the Green Party (data for the PPC was not provided).

Boudreault, who has lived in Bromont for the past ten years, became a household name in much of the province when he played journalist Jean Brière on the popular Radio-Canada police drama District 31; he has also worked in special education and managed a microbrewery.  He said he was inspired to run by current Bloc MP for Lac-Saint-Jean Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, a former colleague, and by a former MP who helped him navigate the process of bringing his Haitian-born adopted child to Canada after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. “I want to be that kind of MP.” 

“There are a lot of issues in the riding – housing is very important, border security, water quality in Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog, supply management, the concerns of hunters around gun control, making sure seniors have enough money to end their days in peace,” he said.

He accused Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Ontario premier and Conservative standard bearer Doug Ford of being too focused on the auto and financial sectors, at the expense of Quebec priorities like aluminum, wood and water resources. “We know the Bloc Québécois are never going to form the government, but [electing Bloc MPs] is an insurance policy for Quebecers. We’re the guard dogs of Quebec’s interests.”  Although he is not bilingual and has few connections with the English-speaking community, he said he’s open to meeting with anglophones. “Whether you’re anglophone or francophone, you’re a Quebecer, at the root of things.”  

Brouard grew up in a “huge family of farmers” with roots in the Beauce region and previously ran unsuccessfully in a Montreal riding in 2011. In an English-language interview, she cited border security and water quality in lakes Champlain and Memphremagog as the main issues facing the riding.

Undiscouraged by the NDP’s faltering poll numbers, she encouraged voters to choose the NDP as a rebuke to the two-party system. “Both the Liberals and Conservatives have huge blind spots,” she argued. “Both say they want to safeguard the economy, but when they say ‘the economy,’ they mean large corporations. I’m not against corporations – they do provide jobs – but if you focus only on corporations, there’s an imbalance, and that’s what we’re seeing in the U.S. We’re the party making sure that not only the corporations, but also the people who are working and buying the products are taken care of.”

Conservative candidate Charbonneau is a lifelong West Bolton resident who played CFL football in Montreal and Edmonton before becoming involved in the field of adaptive sports. In an upbeat English-language interview, he said he decided to go into politics to help people.

“People are worried about high taxes, inflation and tariffs. We have a lot of farmers, and farmers are worried about keeping supply management, which is a very sensitive issue,” he said.

Charbonneau said he believed a Conservative government was best placed to stand up to the Trump administration and put more money in consumers’ pockets. “We [Conservatives] have always been an ally to farmers and workers. We need to reduce the size of the government and have better financial management, and the Conservatives have always proven that they are better at financial management.”

“I learned English at university in New Hampshire, where I went to play football,” he added. “I’m not a lifelong politician, and [going into politics] is a little scary, but it’s like going to the States to play football – you have to trust life. It’s too easy just to sit at home and complain.”

Green Party candidate Corcos, whose party has yet to elect an MP in Quebec, said in a statement on the party website that she “will work to strengthen access to sustainable and preventive healthcare, support ambitious climate policies and promote transparent and participatory governance.”  She said she also hoped to “advance concrete solutions to improve public transportation in rural areas, reducing dependence on single-occupancy vehicles and providing viable mobility alternatives” and support the growth of green jobs.

McLeod, the PPC candidate, is described on the party website as “an experienced programmer and business owner with a deep passion for technology” who is “committed to applying his analytical and problem-solving skills to politics,” emphasizing efficiency and transparency. “His background in IT and strategic thinking gives him a unique approach to tackling challenges in governance,” the website said.

Liberal candidate Villeneuve, who has taken unpaid leave from his job as mayor of Bromont to campaign, said he believed the Liberals represented steady leadership amid unprecedented threats to Canadian sovereignty from the Trump administration. “We’re facing something we’ve never seen before. We have an expansionist president on our southern border who wants to strangle us economically and make us the 51st state. It’s time to unite [Canadians], not divide them. I think the only one who can do that job, who can protect our economy and sovereignty, is Mr. Carney. That’s why I decided to jump in.”

In addition to Canada-U.S. relations, Villeneuve cited the fight against invasive species and fertilizer runoff in Lakes Memphremagog and Champlain, supply management in the dairy sector and a potential passenger train link between Lac-Mégantic and Montreal as major issues facing the riding. He also hopes to put his municipal politics experience to use addressing issues such as affordable housing and transit, for which different levels of government are responsible for different aspects.

“To be mayor in a city where every [council member] is independent, where you don’t have [municipal] parties, you need to use teamwork,” he said. “I’m a team player. I think I can be a person who brings people together,” he added.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Low-income Townships residents who haven’t yet filed their taxes may be able to get help from their local Centre d’action bénévole (CAB; volunteer action centre). The CABs in Bedford, Cowansville, Coaticook, Magog, Stanstead and Waterloo offer free tax assistance in English or French through the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP). Single filers with an income of $35,000 or less and couples filing jointly with a combined income of $45,000 or less are eligible to have their taxes prepared and filed online for free by trained volunteers.

The clinics are not equipped to help self-employed people or those filing after a bankruptcy or on behalf of a deceased person. Most clinics do accept people who have fallen a few years behind on their tax returns, although the one in Magog can only accept returns from the current year. Some clinics, including the one in Bedford, will refer people whose income is slightly above the threshold to a local accountant with relatively low rates.

Sara Martinez is the service co-ordinator at the CAB Marguerite-Dubois in Cowansville. She said the centre has offered the program for many years, and processed 2280 tax returns last year.

“We start recruiting volunteers in October and start preparing in November,” she said. “The volunteers have access to a lot of training,” she said. “In past years, people dropped off their files, but now, because of the new privacy law, we prepare them while you wait, which avoids the risk of losing documents.” People who would like to have a volunteer file their taxes can drop by during the centre’s regular opening hours, from Monday to Thursday; those with mobility issues can contact their local CLSC or CLSC agent, if they have one, for an alternative way to drop off documents. 

Martinez said many of the people who use the tax clinic are social assistance recipients or recent immigrants filing their taxes for the first time, but anyone who meets the criteria is welcome. “People are super grateful for what the volunteers are doing; it shows that there’s an important need,” she said.

Marie-Josée Proteau is the director general of the Centre d’action bénévole de Bedford et environs (CABBE; Greater Bedford volunteer action centre), which offers the CVITP in Bedford and surrounding municipalities, including Clarenceville. She said the CABBE has offered the program for at least 25 years. “The program will always exist. The people who are our clients are low-income and they don’t have the means to pay an accountant…but it’s important for them to do their taxes even if their only [source of income] is their pension or social assistance,” explained Proteau, herself an accountant. “Otherwise, they won’t receive the tax credits they’re eligible for.” 

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Sutton is calling on Hydro-Quebec to consider new locations for a controversial hydro substation.

The Brome substation, which is expected to be built in 2027, will replace the existing Sutton and Knowlton substations and provide electricity to Sutton, Brome Lake and Cowansville. While its exact location has not been determined, Hydro-Québec has narrowed down the area under study to a swath of rural land near the boundaries of Brome Lake, Brome village and Sutton. In a statement in February, the town of Sutton said the chosen site “targets a particularly bucolic area where the presence of this substation, much larger than the previous ones, and new towers up to 45m high, risk disfiguring a landscape that makes our region so attractive.”

At the April 2 council meeting, Sutton councillors passed a resolution laying out the town’s own concerns about the project and setting the stage for an analysis of potential alternatives.

