Author name: The Low Down

By Trevor Greenway

She’s been dubbed “the toughest bird” of the Gatineau Valley after 73-year-old Grace Early endured more than 40 hours alone in the bush without water, food, shelter or a cellphone. 

And she said she wasn’t even afraid. 

“I just wasn’t scared,” Early told the Low Down sitting up in her hospital bed in Shawville where she is recovering from hypothermia, pneumonia and minor bumps and bruises. She added that she was always confident that search and rescue workers would find her “one way or another.” 

The Low mother of seven spent two full nights alone in the bush after she got lost on her sprawling family farm Nov. 21. She was found two days later after an army of volunteers 400 strong showed up to help look for her. 

Early told the Low Down that she was overwhelmed with joy when she saw a group of “nice-looking men” coming to her rescue. 

“I was never so happy in my life to see them,” said Early. 

The exhaustion of her ordeal has taken its toll, but it has left her sense of humour intact. While this reporter sat at her bedside, she was cracking jokes and laughing with her daughters and other family members. Despite her harrowing experience, Early said she remembers it clearly.

“The first thing I asked [the rescuers] was, ‘Does somebody have a cigarette?’” She said one of them lit one up right then and there. When this reporter asked how that first cigarette tasted, she breathed a deep sigh of relief, closed her eyes and said, “Heaven,” while her daughters scoffed and shook their heads. 

Early was driving on her 2,000-acre farm between Low and Otter Lake around 5 p.m. Nov. 21 when her truck became stuck. Already getting dark, Early got turned around and started walking in the wrong direction. It didn’t take long for fatigue to set in. It was cold, pitch black and raining, and Early had no supplies. She found a rock near a tree, wedged herself between the two and fell asleep. 

“I slept there,” said Early. “I couldn’t see because it was so dark, and my legs were just like rubber. I was so cold, my whole body was shaking.” 

In the morning, she said she got up and tried to walk some more, but she was too tired, and she decided to stay put. She said her second day was hazy but remembers finding another hollowed-out tree where she would later sleep for the night. The next morning she said she couldn’t move. She was too weak and tired, and her legs were starting to atrophy. By then, search crews were making their way through the area, and she said she could hear dogs, ATVs and the whirring of a helicopter above. 

“The first thing I heard was a helicopter,” said Early. “And to get the helicopter’s attention, I took my rubber boot off, and I put it on the longest stick that I had, and I started waving it. I was screaming and praying.” 

Not long after, Early said she was rescued by a group of volunteers. She said she remembers getting tended to by Low firefighter Ellen Rice-Hogan and then waking up in hospital. 

It wasn’t until the next day that her daughters told her that more than 400 locals scoured the bush for hours to look for her and that businesses like IGA and local restaurants donated enough food to feed them all. When asked what she had to say to her community, she was speechless. She placed her hands over her mouth and slowly wiped the tears rolling down her cheek. She motioned to her daughter Maggie and said, “You know what I want to say.”

“She just wants to say thank you,” added her daughter. “She’s so appreciative.”

Early is expected to make a full recovery and should be back at home within the next few days.

“We’re calling her the toughest bird of the Gatineau Hills,” added Maggie with an exhausted, relieved laugh.

by Zenith Wolfe

An MRC des Collines charity is starting a meeting group for immigrant families in the new year despite the organization’s limited activity space in their current office. It just doesn’t know where this space will be.

Maison de la famille l’Étincelle runs youth events and redistributes food to families in need in the La Pêche region. The charity is planning to open Espace Parents in January in Masham as a space for immigrant parents to bond and talk about community issues, such as employability, and will be in collaboration with organizations like Carrefour Emploi des Collines, an employment centre in Cantley.

“We also offer suppers for the parents, and we take charge of their kids to make sure they can enjoy the moment,” says executive director Carolanne Beausoleil.

But Beausoleil says it’s hard to expand their operations in their current office, the La Pêche Sports Complex. 

Maison l’Étincelle has developed plans for a new office in Masham, but construction from the MRC’s multi-year park revitalization project has made them consider temporary office spaces in nearby commercial areas.

The organization’s new office would have a multifunctional basement, a bigger kitchen and a dedicated activity room for children aged zero to five, according to Beausoleil. The charity also wants to install computers, printers, a couch and coffee machines on a main floor.

“If we go and build our house, I estimate that we’ll need around $700,000. But if we move into a house somewhere just for the next few years, it might be less,” Beausoleil says. 

She says that the charity has saved around $130,000 from a Ministère de la Famille grant. She says the organization would make up the remaining cost through fundraisers and various provincial or federal subventions.

Beausoleil says the charity helps feed between 30 to 40 families a week by redistributing unused food from nearby food banks. Maison l’Étincelle also offers a meals-on-wheels program for seniors and people who “lose their autonomy” due to surgery or injury. She says last year they served around 3,800 meals through the meals-on-wheels program, but their waitlist is always full because of consistent demand.

“We want to lower the food waste, of course, because lots of good stuff is going in the garbage,” she says. 

Beausoleil became the charity’s new executive director in April 2024 after Daniel Lafleche stepped down. Beausoleil says she’s volunteered with the charity for many years, and she was the president of the administrative council for the last three years.

By Trevor Greenway

An ER doctor in Gatineau says that if the region cuts $97 million out of its healthcare budget, it will “lead to more suffering” in the Outaouais. 

Dr. Peter Bonneville, who is also president of Conseil des médecins, dentistes et pharmaciens (CMDP) of the Integrated Health and Social Services Centre of Outaouais (CISSSO), told the Low Down that he is “very worried” about the impacts to local health services in the region. 

His concern comes after the province’s new health authority, Santé Quebec, ordered hospitals and clinics across the province to slash a total of $150 million from its budgets by March of next year. 

Santé Quebec said the cuts are in an effort to avoid a $1 billion provincial deficit, and said the Outaouais’ portion will be about $90 million. 

“The people in the trenches – people who are actually doing the job, being with patients, evaluating them, treating them, doing the tests that they need – everybody is worried right now,” said Bonneville. “I think it’s with great certainty that anybody who looks at the math behind the numbers will see that this is totally unrealistic. It’s unrealistic that we are going to be able to cut $90 million and people will not suffer.”

Bonneville said the cuts to this region will be felt tenfold compared to other regions across the province, since the Outaouis has been chronically underfunded in health and social services for the past decade. 

According to the Observatoire du développement de l’Outaouais (ODO), there is a shortfall of $181 million to bring the Outaouais region up to the provincial average in healthcare funding. What this suggests is that the new health authority, which officially takes over on Dec. 1, is making significant cuts to an already historically underfunded region. 

Bonneville said the cuts will lead to fewer nurses, fewer technicians and, ultimately, fewer beds for patients. He said he worries about home care services for patients who require follow-up care once they leave the hospital. He said waiting lists will skyrocket, and patients who need a gallstone operation, for example, will wait up to three years in Quebec for surgery, where those who go across the river to Ontario can get the surgery within a month.

“This is not going to improve,” added Bonneville. “I also see patients that go back home and need to have care at home through different people – social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists – and we’re going to lose staffing for that, and I’m very worried that we’re not going to be able to give them the care they need after leaving the hospital.”

‘We can do it’ says CISSSO head

CISSSO CEO Dr. Marc Bilodeau told the Low Down that the projected $1 billion deficit in the province’s healthcare is aimed at home care services and agency workers, who have been brought in temporarily to help with the region’s staffing crisis, and is also because CISSSO will not be reimbursed this year for inflation or the rise in cost of living. Bilodeau said that he sees inefficiencies throughout the entire health sector that could be streamlined to reduce costs. 

“Obviously, $90 million is a significant amount for us,” said Bilodeau, adding that this number represents about six per cent of the CISSSO’s overall $150 billion budget. “The good news is we can do it, and I’m confident we can do it without impacting care. We have a target to basically completely remove those agency employees, in the fall of 2026, so that will definitely make significant savings for us.”

Those “agency workers,” according to health watchdog group Vigi Santé, costs CISSSO $15 million every year, but with staffing levels operating at between 30 and 40 per cent at the Gatineau and Hull hospitals, the region didn’t have much choice in hiring them. 

Wakefield Hospital safe but will change

When Santé Quebec announced the cuts in mid-November, watchdog groups and health critics became concerned about the future of the Wakefield Hospital, which has been threatened with closure on and off for the past decade. 

Bilodeau assured the Low Down that services in Wakefield would remain intact.

“The intent is not to impact services negatively,” said Bilodeau. “This doesn’t mean that there’s going to be no change in services, though. The intent is to maintain the same level of care but with less resources.” 

Bilodeau used the example of cutting walk-in blood testing and moving to appointment-based services to cut down on hours worked. Bilodeau said he would also look at reducing overtime hours for nurses and other hospital employees as areas to cut. 

Agency workers too expensive: Vigi Santé

Vigi Santé spokesperson Marcel Chartrand said the Outaouais got into this trouble because it relied too heavily on these agency workers, which cost CISSSO between $10–15 million every year. 

He explained that, because the region is so close to Ontario, the Outaouais consistently loses healthcare workers to Ottawa – namely nurses and technicians who travel across the river where they can make significantly more money and work under better conditions. 

“So you pay [agency workers] more, and in some cases, you have to lodge them. You have to provide transportation. So it all adds up,” added Chartrand. 

The CAQ ‘mismanaged spending’ 

Liberal Health Critic and MNA for Pontiac André Fortin said that CAQ leader and Quebec Premier François Legault broke his promise earlier this year when he said that healthcare wouldn’t be cut amid provincial spending cuts. He argued that the CAQ has “mismanaged spending” since it came into power in 2018. 

“When the CAQ government came in, they had a $7 billion surplus. Now we’re facing an $11 billion deficit, and it’s growing, even though they are making cuts left, right and centre,” said Fortin. “And so they’re turning to the healthcare network, which the premier himself promised would be unaffected by potential cuts. It goes directly against what the CAQ had promised.” 

“They had promised that the Outaouais would be able to catch up with the rest of the province in terms of healthcare funding,” he continued. “Now we’re being cut just like everybody else. And we already have some of the worst healthcare in the province. We know it’s already immensely difficult for people to access [the] healthcare network. This will only get worse.” 

Fortin said he has been paying attention to what services other regions have targeted, and it includes dialysis projects, needed renovations for youth centres and cuts to the hiring of nurses and other medical staff. 

SOS Outaouais executive-director Jean Pigeon said that the cuts, combined with a hiring freeze in the Outaouais, will put more pressure on current employees and lead to longer wait times for patients. 

“When an organization is asked to cut spending on this scale, it confirms that the system is inadequate to meet the needs of its population,” said Pigeon, head of health watchdog group SOS Outaouais. “These cuts will have a negative impact on services, whether we like it or not. These are the citizens who will pay the price in a region that is already playing catch-up.”

SOS Outaouais is calling for $181 million in funding to correct the region’s shortfall and “differentiated compensation and incentives” to attract and retain staff in a cross-border context. 

By Trevor Greenway

It was a dramatic rescue like no other in recent Gatineau Hills history. A well-known, much-loved senior from Low went missing from her family farm on Nov. 23, and a legion of locals showed up to find her. 

More than 400 volunteers hiked the hills and combed the forest for hours to look for 73-year-old Grace Early after her family made a public plea to find their mother. At 12:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon – after Early had spent over 40 cold hours alone in the bush – she was found huddled in the fetal position at the base of a hollowed-out tree. She was cold and dehydrated and sustained some minor bumps and bruises on her legs.

Early, a mother of seven, endured two full nights in the cold, with rain and temperatures hovering around 0 Celsius. She had no water, no toque and no cell phone. 

“My dad called her the toughest old bird he’s ever seen because he admitted that he doesn’t think that he would have been able to last as long out in the woods as she did, and he’s been in the woods his entire life,” said Grace’s daughter, Maggie Early, fighting off joyous tears at the rescue of her mother. “She was not scared. She didn’t think about wolves and coyotes. And I was out there Friday night, and the wolves and coyotes were screaming around us.”