The resolution stated that the project was “oversized” in relation to realistic assumptions of growth in electrical demand in the region. “No other option to serve the municipality of Sutton has been studied in detail, nor evaluated according to technical, economic, environmental and financial criteria; [and] the justification for choosing a new 120 kV trunk line and substation can only be assessed by analyzing other options,” it said. “[T]he residents of Sutton, and in particular those of Sutton Junction, have expressed their concerns about the justification for the project and the location of Hydro-Québec’s proposed new substation.”

The town called on Hydro-Québec to limit the height of pylons and analyze alternatives including the addition of a transformer at the existing Cowansville or Coeur–du-Village substation, reinforcement or extension of the existing 49-kV line line; building a new 69-kV line; adding new batteries or capacitor banks; and developing the area’s solar energy potential, including with a proposed solar microgrid project “to improve community resilience, with solar panels on the roofs of municipal and commercial buildings to reduce pressure on energy demand and peak load management.”

“The solution that Hydro-Quebec is presenting to us is oversized, seven times current peak demand, and even when you add Knowlton, [demand] is still far inferior to the proposed capacity,” Mayor Robert Benoit said at the meeting. “We have no factories and we don’t have an industrial park and we don’t plan to have one. Growth in demand is driven by residences. We build 34 new residences per year on average, 340 over the next ten years – two or three additional megawatts per year. We can’t imagine that we will need an augmentation of 100 or 150 megawatts even over the next ten years, unless the town changes drastically.” He added that it was unlikely that there would be a major residential development in the next few years, due to social acceptability concerns and the strain on the water supply in the mountain sector.

Benoit said he doesn’t believe Hydro-Québec has studied all potential options for the substation.  “I strongly recommend that they do that analysis to show us that this is the best choice.”

Although Brome Lake Mayor Richard Burcombe and Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard have also expressed objections to the proposed site, Benoit emphasized that the resolution did not intend to speak for any other municipality.

Benoit said the town was in constant communication with Hydro-Québec and intended to meet with the utility in the coming weeks. “The ball is in their court and I’m confident we’re going to find a solution,” he said.

Hydro-Québec was not available to comment at press time.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

After months of lobbying efforts and a series of well-attended protests in cities and towns around the province, the Front Commun pour les Arts (FCA; Common front for the arts) said in a statement that it was “celebrating a major victory” after Finance Minister Eric Girard tabled the 2025 budget.

The budget announced $200 million in funding for the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec (CALQ; Quebec council for arts and letters) over the next three years, in line with the demands of the FCA. The CALQ is the government agency which supports the development of arts and literature across the province; according to its website, it provides grants to more than 1800 artists and 900 organizations every year.

FCA member organizations argued that without guaranteed funding, the survival of Quebec’s unique culture was at risk as artists chose to leave the arts.

“The new funding provides a first step toward stability for the sector and must mark the beginning of sustained collaboration to address the systemic and structural challenges that have multiplied in recent years,” the FCA said in a statement. “These issues have had devastating impacts not only on the working conditions of artists and cultural workers, but also on the quality, accessibility, and the reach of their artistic works across the province and internationally.

“It took a historic mobilization by the artistic communities to achieve these gains,” they said.

“The progress achieved through the actions surrounding le Front commun pour les arts and its allies must now serve as a foundation on which to build a sustainable and thriving cultural sector, in the best interest of Quebec society as a whole.”

Caroline Gignac is director general of the Conseil québécois du théatre and co-spokesperson for the FCA. She said the funding would bring much-needed “oxygen” to give artists “the energy to continue our efforts to preserve our cultural identity, maintain the vitality of our artistic ecosystem and improve artists’ socio-economic conditions.”

Gignac said although the exact use of the funding would be up to the CALQ, the money would give some much-needed structural stability to Quebec’s arts sector amid wider economic uncertainty. “The sector is facing challenges, but it was hard to address the challenges when it felt like everything was collapsing.”

The CALQ is “the best vehicle to ensure that money gets into the hands of artists through grants and support to organizations,” said Nick Maturo, director of programming at the English Language Arts Network (ELAN). Maturo said Finance Minister Eric Girard, who is also minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, “definitely gets it when it comes to the importance of culture.”

Maturo emphasized that English-speaking artists can apply for CALQ grants in English if they choose, and ELAN offers free support services to those who may be interested in applying.

“A lot of decisions need to be made from here on out on how [the funding] gets into communities to create compelling quality arts and cultural content –  it is a question of being engaged in the process for community groups, for artists and for English-speaking Quebecers,” he said. English-speaking artists in the regions in particular, he said, needed “to be part of that conversation.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

As Quebecers came to grips with the announcements contained in the latest provincial budget, tabled March 25 by finance minister Eric Girard, representatives of several sectors, including arts and culture and community health, the union representing the province’s farmers said its members were disappointed and worried by allocations in the budget which failed to address their concerns amid threats posed by climate change and uncertainty around cross-border trade and the wider economy.

The Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) “acknowledges the amounts allocated to the continuation of the Sustainable Agriculture Plan 2020-2030 ($100 million over five years), to the implementation of the Quebec Biofood Policy 2025-2035 ($60.3 million over five years) and to the financing of the Sustainable Growth Investment Program ($42 million over five years), while pointing out that they are well below the expectations and concerns of the community,” a UPA statement said.

“Agricultural and forestry businesses will be among the hardest hit by the U.S. president’s tariffs. This threat adds to the difficulties thousands of them have experienced in recent years. The government’s response, which also reduces the overall budget of the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by 1.7 per cent (from $1,303 million to $1,281 million), will be met with a lukewarm reception,” declared UPA national president Martin Caron.

UPA representatives also criticized Girard’s decisions to table a budget with a record $13.6-billion deficit, and to plan for the impact of U.S. tariffs of an average of 10 per cent rather than 25 per cent.

Christian Kaeser is a dairy farmer based in Saint-Herménégilde, a border community east of Coaticook. He is the UPA regional vice president for Estrie.

He said “nothing in the budget” would help farmers respond to the impact of tariffs, adding that he found Girard’s tariff projection overly optimistic. “Ten per cent is not going to happen.”

Kaeser called on the Legault government to return a larger share of provincial carbon market revenues to Quebec farmers to make it easier to invest in climate change mitigation efforts and scale up productivity. “We have a lot of ambition to grow and export more and feed more Canadians and depend less on food imports. A lot of investment is needed for innovation, productivity, [responding to] new animal welfare rules and climate change and doing better for the environment. This is lightyears away from what we asked for.”

“Seventy-two per cent of our farm exports are to the United States right now,” he added, noting that fluctuating prices and interest rates are also expected to negatively impact farm revenue.  “Both [the provincial and federal governments] need to reassure farmers that they will be there for them.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Bromont has opened an indoor playground to get its youngest residents moving.

The Espace Bougeotte opened March 29 in the multipurpose room of the Bromont Arena, and will stay open on weekends from 8:30 a.m. to noon until May 19, and reopen in the fall. The project is developed in partnership with Loisir et Sport Montérégie, funded by a Quebec government grant and inspired by a similar initiative in Nicolet, near Trois-Rivières. The space includes soft play modules for preschoolers and a “chill space” where children and their parents can rest, have a snack, draw or play with tabletop toys and games.

While a city employee will be on hand to welcome kids and their families, keep the space clean and address any safety concerns, parents, grandparents and caregivers are responsible for their children, explained Laurent Bédard, head of the sports, recreation and events division at the Ville de Bromont. The space might host occasional organized activities in the future, but for now, free play is the name of the game. The facility is free, reserved for Bromont residents and targeted to children under 5.

“With the creation of this new space, we are contributing to the development of healthy lifestyle habits for our children, from a very young age. We invite families and the entire community to come and discover this beautiful place dedicated to our little ones,” Shefford district councillor Jacques Lapensée said in a statement announcing the centre’s opening.

Bédard said city officials wanted to respond to a lack of free and accessible activities for babies and preschoolers that encourage physical activity, as part of the city’s action plan for healthy lifestyles.

Bédard took his own two-year-old son to the Espace Bougeotte on opening day, and said he enjoyed the experience. “He tried it, and after an hour, he got tired and went to the quiet room and built some stuff and had a snack. Then he went back to running everywhere with the other kids.”

The space also gives kids and their parents an opportunity to socialize and get to know their neighbours, Bedard said. “Families are so busy, it’s good to meet other parents and talk and say ‘I’m not going through this alone.’”

“There are a lot of private play centres that are bigger than ours, and they’re excellent – I go there with my family and we enjoy it – but it’s important to have low-barrier access to sports,” Bédard said. “Getting kids into skiing, soccer and hockey is expensive; putting them in front of the TV or giving them an iPad is not. We have a tendency to park kids in front of the TV when they’re little, and then sign them up for soccer when they’re old enough; they might specialize in soccer, but they don’t necessarily learn to jump or do cartwheels. Even when you’re a year old, you should have the opportunity to jump up and down or throw a ball.” He said he believes free play for preschoolers should eventually become a regular part of municipal recreational programs, “like free swim or public skating sessions.”

If you are a Bromont resident and would like to learn more about the Espace Bougeotte, visit bromont.net/loisirs-et-culture/programmation-des-loisirs/espace-bougeotte.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The Brome County Historical Society has received a $2.21-million grant from the federal ministry of housing, infrastructure and communities to carry out a long-awaited expansion of the Lac-Brome Museum.

The expansion will take the form of a 6,000-square-foot extension to the current reception building, which will hold three galleries (including one featuring a new permanent exhibit on the Abenaki people), an expanded reception area, a collections lab, storage space and “flexible spaces” that can be rented out for events, explained Denis Piquette, executive director of the historical society, which oversees the museum. It will also be equipped with an elevator and washrooms accessible for people with reduced mobility, and a heating system which will allow it to stay open year-round.

Piquette said the expansion had been in the works for several years. “The historical society had an ambitious vision that was redrafted in 2020. At the time, [Premier François] Legault was talking about the Espaces bleus, and he made a statement along the lines of, the regions are filled with dusty little museums. We thought that was not very complimentary, at a time when we were aiming to be a leading museum and archive centre.” The historical society had an initial feasibility study done in 2021, but it wasn’t until late last year that the federal government rolled out a grant program – the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings (GICB) program, focused on developing “community spaces” in official language minority and Indigenous communities using energy-efficient construction techniques – that was adapted to their needs and didn’t require a disproportionate investment of time or money to apply.

“I found out about the program in September, and the deadline was Oct. 13,” Piquette recalled. “Of course, I had to supply an engineering report… but somehow we made it. We got a call from [Brome-Missisquoi MP] Pascale St-Onge on March 11 and then we got a letter [confirming the grant] from Minister [Nathaniel] Erskine-Smith.” Before the recent federal cabinet shuffle, Erskine-Smith was minister of housing, infrastructure and communities, the ministry which oversees the GICB program. The $2.1-million grant, which will cover 60 per cent of the costs linked to the new extension, is among the largest given out to a Quebec-based organization through the GICB program.

“We have a huge collection, a strong following, a long list of members and support from the town, but we’re a bunch of old buildings that need repair,” Piquette said. The extension, he said, would give the society breathing room to carry out further renovations in the future, by allowing it to safely store artifacts.

The historical society needs to co-ordinate with the Town of Brome Lake urban planning department and raise an additional $1.5 million from other sources to ensure construction moves forward. Piquette said he hopes the extension will be completed by fall 2026.

Archives/William Crooks
Local MPs Elisabeth Brière, Pascale St-Onge, and Marie-Claude Bibeau meeting with around 40 local mayors to discuss significant municipal issues in August, 2024

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

When soon-to-be-former Brome-Missisquoi MP Pascale St-Onge picks up the phone, the cries of her four-month-old son can be heard clearly in the background. She briefly puts the phone down to go soothe him before hurrying back. A few weeks from now, St-Onge, 47, who became the first lesbian federal cabinet minister to take parental leave when her son was born, will no longer have to juggle her responsibilities as a politician and a mom – and she’s fine with that.

St-Onge announced in February that she would not seek a second term as MP for Brome-Missisquoi, preferring to focus on her family for the next few years.

“I have no regrets,” she told the BCN. “It was a well-thought-out decision. For the next few years, I really want to be present for him. With the fact that [the Liberals are] going up in the polls, it became obvious that this was the right decision at this time.”

St-Onge, a former communications union representative, has had a busy four years. In October 2021, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau appointed her minister for sport – where she stickhandled reforms to Hockey Canada’s governance in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal before restoring its federal funding – and minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency for the Regions of Quebec at a time when the post-pandemic economic recovery looked precarious. In 2023, she was shifted to the Canadian Heritage portfolio, coming under the national spotlight as the federal government negotiated with Google and Meta to compensate media outlets for lost revenue, renewed funding for local media outlets and took steps toward modernizing and reshaping CBC/Radio-Canada. Earlier this year, when Soraya Martinez Ferrada stepped down to run for mayor of Montreal, Trudeau briefly named St-Onge tourism minister as well.

St-Onge looked back on the 2021 campaign, conducted amid COVID restrictions. “It was such an honour to have been elected in 2021 and have the confidence of the citizens of Brome-Missisquoi,” said St-Onge, a native of Saint-Eustache on Montreal’s South Shore who now lives in Orford. “It was a tight race. When I got elected, we were still in the pandemic. We had to support the tourism sector and make sure there were opportunities for sustained growth … and make sure municipalities had public spaces to gather again. That’s a legacy I’m happy with, that the region will have for years to come.”

As heritage minister, St-Onge’s signature piece of legislation is the Online News Act, which aimed to force web giants such as Google and Meta to negotiate compensation agreements with news outlets. While Google paid $100 million to a consortium of news outlets earlier this year in response to the act, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, got around the act by blocking access to news in Canada on its platforms, opening the door to spoof accounts mimicking Canadian news outlets and presenting false stories as fact. “I wish I could have done a deal with Meta, but they are not [acting as] partners, and that will ultimately end up in court,” St-Onge said. “I’m worried about misinformation, but I’m mostly worried about Meta’s attitude, because they don’t comply, they don’t recognize the legitimacy of governments, which is extremely problematic. Not only did they remove Canadian news, but they fired their fact checkers. The quality of information [on Facebook] is going to keep spiralling down, and people need to be aware of what this means for democracy. A lot of people are exposed to misinformation [inaccurate information], disinformation [deliberate falsehoods] and foreign interference from people using these powerful communications platforms, and that should ring alarm bells.”

For St-Onge, CBC/Radio-Canada is a weapon in the fight against disinformation. “Having a strong public broadcaster that is funded appropriately and stable is not only a question of survival of who we are – of Canadian identity – but of national security and making sure Canadians can turn to their public broadcaster in case of an emergency,” she said. In February, she proposed a major boost to CBC/Radio-Canada funding, and changes to the public broadcaster’s governance and funding structures which she believed would make it less vulnerable to political interference. “Even though I didn’t get to present the [proposal] in the House of Commons, I’m optimistic that the next Liberal government will take it up.”