Early is now recovering at the Shawville hospital with pneumonia and hypothermia, and Maggie told the Low Down that she has the community to thank for showing up by the hundreds within hours of her public request for help. 

Maggie’s family posted a plea for help on Facebook at 6 a.m. Nov. 23 and said they would have been thrilled if 50 locals showed up to help. The post told locals to: “Please don’t message, just show up.” And show up they did. 

By 10 a.m., her family farm was swarming with volunteers, local restaurants and grocery stores donated a spread of food and rescue groups joined officers with the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), who had been searching with dogs and drones the night before. An SQ helicopter was whirring across the Hills in search of the missing senior. 

“I knew people would show up, but I didn’t expect that many,” said Maggie, adding that volunteers ranged from firefighters and search and rescue workers to old friends who used to refer to Grace as their second mom. Fire departments deployed, including Low, Kazabazua, Danford Lake, Bryson and Otter Lake. Even players from the Paugan Falls Rapids senior hockey team were out looking for Grace. 

“These people are our friends. We grew up together. We went to school together. We hang out together,” Maggie told the Low Down. “She’s our mother of seven, but growing up and still today, every time one of our friends comes over, it’s ‘Mama Grace,’ or ‘Gracie,’ or ‘Grandma Grace.’”

An ‘epic’ community response  

According to Maggie, Grace was driving up the mountain on their family farm between Low and Otter Lake around 5 p.m. when her truck became stuck. She hopped out of the cab to head towards the farmhouse. Maggie said the farm is over 2,000 acres, and the sky was “black dark.” She said that her mom simply got turned around and became lost. At some point a trail camera picked up her movements, and the family could tell which direction she went, but they couldn’t find her. They spent Nov. 21 looking for her with drones and dogs – well into the early hours of the morning. 

“The first night, she said she crawled in tight to a rock and with a big tree and stayed put. And she said she just sat there and prayed,” explained Maggie. “And then, Friday morning, she woke up still with us, and she said she got up, walked about 20 feet and couldn’t make out any landmarks. So she stood up against a tree facing the sun and prayed all day. 

Then she woke up, and it was dark, so that would have been Friday evening, and she said she could hear four-wheelers and sirens.”

Grace said she stayed put, fell asleep and woke up the following day to rescue workers and volunteers aiding her. She was found lying on the ground with her eyes closed in the fetal position. According to firefighters on the scene, she was dehydrated, hungry and suffering from hypothermia. 

Despite spending close to 40 hours alone in the cold, dark night, she was in “good spirits” when they found her, according to Low firefighter Maureen Rice.

“The boys that found her gave her a banana, yogurt and water. She was definitely cold and weak,” said Rice.

Rapids player Nolan Peck was among the volunteer group that found her Saturday afternoon and said that he was “impressed” at how cognisant and stable she was after spending two full nights alone in the bush.

“​​My first thoughts upon seeing here was, ‘That is tough as nails to be able to do that,’ and especially at that age,” said Peck. “I was just in wonder.” Peck said when he heard that Grace was missing on the Friday night, he was ready to drop everything to find her – as were 400 others, something he says is not out of the ordinary for a place like the Gatineau Valley. 

“It’s honestly unsurprising to me,” said Peck who called the Early family “pillars of the community” who volunteer at hockey games, figure skating and many a community event. 

“I think everyone knows that there’s something special going up there in the Gatineau Valley. it just, it kind of just reinforced what everyone knows: everyone’s got each other’s backs. That  was very clear and evident on on Saturday.” Peck said many were fearing the worst as they looked over the family farm, section by section. 

“You think you’re going in there and, you hate to say it, but you’re expecting the worst,” said Peck. “But it doesn’t surprise me that Grace was able to get through all that. Everyone knows that she’s one of the toughest women around, and she just showed it again.”

When the search group found her, Rice said she heard the sounds of victory cheers and screams echoing across the farmland. She added that the community response was “epic.”

“The group of volunteers that found her did an amazing job getting her warmed up and helping with the evacuation,” said Low firefighter Ellen Rice-Hogan. “Grace and the whole family are such a loved family. I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. The community coming together the way it did was truly amazing. When we did the evacuation, you had people clearing a path – moving rocks and trees. We all came together as one team and moved a mountain.”

Maggie said she had “no words” to describe how she felt when she finally saw her mom after the ordeal. 

“I jumped off my four-wheeler and ran up the side of the mountain just to see her myself,” said Maggie through tears. “And when she got down to the ground, I touched her face.” Grace was transported to hospital by ambulance and is recovering from hypothermia, dehydration and minor scrapes.

At 73, she’s ‘tough as nails’

She’s been dubbed “the toughest bird” of the Gatineau Valley after 73-year-old Grace Early endured more than 40 hours alone in the bush without water, food, shelter or a cellphone. 

And she said she wasn’t even afraid. 

“I just wasn’t scared,” Early told the Low Down sitting up in her hospital bed in Shawville where she is recovering from hypothermia, pneumonia and minor bumps and bruises. She added that she was always confident that search and rescue workers would find her “one way or another.” 

The Low mother of seven spent two full nights alone in the bush after she got lost on her sprawling family farm Nov. 21. She was found two days later after an army of volunteers 400 strong showed up to help look for her. 

Early told the Low Down that she was overwhelmed with joy when she saw a group of “nice-looking men” coming to her rescue. 

“I was never so happy in my life to see them,” said Early. 

The exhaustion of her ordeal has taken its toll, but it has left her sense of humour intact. While this reporter sat at her bedside, she was cracking jokes and laughing with her daughters and other family members. Despite her harrowing experience, Early said she remembers it clearly.

“The first thing I asked [the rescuers] was, ‘Does somebody have a cigarette?’” She said one of them lit one up right then and there. When this reporter asked how that first cigarette tasted, she breathed a deep sigh of relief, closed her eyes and said, “Heaven,” while her daughters scoffed and shook their heads. 