When the BCN spoke to St-Onge, the Liberal party had not yet announced who would run for her Brome-Missisquoi seat. She said that decision was in the hands of the party, but she did point out specific challenges that awaited her successor in light of the Trump administration’s challenges to Canadian sovereignty. “Everything going on with the United States is going to be super important; we have a lot of industries that import-export into the U.S. We know that a lot of Americans come [to visit the region] and we believe a lot of them are going to support us and support the Canada-U.S. relationship. The future [MP] is going to have to fight for that, to fight for supply management for our farmers and for the renegotiation of [the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement].”

“I am proud of the work that we have done with [Sherbrooke MP] Élisabeth [Brière] and [Compton-Stanstead MP] Marie-Claude [Bibeau] with supporting English-speaking communities, implementing the Official Language Action Plan and making sure that Townshippers and other organizations would get support; we made a great team,” she concluded. “I thank everyone in Brome-Missisquoi for their support and their trust over the past few years. Right now, I want to spend time with my family. I’m open to opportunities and I still have a lot of passion for the issues, but I’m in no rush. I haven’t picked up my bass guitar in quite a while, so I may do that.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Dunham intends to go ahead with the construction of a new fire station despite concerns from some citizens about the need for and the cost of the facility, Mayor Pierre Janecek said last week.

In December, the project faced a roadblock after more than 300 people signed a register calling for a referendum on a planned $7.9-million loan to finance the project. Rather than move forward with the referendum, councillors went back to the drawing board and devised a new funding formula.

At the March 11 council meeting, councillors approved $6.4 million in spending and a $2.1-million loan to fund the project, to be paid by taxpayers proportionally to their property values. Janecek said the loan, to be repaid over a period of 25 years, would add an estimated $63 per year to the average homeowner’s tax bill, although those with higher property values would pay slightly more. He noted that a provincial subsidy would pay 73 per cent of the cost of the new fire station.

“We made a budget based on what we thought the project would cost, but the bids were lower than we thought, so we had to do a new one, $1.5 million less than the one before,” the mayor said. “We also [became eligible for] a slightly larger grant because we’re going to use wood [in the construction of the firehouse]. Because we have more than half of the project subsidized, we’re not legally obligated to do a register.” The funds were expected to cover construction, furniture, specialized equipment, landscaping, water treatment and professional fees for the new fire station and a contingency amount to cover unexpected cost overrruns, equivalent to 10 per cent of the project’s total budget, town clerk Jessica Tanguay explained at the meeting, which can be seen on Facebook Live.

Tanguay announced that Construction Richelieu, a contractor based in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, had submitted the winning bid, with a cost estimate of $5,547,000. One lower bid, from Athena Construction, was disqualified due to an incomplete application, she said.

The loan bylaw and the bylaw authorizing the construction of the firehouse passed easily at the council meeting, with councillors silently assenting to Janecek’s perfunctory, “Is everybody OK with that?” after Tanguay’s explanations. However, some residents who learned they would not be able to oppose the project through a register or a referendum expressed their concerns during the public question period, about the integrity of the bidding process, the necessity of the project and the qualifications of fire chief Patrick Cournoyer.

“No one has done a needs analysis of our fire safety needs,” argued one resident, Diane Cormier. “You haven’t done that – you said, right away, ‘We need a fire station.’ We need to analyze everything.”

“That’s what was done,” answered Coun. Florencia Saravia.

Another attendee, who didn’t give his name, spoke up to call for Cournoyer to be fired. “I’m not going to impugn anyone’s reputation here, and we’re not going to do that – not to citizens, not to town employees and not to elected officials; it’s totally disrespectful, and we have enormous confidence in our fire chief who has worked on this project for years…and has a whole team around him,” countered Saravia, who had been answering Cormier’s question.

A few other attendees began speaking over Saravia and Cormier, leading Janecek to adjourn the meeting. He briefly reconvened it, giving councillors a few minutes to express their support for Cormier, before wrapping up proceedings. He later said the chaotic council meeting, a first since the current council took office, had been “hard to manage.”

He argued that the new fire station was necessary because the current one, a converted garage, didn’t meet modern standards. “There will be more space for trucks, a decontamination room as required by the CNESST [Quebec workplace safety board], a small kitchen and a break room … it will be more spacious and we’ll be up to code.”

“There are people who are against the fire station and who are worried about the impact on their tax bill. That’s legitimate. We live in a democracy. People will be against it, but I think they’ll understand eventually,” he added.  “When you explain the project well, people get it.”

Construction of the fire station is expected to begin later this spring and wrap up in 2026.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

On March 19, as talk of a federal election buzzed in the air, about 300 English-speaking teens and young adults from around the province, including many first-time voters, gathered at the Coeur des Sciences at Université du Québec à Montréal, for the annual Youth Forum organized by Montreal-based civic participation organization Youth 4 Youth (Y4Y).  The nonpartisan organization encourages English-speaking youth to get involved in their communities and get informed about wider social and political issues,

At the eighth annual Youth Forum, under the theme “Inform, Educate and Empower,” high school, CEGEP and university students and young professionals from around the province discussed anglophone out-migration, the democratic deficit and youth voter turnout, identity in Quebec and media consumption. Although most of the speakers and participants were from the greater Montreal area, participants came from Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, the Outaouais region and as far away as Sept-Iles.

Y4Y president Sufia Langevin, a recent Bishop’s University graduate, encouraged participants to “disagree without delegitimizing” other people’s arguments, and enjoy discovering points of view and realities they might not be familiar with.

Policy director Alex Pettem presented sobering data about youth outmigration, showing data that indicated that 14 per cent of Quebec anglophones, including 28 per cent of youth 18-24, were considering leaving the province in 2022. Younger people, people with more formal education and people in rural areas with fewer educational and employment opportunities were most likely to leave; among their reasons for considering a move, anglophones cited wanting to live in a more anglophone environment, discomfort with political dynamics in Quebec, work opportunities and family considerations, in that order, Pettem said. “It has long been a part of [Y4Y’s] message to stem outmigration, to encourage youth to stay in the province,” he said.

Panelists addressed their sense of belonging in Quebec and youth political participation – the merits of lobbying politicians, signing petitions, joining neighbourhood youth councils and lowering the voting age to 16. “Politics belongs to a group of people we don’t have contact with,” said Frishta, a student at CEGEP Champlain-St. Lambert, who didn’t give her full name. Petitions, she said, were a good concept, but “there’s often a gap between the effort you put in and the results you get.”

“It’s not apathy that’s the problem, it’s accessibility,” agreed Charles, a McGill student who also gave only his first name. “Every university should have a polling station.”

Félix Joly, a Secondary 5 student at the Séminaire de Sherbrooke, was one of the few participants from the Estrie region. Unlike most of the participants, he identifies as a francophone. He was eager to share his perspective as a francophone, a person from “the regions” and an advocate for student governance (he is a board member of a provincewide network of student council presidents), and to listen to what others had to say. “I found that on a vast number of points, [anglophone and francophone] participants were similar,” he said. “We have a lot of the same struggles, in terms of social media addiction and buying local. For us [francophones], immigration is a big language and cultural issue … it was nice hearing the other side of the coin; it made me think about my own point of view.” 

Although he and many of his peers will not turn 18 in time to vote in the April 28 election, they encouraged candidates and elected officials to take notice – and encouraged teens to take action on issues that mattered to them. “We don’t have the right to vote, so we’re not useful for anyone now, but we have to live with those policies,” he said. “We have to be like, ‘Hey, you’re working for us too.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Twenty hectares of mostly forested land in Brome Lake and Sutton will be preserved in perpetuity thanks to donations by two local landowners to the Mont Echo Conservation Association (MECA), a member of Appalachian Corridor.

The generosity of the two anonymous donors “ensures the perpetual protection of nearly 20 hectares of additional natural environments of high ecological value in the sector,” Appalachian Corridor communications co-ordinator Frédérique Vuillermoz said in a statement last week.

The larger of the two donations is an 11.4-hectare swath of land in Sutton, southeast of Chemin Parmenter, close to Mount Echo, adjacent to an existing protected area. It “makes a remarkable contribution to expanding the ecological corridor of the Réserve naturelle des Montagnes Vertes,” the statement said. The smaller of the two is an 8.5-hectare forested property close to the centre of the town of Brome Lake; during a ceremony held last August, it received the name Kpiwi Pmossa, which means “wood walkers” in Abenaki, in honour of the Indigenous people who once hunted and fished there.  Both properties “have some [plant and animal] habitats we want to protect,” Caroline Bisson, co-director general for community relations at Appalachian Corridor, told the BCN.

“These two donations were given to a local organization, MECA, and they were interesting because they were very diverse habitats with a lot of ecological value,” Bisson said. “The Sutton one is a [key] habitat in our conservation strategy, and the one in Brome Lake has a stream and some bird habitats we want to expect.”

Bisson said she wasn’t familiar with the details of the discussions that had been ongoing with the two property owners, but that generally, discussions with donors can go on for months or years. “The particularities [of donations] are always discussed with the owner. We meet the owner, we do evaluations and the owner has to consider their options.” 

Christian Godin is the treasurer of MECA, a volunteer-run conservation organization based in Brome which is a member of Appalachian Corridor. He said the donation of the Brome Lake property in particular has been “long in the making.”

“The owners keep on adding access to the property and they are sort of the guardians, but MECA will become the long term fiduciary for monitoring that the land remains a forest and keeps its integrity,” he said.

Donors who make a gift of land to Appalachian Corridor or a similar organization benefit from certain tax advantages. Although land donations do come with transaction and evaluation fees, Appalachian Corridor covers those fees through donations.

Appalachian Corridor intends to leave nature to its own devices on the two properties. “We do develop hiking trails on some of our larger properties, but…these are relatively small. They will be registered as protected areas and evaluated each year. Our goal is to let nature do what nature does,” said Bisson.

“We want to emphasize the contribution of these two ladies, who have so much heart, and who gave their land. Natural heritage is very important to them, and they want this land to remain a forest,” Bisson said.

She added that land donations are not the only way to support local conservation initiatives. “There are a lot of opportunities to contribute as a volunteer as a donor to help us maximize our efforts,” she said. 

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Bromont has set aside $60,000 to fund projects proposed by residents as part of its first-ever participatory budget initiative.

Residents have until April 30 to submit proposals on the city website, via email or in person at the town hall. Proposals will be accepted in three categories: youth (projects submitted by Bromont residents under age 25 focused on improving youth quality of life), collective (submissions by residents or groups of residents 18 and older), and seniors (submitted by people of any age, aimed at boosting quality of life, mobility and access to services for local seniors). Proposals will be analyzed by a city-appointed committee between May 1 and 23; the winning projects will be announced in June, and realized over the course of 2025.

An eligible project “needs to meet the [submission] deadline, needs to be doable over the course of 2025 and within the budget,” Mayor Louis Villeneuve explained. Projects that involve building “fixed infrastructures” must be on public land. “We will also look at the number of citizens who might benefit, the project’s alignment [with] municipal policy and strategy, the capacity of the city to realize it, the impact of any recurrent expenses, and geographical equity within the city. The committee will review all of the projects with a point system, and the projects with the most points will win.”

Similar initiatives, where cities earmark a specific amount of money for citizen-driven projects, have been established in Montreal, Longueuil, Laval, Granby and several smaller towns over the past few years. The town of Sutton launched its first participatory budget in 2023 and funded a turtle crossing and a new dog park; last year, Cowansville got on the bandwagon and funded an outdoor education space in the Parc des Colibris, to be completed by the end of 2025.

According to a participation document provided by the city, the participatory budget initiative “A “is a unique opportunity for citizens to get involved in community life; develop community-led projects and contribute to [community] development; understand the challenges of city management; create spaces for interaction and strengthening of the social fabric; contribute to the creation of a fairer, more equitable and more responsive city [and] make democracy more vibrant and closer to citizens.”

“I’m very curious and impatient to see what kinds of projects people are going to come up with,” Villeneuve told the BCN. “It’s a democratic process, and the goal is to involve people in town life.” He said he hoped the initiative would allow residents, including children and young adults, to better understand municipal governance.

He added that amid difficult and uncertain economic times, “little things can do us good,” and the participatory budget and the projects that come out of it are one way to integrate “little things” that might ordinarily go under the radar.

“We’re hoping to get the most [submissions] possible, for people to look at this project and think, ‘It’s possible for me to submit something,’” said the mayor. “Our ambition is for Bromont residents to come and sit down with us at the drawing board [and] add a touch of ‘proudly made by and for Bromont residents.’”

Residents can submit projects via the online form at bromont.net/administration-municipale/budget-participatif; download the form on the city website and scan and email the completed form to imagine@bromont.com; or pick up a paper form at City Hall, the Lucien-Parent Community Centre or the Pauline-Quinlan Library. Paper forms must be returned to the City Hall reception desk by the April 30 deadline.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A local environmental group has good news about Cowansville’s drinking water. Last year, the Comité de sauvegarde du bassin versant du lac Davignon (CSBVLD; Lake Davignon watershed safeguarding committee) completed a two-year water quality sampling campaign covering multiple areas of the lake. The resulting report, which will be presented to the public at the CSBVLD annual general meeting on April 2, shows broadly encouraging results for the lake, which has provided drinking water and much-appreciated swimming and boating and outdoor recreation opportunities for Cowansville residents since soon after it was dug in 1965.

Sampling was carried out in 2022 and 2023 at 20 locations in and around the lake and along its tributary streams. The samples were collected by CSBVLD volunteers and analyzed by biologists and field technicians from the Organisme du bassin versant de la Yamaska (OBV-Yamaska; Yamaska watershed organization).

The 2022-2023 campaign is a follow-up to an initial sampling campaign conducted from 2010 to 2012. “Analyses of data collected in 2022 and 2023 show that the good overall water quality in the Lake Davignon watershed observed between 2010 and 2012 continued through 2023 and even improved for fecal coliforms. All stations demonstrated good water quality for phosphorus, fecal coliforms, ammonia nitrogen, pH and dissolved oxygen,” OBV-Yamaska analysts wrote in a summary of the report. The majority of the samples received an “A” (good quality for most uses, including swimming) rating for most contaminants, although there were a few isolated “B” (generally satisfying quality for most uses) ratings for nitrates and nitrites and suspended particles, and two “C” (suspect, may compromise some uses) ratings for chlorophyll.

The authors cautioned that continued surveillance was needed to monitor levels of chlorophyll, nitrates and nitrites, and suspended particles (sediment) in the water.

They also noted that three specific sites, at the Cowansville beach and the Ruisseau marsh, and in the stream between Brome and Cowansville, had lower overall water quality and had been singled out for further analysis.  “Water quality improvement efforts should prioritize” these areas, according to the report’s authors. They also note that the water quality at sampling stations on the beach is “generally good,” even if it is lower than that observed at other stations.