Early was driving on her 2,000-acre farm between Low and Otter Lake around 5 p.m. Nov. 21 when her truck became stuck. Already getting dark, Early got turned around and started walking in the wrong direction. It didn’t take long for fatigue to set in. It was cold, pitch black and raining, and Early had no supplies. She found a rock near a tree, wedged herself between the two and fell asleep. 

“I slept there,” said Early. “I couldn’t see because it was so dark, and my legs were just like rubber. I was so cold, my whole body was shaking.” 

In the morning, she said she got up and tried to walk some more, but she was too tired, and she decided to stay put. She said her second day was hazy but remembers finding another hollowed-out tree where she would later sleep for the night. The next morning she said she couldn’t move. She was too weak and tired, and her legs were starting to atrophy. By then, search crews were making their way through the area, and she said she could hear dogs, ATVs and the whirring of a helicopter above. 

“The first thing I heard was a helicopter,” said Early. “And to get the helicopter’s attention, I took my rubber boot off, and I put it on the longest stick that I had, and I started waving it. I was screaming and praying.” 

Not long after, Early said she was rescued by a group of volunteers. She said she remembers getting tended to by Low firefighter Ellen Rice-Hogan and then waking up in hospital. 

It wasn’t until the next day that her daughters told her that more than 400 locals scoured the bush for hours to look for her and that businesses like IGA and local restaurants donated enough food to feed them all. When asked what she had to say to her community, she was speechless. She placed her hands over her mouth and slowly wiped the tears rolling down her cheek. She motioned to her daughter Maggie and said, “You know what I want to say.”

“She just wants to say thank you,” added her daughter. “She’s so appreciative.”

Early is expected to make a full recovery and should be back at home within the next few days.

“We’re calling her the toughest bird of the Gatineau Hills,” added Maggie with an exhausted, relieved laugh.

By Trevor Greenway
Local Journalism Initiative

The big jolly man is starting his naughty and nice lists early this year, and he will be checking it at least twice at the Pepper Pod Veteran Holiday Market on Nov. 24. 

And while Santa Clause’s appearance will be a highlight at the Pepper Pod Market, the real stars of the show will be the vendors – all of them families of veterans.

“It’s a very small market,” said Pepper Pod executive-director Cathy Priestman, referring to the five or so vendors that will be set up in the Pepper Pod’s new outdoor classroom, which gets a fairytale treatment on market day with lights and a cozy atmosphere with its central stone fireplace. 

The Pepper Pod is a retreat centre in Chelsea for women veterans. 

And while the main market is a small event for the centre, Priestman said there’s a lot more shopping to do at the retreat during their holiday market. 

“In the She Shed, we have items from over 30 different military or veteran community members,” she said. “So everything that we will have for sale is either from a veteran family, a serving military family or kids thereof or military spouses.”

Chelsea’s Pepper Pod has been offering women veterans a safe place to settle back into their home lives after serving in conflicts overseas. Priestman said the Pod is an important part of the transition back into regular life after serving a tour in the military or RCMP. 

“The Pepper Pod is important because we help women veterans, military spouses and veterans from the RCMP transition out of the military into the very next exciting phase of their life,” said Priestman. “This is an open house and holiday market. And it’s a great opportunity for people to come learn more about what we do, and, you know, share the information with their friends, so that veterans that we may not have reached already may have the opportunity to come by and just learn more about what we do in the programs that we offer.” 

The weekend market is open to the public, and Priestman said she hopes more than just military families come by to check out some of the wares, including candles, jewelry, dog toys, honey and maple syrup, cutting boards and fresh coffee. 

“We also really wanted to open it up to the community of Chelsea because Chelsea has been so supportive of everything that we’ve done, and it’s a great opportunity for them to come and see what we do,” she added. “It’s a kid-friendly event. We’ll have s’mores and hot chocolate, and there’ll be tours of the facility, as well as games and a photo booth.”

In 2021, Sandra Perron, Canada’s first female infantry officer, founded the Pepper Pod in Chelsea as a way to help female veterans transition into civilian life. The Chelsea veteran spent 15 years serving in the military before leaving after enduring harassment and abuse from her male counterparts. She started the Pepper Pod, which has brought more than 350 female veterans from across the country through their programs, including their Life Shop weekend retreats, No Agenda Weekends and Beyond Trauma one-day workshops. 

“We found that when a lot of women get out of the military or the RCMP, they aren’t very connected to their communities because they’ve been moving so much,” added Priestman. “Serving as a woman can be quite isolating. So the Pepper Pod brings women together and creates tribes of women all across the country so that they can connect and have a support network moving forward into the next phase.”

 In the military, to “pepper pod” means to cover your team while advancing toward an enemy and that’s the entire mantra of the Chelsea non-profit. The Pepper Pod Holiday Veteran Market runs from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 24, located at 35 Ch. Nordik in Chelsea. For more information, visit them online at www.pepperpod.ca. The event is free for everyone.

By Trevor Greenway

Local Journalism Initiative

La Pêche officially unveiled its new $11.5 million town hall on Nov. 18, showing off the swanky new digs that will house employees, politicians and space for public council meetings and consultations. 

Flanked by politicians – MP Sophie Chatel, Minister of Culture and Communications Mathieu Lacombe and the elusive Pontiac MNA Robert Bussière – La Pêche Mayor Guillaume Lamoureux gave members of the media and other dignitaries a tour of the new space. He was visibly proud to announce that the new building is the first-ever Passivhaus institutional building in Quebec. 

“To see how it impacts people’s everyday life – people who’ve been working here for 30 years – to finally be in a new building that’s inspiring and that’s been designed for their work as opposed to converted from a rectory,” said Lamoureux. “This will be a lasting symbol in La Pêche.”Indeed, at $11.5 million the new town hall is La Pêche’s most valuable asset, and it certainly looks it. The impressive 1,426-square-metre building, just off Hwy 366 in Masham, overlooks the iconic, red Masham bridge that spans the La Pêche River in Gatineau Park. 

The interior is bright, spacious and open, with glass walls defining the various spaces and offices throughout. Lamoureux joked that his office is “the aquarium,” a large, central, transparent office overlooking the rolling hills of Gatineau Park. 