The authors recommended that the town of Cowansville prioritize runoff reduction and “renaturalization” efforts in the targeted areas; continue to monitor targeted pollutants and continue to monitor fecal coliform and acidity (pH) levels at the beach specifically; start to plan a long-term response to the gradual filling in of the lake with sediment; and plan a similar sampling campaign in ten years.

“We are pleased to see that the majority of the analysis results show good water quality. This indicates that the improvement work carried out in the watershed (e.g., sediment traps that filter runoff and capture sediment) in recent years by the Brome-Missisquoi MRC and the municipalities concerned has borne fruit,” said Gérard Houle, vice-president of the CSBVLD and volunteer responsible for the sampling campaign.

“These results are good, and they show that what has been done over the past ten years [to control runoff] is working, but with climate change and extreme weather, there are a lot more downpours, and we need to think about what’s going down our gutters and into our streams to end up in our drinking water,” Jonathan B-Mailhot, president of the CSBVLD, told the BCN in an interview. “Having the data helps us go to officials and say, ‘This is what you need to do to protect our drinking water.’”

The City of Cowansville had not responded to a request for comment by press time.

Mailhot noted that the water sampling results aren’t the only encouraging trend in lake conservation. “Every year around Earth Day [mid-April], we go and clean the banks of the lake, and every time we go, there is less and less rubbish down there.” He asked residents and people who spend a lot of time around the lake to inform the CSBVLD if they notice anything unusual in or around the water.

Anyone who wants to attend the presentation of the water quality report on April 2 at the Salle Arthur-Fauteux of the MRC Brome-Missisquoi office is advised to reserve their seat in advance at lacdavignon.org/echantillonnage.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Matthew Long hasn’t gotten much sleep since U.S. president Donald Trump began talking about tariffs on Canadian imports.

Long is the owner of a Knowlton-based trucking company, LJH Trucking, which employs 30 people and has a fleet of 24 trucks. He estimates that about 80 per cent of the company’s business relies on cross-border orders.

“In January and February, I’ve been getting a full night’s sleep maybe every three nights – I’m just exhausted, monitoring the tariff situation,” Long said. “The day before the tariffs were [to have been] put in place, 85 per cent of our workload got cancelled or put on hold. We had trucks and drivers without anywhere to go and clients with loads cancelled. It’s a huge challenge for everyone involved.”

On Feb. 1, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian products entering the U.S., except for energy imports, which would be subject to a 10 per cent tariff. On Feb. 3, the day before tariffs were to take effect, the imposition of the tariffs was suspended for 30 days, leading Canada to pause its own planned retaliatory tariffs. On March 3, the Trump administration confirmed its intention to impose tariffs; three days later, Trump announced another pause until April 2. As of this writing, separate 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports were expected to go into effect March 12. Outgoing federal finance minister Dominic LeBlanc has said Canada plans to introduce retaliatory tariffs on April 2.

Long said the on-again-off-again tariffs have made day-to-day operations and planning for the future more difficult. “Demand was really high in February, because people were trying to get shipments across the border before the deadline. We don’t know how March will play out, but it’s probably going to be the same thing. It’s a logistical nightmare.”

The tariffs have also made him rethink his purchasing plans. He noted that car and truck parts usually cross the U.S.-Canadian border several times during the vehicle manufacturing process. “Tariffs are going to increase the cost of everything, including trucks, but I don’t want to let go of my current truck [orders] because if I do, someone else will grab them,” he said.

“The pressure on our staff and the drivers to get everything done is unjustified – there’s no reason for this to happen,” he added.

Pascal Lafrenière is the president of the Chambre de commerce de Brome-Missisquoi (CCBM). He echoed Long’s observations that the ongoing uncertainty is bad for business, especially in sectors where companies are used to planning weeks and months ahead of time. “We’re in the unknown, and everything is changing so quickly,” Lafrenière said. “If you’re a business, it’s hard to adapt on a dime… but it’s time to rethink our strategies. The link of reliability with the United States is broken.”

Both Long and Lafrenière said they were optimistic that the situation would ultimately be resolved as its negative impacts on both sides of the border became apparent. Lafrenière said the CCI was working with its partners on short- and medium-term solutions, including a local purchasing strategy and ways to connect businesses with emergency funding opportunities such as those announced by the provincial government last week. A spokesperson for Economy Minister Christine Fréchette said the emergency measures – including two loan programs for businesses looking to diversify international partnerships and scale up productivity and a 25 per cent bid penalty for American companies applying for Quebec government contracts – would remain in effect until further notice.

CLD offering support for businesses

In response to the uncertainty, the Centre local de développement (CLD) de Brome-Missisquoi announced plans to put in place a “strategic cell” bringing together experts and economic stakeholders.

“Our advisors actively support businesses so that they can assess their exposure to risks. We encourage them to establish different financial scenarios, contact their suppliers and customers to anticipate the impacts and identify opportunities that could emerge from this situation,” said  Marie-Josée Lamothe, director of business services at the CLD.  In addition to risk assessment, the CLD offers support to help local businesses review their business model and update their strategic planning, diversify their markets, find local suppliers, scale up productivity, access existing assistance programs and adopt a “Made in Quebec” marketing strategy. 

“Some sectors can do well in this context, such as tourism, local [food and agriculture] producers or manufacturers of ecological goods. We are also here to support these companies in their development,” said Lamothe.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The towns of Brome Lake and Waterloo have announced plans to expand the service areas covered by their on-call first responders.

Starting later this year, as part of a pilot project, Waterloo first responders will cover Warden, Saint-Joachim and Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle in addition to parts of Saint-Étienne de Bolton and Stukely-Sud. Brome Lake first responders will now cover Brome village in addition to West Bolton.

Waterloo fire chief Patrick Gallagher and Brome Lake fire chief Kevin Robinson said they hoped that expanded 24-7 first responder services would ensure that trained personnel reached rural municipalities more quickly in case of an emergency. “Ambulances sometimes come from Cowansville … our first responders in Brome Lake are usually there quite quickly,” Robinson said.

They explained that ambulances and on-call fire crews are sometimes diverted en route to deal with higher-priority calls, and may not be available for all emergencies. “If an ambulance is going to Saint-Étienne to help someone who has fallen off a ladder, and then someone has a heart attack in Magog, the ambulance will go there first, and the person at the bottom of the ladder might just have to wait,” Gallagher said.

Although on-call first responders don’t have the same level of training or equipment as full-time paramedics, they are able to stabilize and assess patients in a variety of situations. Level 3 first responders such as those in Waterloo, who complete a 60-hour certification course, can help someone who is injured or has suffered a suspected heart attack, stroke, allergic reaction or poisoning before paramedics arrive, Gallagher explained. First responder training, he said, “is basic, but it can make a difference.”

Transition for Brome village

Although the service-sharing agreement was signed last week, in practice, Brome Lake first responders have covered Brome village since the beginning of the year. Brome mayor William Miller explained that Brome had previously had an agreement with Sutton for first responder services, but that coming under Brome Lake’s jurisdiction “made more sense geographically.” Also, he explained, first responder services in Brome Lake, unlike in Sutton, are distinct from fire services, meaning first responders won’t have to be diverted from a medical call to respond to a fire call.

Brome Lake, West Bolton and Brome will share costs for the service according to a formula based on tax revenue and the level of risk in each municipality. “Now, they’re pooling [cost sharing] from three towns instead of two. Brome Lake is not trying to make a profit –it’s to cover costs and help support training of the firefighters. There are a number of people in Brome who work in Brome Lake or who are part of their fire personnel already, so I don’t think it will be a huge transition,” Miller said.

While firefighters generally have first responder training, not all first responders are firefighters, and the two services are separate. Robinson, the Brome Lake fire chief, who also manages the first responder service, said his team of 28 first responders was “quite proud” to serve Brome village.

Objective 75%

The Waterloo service expansion is part of a pilot project that officials hope will be fully implemented by June. “With the recent Quebec government announcement that they want 75 per cent of the province to be covered by first responders by 2030, we asked questions to see what might be possible,” Gallagher said. “We said we would do a pilot project, and once the government puts [formal] parameters in place, we’ll take another look … and see what we can do to assure the continuation of the service. It’s easy to start, but you need to make sure it lasts.”

Waterloo currently covers 100 per cent of the cost of training and deploying 32 on-call first responders. Under the pilot project, 56 per cent of that cost would be picked up by neighbouring municipalities.

“For smaller municipalities, finding on-call first responders for a town with a population of 1000 is impossible,” Gallagher said. “With this project, we can share costs and offer the service to more municipalities. It’s a win-win.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Nearly one-third of the territory of the town of Waterloo could be part of an environmentally protected area by 2037, town officials announced last week.

The municipality commissioned a report from the Granby-based Fondation pour la sauvegarde des écosystèmes du territoire de la Haute-Yamaska (SÉTHY), which promotes conservation initiatives around the Haute-Yamaska region. The report, released Feb. 11, included an inventory of existing natural spaces and threatened animal and plant species in the area, listed areas that should be prioritized for conservation based on a point system and laid out detailed recommendations for conservation, focusing on wetlands and forested areas.

The report found that 12 per cent of the municipality’s territory is made up of wetlands and 35 per cent of forested areas; the latter are particularly at risk from expanding residential development. Preserving the continuity of forest corridors, the report’s authors note, is particularly important for protecting vulnerable wildlife.

The report is the latest among several steps the town has taken to protect green space and forested areas in recent years, according to town spokesperson Marilynn Guay Racicot. With support from Appalachian Corridor, she said in a statement, Waterloo is in the process of having its lots south of Lake Waterloo recognized as a nature reserve. In April 2024, councillors adopted the 2024-2028 sustainable development action plan, which prioritized increasing the area of ​​natural environments subject to conservation measures. The town has also mandated SÉTHY to create an ecological inventory of town land over the next few months.

The SÉTHY report listed eight recommendations, including placing a moratorium on the destruction of natural environments, making it easier to integrate elements of the sustainable development action plan into the revised urban plan, restricting the list of allowable uses for green spaces, passing a bylaw to preserve 50 to 70 per cent of green space in areas earmarked for development, allowing the town to use its right of preemption to preserve ecologically sensitive areas, modifying other development bylaws and adding tax incentives for conservation.

The report also laid out a list of vulnerable plant and animal species present in Waterloo, including the threatened least bittern, wood thrush and chimney swift, the serpentine tortoise and the monarch butterfly.

Mayor Jean-Marie Lachapelle said the town intends to implement the report’s recommendations “as much as possible.”

“Waterloo is growing, and it is essential to preserve our natural environments, which are the richness and appeal of our part of the country. Since they are still numerous and of high quality, we have a great opportunity to act now. Without waiting for our conservation plan to be developed, we will take steps to protect several lots belonging to the city to set an example and ensure their preservation for future generations,” Lachapelle said. The report and the forthcoming inventory “give us an idea of where the [ecologically sensitive] areas are” so that when a developer approaches the town with a plan, the municipality can negotiate. 

“The biggest challenge going forward is to manage progress,” he said. “There’s a lot of construction in the town – where are we going, what are we heading toward? This will allow us to make enlightened decisions.”

Lachapelle estimated that the two SÉTHY reports would cost the town a total of about $30,000.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Mandatory mask-wearing is back until further notice in hospitals, long-term care centres and rehabilitation centres in the Estrie region as flu cases surge.

Masks are obligatory for staff and visitors in general and specialized hospital centers including emergency rooms, oncology, hemodialysis and mental health hospitalization units;

rehabilitation units; and in long-term care and residential centres (CHSLDs), seniors’ homes and alternative homes.

The CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS said in a statement on Feb. 13 that long-term care centres in the  greater Sherbrooke area are most affected, but the situation was worrisome enough to reinstate mask-wearing in health facilities elsewhere in the region.

Masks are not required in outpatient centres, offices or common areas such as hospital cafeterias, nor are they required in CLSCs or other facilities.

On Feb. 14, public health director Dr. Luc Boileau and Santé Québec deputy vice president Robin Marie Coleman briefed reporters on the evolution of the spread of respiratory viruses around the province.

“The good news is that COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus [test positivity rates] are continuing to drop. The bad news is that the influenza A curve is still rising,” Boileau said. “A few weeks ago, we said the peak would arrive around the first or second week of February. We are in the second week of February, so the data we have over the next week will allow us to determine whether it’s continuing to rise or if it’s stagnating or falling off.”

Boileau said this flu season is the worst since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and one of the worst in the last ten years. He said the Estrie and greater Montreal regions were the most affected, with positivity rates above 40 per cent, although there was no immediately obvious epidemiological reason why this was the case.

Boileau said elderly people and young children face the highest risk of serious complications from the flu. He encouraged the general population, especially health care workers, future parents and people with chronic illnesses, to take advantage of free flu vaccination, available at most local pharmacies via ClicSanté. “It’s not too late!”

He noted that elderly and at-risk people can get a flu or COVID test at their local pharmacy and receive medication to stave off complications.

He advised people with the flu to isolate at home unless absolutely necessary. “If you must leave home, to go to work or what have you, wear a mask while you have symptoms. You can be contagious seven or eight days after the beginning of symptoms. It’s not measles, but it’s still a very contagious virus. Be careful, wash your hands, cough in your elbow and take all of the other measures you’ve been hearing about.” He also suggested that people who are members of vulnerable groups wear masks in crowded environments, although the health ministry has no plans to impose additional mask requirements.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A Shefford farmer and a local cycling booster are hoping a new planned mountain bike trail between Shefford and Bromont will help get young people interested in farming and the outdoors and build bridges between the two communities.

Paul Sauvé of GNR Shefford plans to develop and maintain the trail or trails – described in an information document as seven to 15 kilometres of paths for beginner and intermediate mountain bikers – on his land, potentially using trails already accessed by snowmobilers in the winter.

“We came to the realization that rather than fighting the sprawl that’s going on, we wanted to cohabit in harmony … much like Europe where you have farms in the middle of the village,” Sauvé said, noting that in parts of the United States, it’s common for biking trails to cross private land. “We have 42 acres of land and we’ve given access to the snowmobile club for the last 23 years. We could fence it off, or [open it to traffic] and let kids and older people and people who want to go biking have fun with it. There has been a bit of a rivalry [between Bromont and Shefford] over the past few years, but with cycling, you break barriers.”

A quarter century ago, the Sauvé family took over a farm that has been in operation since 1797. Paul Sauvé hopes the children and families cycling across his property will enjoy the landscape and start conversations about sustainable agriculture and “what it is to farm.”

“We’re giving access to our land and hoping others will follow suit,” he added. “Just make sure you pick up your trash and everyone behaves themselves.”