A giant spiral staircase is the centrepiece of the building’s main floor.  Residents will notice first the multiple peaks that frame the new building against the Masham skyline – 18-metre, cross-laminated, timber panels positioned against one another at a 40-degree angle. According to architect Dominique Laroche, this construction will allow snow build-up to act as extra insulation, which he likened to “reinforced concrete.”

Laroche told the Low Down that energy from the sun will be the building’s main heating source. 

“Most of the windows are oriented south, so you get the light but also the heat from the sun,” explained Laroche. 

Part of what makes the building so energy efficient is because it’s what Laroche calls, “carbon sync.” That means that, because it’s made entirely of wood, it doesn’t technically have a carbon footprint. Carbon storage is the concept of using wood materials in buildings to “store” carbon in homes rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. The heavy doors and windows were imported from Germany and are triple-paned, high-quality glass. They’re so heavy that it’s a test of strength to open them. 

The exterior is wrapped in an impressive 12-panel, porcelain mosaic art piece by Lisa Creskey, which she said took “a million hours” to create, including 80 kiln hours. The larger-than-life piece depicts the flora and fauna of the Outaouais region and, fittingly, a large fish on the east side of the building. 

According to Lamoureux, more than half of the $11.5 million price tag for the building is being covered in provincial and federal grants. The municipality is taking a 20-year loan to pay off the building through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. 

By Trevor Greenway

Dwight Leslie didn’t know what kind of life he was returning to when he arrived home in Low in October. 

After spending over five months in a Montreal hospital following a severe ATV accident this past spring, Leslie wheeled up his mobility ramp for the first time. But he wasn’t alone – he had nearly the entire town of Low behind him. 

As he was wheeling into his home, his wife handed him a flyer for a benefit show at the Low arena. When Leslie flipped it over, he realized that it was a benefit for him; all of his closest friends, including his bestie, Howard Hayes, were getting together for a night of music and fun to support their injured pal. 

“They really caught me off guard because I came home on a Thursday and the party happened on the Saturday,” said Leslie from his home in Low, speaking about the benefit that took place Oct. 26. “It made me feel so much like at home and made me feel so relaxed and excited. I bet I probably shook over 100 hands that night.”

More than a dozen local musicians – most of them Leslie’s pals – volunteered to play the benefit, which raised more than $13,000 for Leslie and his family to help him adapt to his new life. 

An accident earlier this summer left him paralyzed from the waist down. Leslie was driving his ATV in Low on May 17 when the accident occurred. 

“I ended up going up this hill by a little creek and lost control and ran into the bank of the ditch,” he said, recalling the life-changing accident. “I went flying over the front of the bike, landed on my left shoulder and busted it. That’s all I remember.” 

He said he had a broken shoulder blade and sustained injuries to his spinal cord.

Leslie said he woke up in a Montreal hospital and couldn’t move the lower half of his body. He spent over five months recovering in hospital before returning home to Low in October. 

He said he still can’t move his legs, and although doctors have told him to stay positive, he said he doesn’t think he’ll ever walk again. Leslie said it has been difficult to accept that he may never walk again, especially for an active roofer, avid outdoorsman and someone who loves working around on the farm. 

“Right now, it’s beautiful days outside. I go outside in my wheelchair, and I look around and see all the stuff I could be doing, but I can barely do anything anymore,” said Leslie. “That is the tough part. But you know what my doctors all told me? ‘Never look back. Mr. Leslie, look ahead.’” He said he’s used that mantra to move on with his life and accept his fate. He’s been spending time with local friends, watching them cut wood at their sawmills or cruising down to the end of his driveway and back in his wheelchair, which he said he’s getting good at wheeling around in. 

He said he’s trying to focus on the good things that have happened in his life. 

“I’ve had a lot of positives in my life, I’ve had a lot of good things happen,” said Leslie. The 54-year-old has lived in Low all his life and said he wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. 

Leslie said he’s aware that he has some tough times ahead of him, but with his wife, Peggy, by his side – and his scores of friends – he said he looks forward to facing the challenges head on. He said he’s still blown away that his friends were all thinking of him while he was recovering.

By Trevor Greenway

It was a somber but poignant Remembrance Day ceremony in Low, as scores of residents gathered around the Heritage Hall cenotaph to pay their respects to those who lost their lives in war. 

Mayor Carole Robert opened the ceremony just after 11 a.m. and invited members of Low’s fire services to lay wreaths at the foot of the cenotaph. Coun. Maureen McEvoy read the names of local soldiers etched into the cenotaph from the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War and other conflicts. 

Coun. Maureen Rice read ‘In Flanders Fields’ by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, before Low firefighter Benjamin Mallory played ‘The Last Post’ on the bugle. 

In Wakefield, mourners gathered at Parc de la paix for a ceremony, wreath laying and a moment of silence for local soldiers who lost their lives in both world wars. 

At the Pioneer Cemetery in Chelsea, hundreds gathered to participate in the ceremony led by councillor and veteran Cybèlel Wilson. Chelsea’s Castenchel Choir provided beautiful music throughout the ceremony that included prayers from chaplains and local clergy and wreath laying from over a dozen organizations. 

Chelsea Mayor Pierre Guénard laid a wreath at the Chelsea cenotaph with resident Harold Milks whose brother, Earl Milks died in the Second World War. 

Other wreaths were laid at the grave of Richard Thompson, who was awarded a scarf made by Queen Victoria following his involvement in the Boer War.

Overhead, four F-18 fighter jets circled waiting to fly over the ceremony on Parliament Hill.

Kazabazua also held its Remembrance Day ceremony at its new cenotaph located at 30 Ch. Begley. Refreshments followed the ceremony inside the Kazabazua Community Centre. 

By Trevor Greenway

A group of concerned citizens, politicians and firefighters in Low are fighting to save their town from mining companies that have already staked out 20 per cent of the municipality’s territory. 

Action Low said that its expansive farmland, extensive riverfront and sprawling acres of agro-tourism are no place for a graphite mine. 

“The fundamental thing is that we have an economy already, and it’s agriculture,” said Carolyn Raab, one of the founders of the citizen action group, Action Low. “The economy is running well. It’s a variety of different operations, but it’s been here for, you know, at least 150 years in one form. So there are smaller farms, but they’re niche, and they’re profitable, and they need all the land that they can possibly get.”

The group, which started as a small citizen group by Raab, has grown close to 300 members. 

According to Action Low, mining companies have staked their claim on 13,000 acres of land throughout Low, which works out to roughly 20 per cent of the municipality. 

Much of this is private land – farms and residences like Ellen Rice-Hogan’s farm. 

She said she was surprised to learn in 2023 that On Track Exploration, a mining company, had claimed 538 acres of land– claims that popped up sometime between September and December of 2023 without notice. 

Wally Brownrigg is another longtime Low resident who said he saw claims pop up on his farm – land he said he has spent 50 years maintaining. He told the Low Down last year that, “[I] invested my life into this.”

According to Raab, what Action Low is scared most by is the fact that a mining company is already at the exploratory stage at the La Loutre graphite mine near Duhamel, which is just 80 kilometers away from Low. The company leading that project, Lomiko Metals, has vowed to continue extracting graphite and lithium despite Quebec pulling funding for the mine. Lomiko also has several claims in Low and Kitigan Zibi, and, according to Action Low, the fear is that the company could start digging locally in the coming months or years. 

“In the case of cattle farming, most operators are leasing lands beyond what they themselves own, and so taking away any acreage is going to impact agriculture. 

It’ll just mean that these farms can’t operate because they can’t be at the scale they need to be to earn a decent living,” explained Raab.

“Mining doesn’t bring anything, it just leaves us with noise and a blasted hole in the ground,” she added.

Action Low has been attending the MRC Vallée-de-la-Gatineau council meetings, and said it is hoping the MRC itself submits a plan to protect the region from future mines. 

The group is pressuring Quebec to change the Mining Act to give regional governments more power when deciding whether or not a mining operation can start to explore in its territory. 

Action Low said it has attended rallies in Montreal and Quebec City and is working with the 17 other municipalities in the region to ward off the multiple companies. 

Low council and mayors from the 17 other municipalities that make up the northern MRC passed a resolution to protect water sources across the region from mining operations. That protection is only temporary and has to be renewed every six months. 

“The nature of mining is – it’s a business,” said Low Coun. Maureen McEvoy, one of Action Low’s spokespeople. “It’s an extractive business that has 10 to 15 years of collection. And it changes the landscape forever.”

According to the group, Action Low will continue to attend rallies, meetings and pressure its MRC to submit a protection plan to the province. 

By Zenith Wolfe

The federal government recognized a 10-year plan that aims to develop, work with and improve funding for communities across Canada whose language is a minority in their region.

The Economic Development of Official Languages Minority Communities plan was first presented to parliament in October. The report offers 20 recommendations that would improve the economic conditions of Canada’s Official Language Minority Communities (OLMC), identified in 2023’s Official Languages Act. OLMCs include French communities outside Quebec and English communities in Quebec.

Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director-general of Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), says the plan will help their organization’s mission of connecting and supporting English communities across Quebec. Some recommendations encourage the government to invest in tourism to improve economic development for OLMCs and make French language courses more accessible.

“We’re happy with what the recommendations say, and it’s a fair representation backed by data,” Martin-Laforge says. The report uses 2021 census data to show that unemployment rates for English speakers in Quebec increased to 10.9 per cent, up from 8.9 in 2018. Meanwhile unemployment for French speakers stayed at 6.9 per cent.

Chatel is the Liberal MP for Quebec’s Pontiac riding. She says the fact that this data came from the 2021 census report shows the need for more consistent studies on the economic status of OLMCs. She highlights one recommendation that urges the government to collect data in monthly Labour Force Surveys.

Chatel says the recommendation that ministers outside the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages consider OLMCs when making grant decisions is a productive “holistic” approach. She also says she supports the recommendations to remove language barriers for funding, encourage collaborations between the English-speaking communities and governments and invest more in tourism.

“One of the growing sectors in the MRC Pontiac and des Collines is tourism. There’s growth potential,” she says. Chatel adds that the recommendation will help support music festivals like Pontiac Enchanté, which features English concerts.

Mario Beaulieu, the Bloc Québécois MP for Quebec’s La Pointe-de-l’Île riding, wrote a dissenting opinion for the development plan. 

“Some of the report’s recommendations violate the letter and spirit of Quebec’s Bill 101 and disregard constitutional jurisdiction,” he writes. 

Chatel says she isn’t aware of MP Beaulieu’s statement, but she says she found nothing unconstitutional in the report.

Martin-Laforge says the dissenting opinion is part of Bloc Québécois’s broader stance that English-speaking communities in Quebec are not OLMCs and don’t need financial support. She says it’s a “myth”, which has delayed the inclusion of English-speaking communities in past action plans.

“In 2002 when the first action plan came out, Official Languages programming was seen mostly as a remedy for francophones outside Quebec. Policy changes and provincial legislative changes have negatively affected our communities’ access to services, programs and funding,” she says, citing Bill 96 as one of these changes.

Raymond Théberge, Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, says in an email statement that “there seems to be confusion between the majority status of the English language in Canada and the minority status of the English-speaking communities in Quebec.” He writes that these communities show signs of “socio-economic vulnerability” despite the misconception that they’re a “privileged elite.”

MP Beaulieu did not respond to a request for comment.

By Trevor Greenway
Local Journalism Initiative

Hilary Jocelyn wants to help you calm your breathing while you’re helping someone calm their breathing. 

The Wakefield social worker, who has worked in the field of mental health and suicide prevention for over two decades, is hosting a mental health first-aid training course, which she said she hopes will give participants the confidence to help someone who is struggling with their thoughts. 

“I’ve personally known a few people who’ve gone through, well, deaths by suicide,” said Jocelyn. “There have been overdoses, and I know parents are worried. People are struggling.”