Sauvé’s neighbour, Louis Barbeau, is the director general of the Fédération québécoise des sports cyclistes and a major backer of the project. He says the proposed trails would draw visitors from around the region and allow beginning bikers to have access to easier terrain than the trails in Bromont or on nearby Mount Gale. “If you go to Bromont or Mount Gale you need experience, and not everyone has that,” he said. “Everyone should have a place to practice cycling safely.”

Barbeau said discussions had taken place with stakeholders including the Bromont National Cycling Centre (BNCC). According to the information document, the current project hinges on getting authorization from Hydro-Québec and the Quebec Ministry of Transportation (MTQ) to cross land owned by the utility and use an existing tunnel under Highway 10. He also hopes to get the municipalities of Bromont and Shefford involved. “The main challenge is to get all of the stakeholders together – I don’t know if there will be other private landowners involved, but the municipalities and Hydro, definitely. Before thinking about the money, we need to make sure everyone is on board.”

Barbeau said he hopes the first cyclists will be able to hit the trail by 2026. “There’s some work to be done, but it’s not extensive – a bit of land clearing and maybe some lean-tos and signs. Once everyone is on board and all the administrative things are sorted out, I think it’s something

that can be realized in six months.”

Hydro-Québec regional affairs advisor Ève-Marie Jodoin could not immediately comment on the bike trail project. Isabelle Dorais, a spokesperson for the MTQ, said the ministry “had not received any requests” in conjunction with the project. Audrey Leboeuf, a public affairs advisor for the town of Bromont, said no one from the municipality could comment in detail for the time being because the project was “too embryonic.” 

Shefford Mayor Éric Chagnon told the BCN no one involved with the project had approached the town yet. He noted that a new bike trail linking Waterloo, Shefford and Brome Lake had opened last May as part of the Estriade bike trail network. “Before I say anything [about the Shefford-Bromont trail], I would need to know more – what would the trail be, how long it would be, where the funding would come from – but clearly, we’re at a point where biking is important for tourism and for our economy,” he said.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The mayors of Sutton, Brome Lake and Cowansville are asking Hydro-Québec to reconsider the location planned for the new Brome substation.

The substation, which is expected to be built in 2027, will replace the existing Sutton and Knowlton substations and provide electricity to Sutton, Brome Lake and Cowansville. While its exact location has not been determined, Hydro-Québec has narrowed down the area under study to a swath of rural land near the boundaries of Brome Lake, Brome village and Sutton.

Brome Lake Mayor Richard Burcombe, Sutton Mayor Robert Benoit and Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard have been openly sceptical of the proposed location.

“The three municipalities agree that Hydro-Québec’s current proposed site targets a particularly bucolic area where the presence of this substation, much larger than the previous ones, and new towers up to 45 m high, risk disfiguring a landscape that makes our region so attractive,” according to a statement released by the town of Sutton.

Benoit and his counterparts are asking Hydro-Québec to consider another location. “The Pearson sandpit site along Route 104, between Cowansville and Brome Lake, ticks all the boxes in terms of the project’s social and political acceptability,” Benoit said. “It would eliminate the need to build the transmission line to Sutton Junction; It would use an already disturbed site; It would benefit from access to a major roadway [and] it would preserve the environment and landscapes,” Benoit said. Brome Mayor William Miller also said he was “looking for answers as to why the site along Route 104 would not be adequate.”

The Pearson sandpit site is north of the current area of study, and would involve an additional transmission line being built through Brigham and East Farnham, according to Brigham mayor Steven Neil. Neil said he has been “blindsided” by his counterparts’ insistence on the Pearson sandpit site. He said it would involve building pylons and transmission lines through agricultural zones in Brigham.

Neil said that at a Jan. 30 meeting with Hydro-Québec, representatives from the utility explained why the Pearson sandpit site wasn’t viable. The three mayors “know why it’s not a usable site,” he said. “Brome Lake, Sutton and Cowansville are the three places that need the electricity, but none of them believe it should have any impact on their municipality. No one wants this substation in their backyard, but [they] need it, not us. If you want electricity, you have to put on your big-person pants and accept responsibility for it.”

Hydro-Québec regional affairs advisor Ève-Marie Jodoin referred the BCN to a Feb. 13 statement, which said Hydro-Québec was “currently conducting detailed analysis” on the sandpit site.

“This analysis will clarify whether the installation of the future substation at this location is technically viable and, if so, to what extent,” Jodoin said in the statement. “To date, Hydro-Québec has evaluated a dozen sites inside and outside the target reception area for the location of the future substation. The sandpit site is located a few kilometres north of the reception area. This perimeter is determined based on several variables to allow the future network to ensure quality of service and meet the long-term electricity needs of the population.”

“Hydro-Québec has said they are ready to go back to work and seriously consider the sandpit,” Benoit said. “If that site doesn’t work, I’m convinced we can find another site that will have less of an impact on our landscapes. Everyone agrees that we need this line, but we can’t put it just anywhere.”

Jodoin said the results of the analysis would be shared with local elected officials “in the coming days.” She said local residents were invited to an online information session about the project on Feb. 26.

Neil said he is confident that the utility “will do their job, look at the options and choose the one with the least impact, in a non-partisan way.” He encouraged landowners potentially affected by the project to attend the webinar and make sure Hydro-Québec was aware of any ecologically sensitive areas on their property. “There’s nothing else you can do, except wait.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Farnham residents who don’t have easy access to a car will be able to get around town using a taxi-on-demand service starting this spring, Mayor Patrick Melchior told the BCN.

Starting in early March, if all goes according to plan, residents will be able to call a single phone number at least 30 minutes before a planned trip and get a taxi to pick them up at any one of 40 stops around town. Teens and adults will pay a cash fare of $4 each way or use tickets bought in advance at the town hall; children 13 and under ride free with a paying adult. The service will be available from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Although the exact locations of stops are yet to be determined, Melchior’s goal is that riders won’t have to walk further than 150 metres to reach a stop.

“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a number of years, and it’s something people want,” said the mayor. “People are coming here from the city, and our population is growing; there were 8,300 of us when I first took office [in 2018] and now there are 11,200. I think it’s important – for example, if you’re a single parent who doesn’t have a car and you need to go do your shopping, you’re going to be able to do it for eight dollars.”

The taxi service is a one-year pilot project being put in place in partnership with the MRC Brome-Missisquoi. The full budget has yet to be released as of this writing; Farnham councillors voted to approve $50,000 in municipal funding for the project. The MRC will contribute to the project through the Laboratoire d’innovation en mobilité intelligente territoriale (LI-MIT; smart territorial mobility innovation lab) initiative.

Farnham is the third municipality in the MRC to launch a taxi-on-demand program. The city of Cowansville has had a similar program for several years. Late last month, Bromont announced plans to launch its own project; Mayor Louis Villeneuve previously told the BCN he hoped the first on-demand taxis in Bromont would be in service by late February or early March.

“The [taxi-on-demand] program seems to work well in Cowansville. They’ve had it for a few years and their population was 12,000 when they started theirs; we have a population of over 11,000 now. We’re inspired by them,” Melchior said. He said other transit projects, such as a shuttle bus service, were “not out of the question” if data from the taxi pilot project showed they might be in demand. “We want to see the demand for this [taxi pilot project] first.”

Melchior said he hopes to arrive at a point where it’s possible to live a full life without a car in Brome-Missisquoi. “One of my dreams is to have a [taxi-on-demand] circuit that covers the whole of Brome-Missisquoi, and I don’t think I’m the only person with that dream – we’re working on it.”