This newspaper has reported on three suicides in the past two years, with locals Patrick Thompson, Steve Young and Declan Thomas all taking their own lives. Their deaths devastated friends and family who knew them. 

Jocelyn’s mental health first-aid course aims to empower people to recognize signs of depression, anxiety and other mental health issues before they become unmanageable. Jocelyn admitted that it’s much harder to spot someone struggling with mental problems than it is a physical ailment. 

“If you meet with your friends, they quite often talk about their physical things, you know, ‘Oh, I’ve got a sore back,’ or, ‘I’ve got this or that.’ And…we very rarely talk publicly about what we’re going through, you know, our mental well-being,” said Jocelyn. “So I think one of the things that the course aims to do is to sort of bring that conversation out from behind the shadows and talk more meaningfully about mental health.”

Jocelyn said her course is based on regular first-aid training methods – the ABCs – airways, breathing and circulation. However, she explained that mental health training is based on approach, listen and hope – encouraging and empowering the person struggling to push themselves to reach out for help. 

“It’s about bringing people together in the community to talk about mental health and learn,” said Jocelyn. “We talk about practical things – we talk about how to help someone who has overdosed; we also talk about suicide; we talk about postpartum depression. I’m not teaching people to diagnose, but they can get an idea of what the signs are and what someone might be going through. 

The four-session workshop began Nov. 4. However, Jocelyn said there is still room, and she will consider adding a make-up session at the end for those who missed the first week. The course is certified, and those who graduate will receive a Mental Health First Aid Training Certificate. 

For more information, visit the Wakefield community centre’s website or email Jocelyn at hilaryjocelynmail@gmail.com. The course is $120, however Jocelyn said it’s a sliding scale, and nobody will be turned away for financial reasons. 

by Zenith Wolf

A Chelsea entrepreneur has won several  prestigious business awards for the renovation and electric car charger companies she’s founded over the last decade.

On Oct. 24 the Women’s Business Network (WBN), based in the National Capital Region, announced that Chelsea resident and entrpreneur Tonya Bruin was 2024’s Emerging Entrepreneurial Leader. She was chosen from among five local women nominated for the Businesswoman of the Year Award, which was narrowed down to three finalists in August.

“It was actually very surprising to me because there are so many amazing businesswomen in Ottawa,” she says. “I have a bit of impostor syndrome creeping in. But it’s been really great because, since they announced the finalists, we’ve gotten together as a group several times for cheese and brunch.”

On Nov. 2 the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA) also awarded her Best Basement Renovation and Best Overall Renovation in the $150K to $250K category. 

Neither of the awards come with monetary compensation.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Bruin worked for the federal government for 16 years, spending the first five as Vancouver’s manager of the Air Quality Health Index program for Environment and Climate Change Canada. 

She then moved to Gatineau to work for Health Canada until 2014, when she decided federal work gave her too little room for creativity.

“It’s a fantastic career, but I have an entrepreneurial spirit and that doesn’t serve well in the public service. You’re constrained by politics while working on behalf of a minister,” she says.

At the time, Bruin was also reckoning with the loss of her father, who succumbed to Parkinson’s and cancer after years of treatment. 

The 40-year-old says she realized she wanted to make the most of her life and that’s when she started To Do–Done Renovations.

Though the company now focuses on renovations, she founded it in April 2015 as a handyman service. 

She says there were few reputable renovators in the area willing to fix smaller problems, including patching up leaks and removing mice from a property. She modeled the business off 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, which, she says, turned the unpredictable quality of junk removal into a “professionalized service” and used innovative marketing strategies like a parade.

Bruin founded her second company, Evolta Electric, when her renovation work became consistent enough that she needed to contract electricians almost every day. She says she also noticed, after purchasing an electric vehicle in 2021, that it was difficult to find charging ports.

“We’ve installed a mix of residential and commercial EV chargers, and we’re doing LED lighting retrofits at Perley and Rideau care home with (around) 8,000 light fixture changes. That will have huge energy savings for them,” she says. “Because of my environmental policy background, I was quite interested in…decarbonizing our economy.”

Between the two companies, Bruin now works with 20 employees. She says her children grew up watching her run a company by herself, and, now that they’re in CEGEP, they’ve expressed interest in being entrepreneurs themselves.

Marla Bryant says that Gatineau Park isn’t broken. 

It doesn’t need saving from the government; it doesn’t need legislation to protect it, and it doesn’t need a board of executives in suits to preserve it. 

According to her, the residents who live in the park – some families for centuries – are the true stewards of Gatineau Park who will continue to protect the “crown jewel” of the National Capital Region (NCR).

“Most of the protection up here has certainly been by the residents, especially those that have been living here for, you know, sometimes two or three generations,” said Bryant, who has lived on Meech Lake for 41 years. Her late husband’s family has been in Gatineau Park since the 1920s, and she said that residents – not the National Capital Commission (NCC) – are the ones who regularly pick up garbage along the ditches and monitor late-night activities in parking lots, beaches and trails. 

Bryant’s comments come a week after Pontiac MP Sophie Chatel tabled her Gatineau Park Protection Bill in the House of Commons. The bill aims to establish official park boundaries, protect its ecological integrity, prohibit the sale of public lands and allow the NCC to negotiate a right-of-first-refusal with private landowners who already live in the park. 

Private landowners in the park have taken issue with Chatel’s bill, namely the clause around negotiating a right-of-first-refusal with the NCC. Right-of-first-refusal means that if a landowner wants to sell property in the park, the NCC has the first chance to buy it. 

Bryant owns a double lot on Meech Lake road and only one of the lots contains a home. Under the bill’s provisions, Bryant would be forced to first offer her second lot up to the NCC, “at fair market value” by an expert’s appraisal before being sold to a third party.

“People have to wait 60 days every time they want to move a piece of land, or, if they want to sell it to their daughter or somebody, they have to wait 60 days to make sure the NCC decides it doesn’t want it,” said Bryant. “But it isn’t like there’s a lot of vacant land in the park. My assessment of this situation is somebody trying to gain points by saving the park. It doesn’t need saving.”

Bryant’s neighbour Christopher Frank agreed and said that, while protecting the Park from development is a good thing in principle, he’s mostly upset that there was no consultation from Chatel’s office with the landowners who have lived in the park for generations. He said Chatel and Senator Rosa Galvez’s bill didn’t take into account the rights of homeowners who have owned land in the park before it was ever named Gatineau Park.

“This would be a major change in our lives and a major impact on the value of our property and our ability to sell it,” said Frank about the proposed bill. “The right-of-first-refusal expropriates our ability to freely sell our home. The whole thing is very strange for those of us whose [family] members have been here since early in the 20th century. Why we would be treated differently than our neighbours in this part of the world, I just don’t understand.”

The bill, however, does contain exceptions for lands that have residences built on them. According to the bill, in cases where a residence is on land that a property owner wants to sell, the owner has to “notify the [National Capital] Commission of the owner’s intention to dispose of the immovable property. The notice must contain an expert’s appraisal of the immovable property’s value.”

But it’s not just the right-of-first-refusal that Frank has an issue with but a number of protections that he calls “overkill.”

“It’s not just our ability to resell our home, but that is – that’s the main thing, but it touches on so much beneath it,” added Frank. “Our right to use our neighborhood and the lake, for instance; restrictions on  who or what way you might use the lake. It’s a free country.”

The bill, if passed, would authorize the NCC to negotiate a right-of-first-refusal with the property owner, according to Chatel. If no such agreement is made, then the owner must let the NCC know that it intends to sell the property and must include an expert appraisal of the property. 

“If you intend to sell your property, there is a notification that is given to the NCC,” said Chatel about properties with residences on them. “That’s all. You just have to say, ‘Hey, I intend to sell my property.’”

Chatel’s bill was introduced in the Senate on Oct. 10 and will go to second reading sometime in the future. However, if a federal election is triggered, the bill will die on the order table, and Chatel will have to reintroduce it if she’s re-elected. 

Chatel has confirmed that she will run again in the Pontiac and, if elected, will reintroduce the bill. 

Chatel said that without protection, a legislative framework and defined park boundaries, the “crown jewel” of the National Capital Region will never be “a real park.”

By Trevor Greenway

The head of the region’s health authority says that if the government built its “mega-hospital” today, it wouldn’t be able to operate it. 

This is because there aren’t enough doctors, nurses or medical technicians to run the facility. 

On Oct. 14 the CAQ government officially announced its plan to build a 600-bed “mega-hospital” in Gatineau by 2030. 

Speaking with the Low Down two weeks after that announcement, Marc Bilodeau, the CEO of Outaouais Integrated Health and Social Services Centre CISSSO said, while a new hospital is a boon for the region, there is plenty of work to be done to recruit, train and build incentives for healthcare workers to stay in the Outaouais before a new hospital can be staffed.

“That’s the reality; we just don’t have the people. We need them to build a plan, and a plan would take, most likely, 10 years to deliver,” he said, putting the responsibility on the CAQ government. 

Bilodeau explained that recruitment isn’t immediate because education programs take time to build and several years for students to complete. He said the Outaouais is graduating its first cohort of doctors from the McGill campus in Gatineau, which opened four years ago. Those 23 students will start their residency in the Outaouais this summer, said Bilodeau. He added that, since the campus opened in 2020, they have been increasing the number of medical school spots, with the latest class up to 38 students. 

“There is going to be an increasing number of new doctors that will have been trained in Outaouais, which means that they know the area, they know the territory and they probably have started to build some roots here,” said Bilodeau. 

He explained that CISSSO has created a recruitment committee to figure out ways of how best to recruit and retain medical professionals.

“We need to figure out how we can support new, potential doctors and new families coming on board. How can we support them with lodging, daycare and so on, so that we facilitate their integration, and they are more likely to stay,” he said.

Bilodeau said he is aware, though, that without salary parity with Ontario healthcare positions, it will always be a challenge to keep workers in the region. He said the biggest challenge is in the medical technicians department, as those workers can make upwards of $30,000 more in Ontario than they do in Quebec. 

The CISSSO tried to combat this last summer when it pressured the government to give $22,000 bonuses to medical technicians to stay in hospitals in the Outaouais. While the bonuses did help retain staff at Wakefield and Shawville, Bilodeau said it’s a “short-term fix.” 

He said that salaries for nurses and doctors are somewhat comparable with Ontario, but he added that the real discrepancy comes on the medical technician side – radiologists, MRI technicians and ultrasound experts. Bilodeau said salary parity should be a “key element” in the government’s retention strategy. 

The opening of a new “mega-hospital” raises questions about what will happen to local hospital services, namely smaller hospitals like those in Wakefield and Shawville. In its Oct. 14 announcement, the CAQ government didn’t include a cost, timeline or location, and said the new hospital’s aim is to centralize specialized workers in one large facility to service the Outaouais region. The official press release stated that local services would be “completely reorganized.”

Pontiac MNA André Fortin told the Low Down that “everyone should be worried about the future services in Wakefield.”

“It is formally written in the CISSSO’s clinical plan that once the new Hull Hospital opens, the Wakefield Hospital will become a geriatric readaptation facility,” said Fortin. “The CISSSO’s own official documents show that the hospital will lose its ‘hospital’ vocation. But Wakefield needs a functional emergency room, it needs frontline services, it needs care units, it needs a hospital.”

Bilodeau told the Low Down that the Wakefield Hospital is not under threat of closing but that the next few years will be key in finding out what users need the hospital to be. With the needs of the population changing, he said his next few years of work will be focused on finding out what those needs are and fighting to keep those services intact. 

“Is it going to remain as is?” asked Bilodeau about the future of the Wakefield Hospital. “Is it going to transfer to something a bit different, because we know we’re still going to need care in that area, but what care will be required?”

Marcel Chartrand, spokesperson for Vigi Santé, a health watchdog group in the Outaouais, said that the government has spent $15 million over the last few years bringing in extra doctors and nurses to help out in the region, and he wondered how the government is going to staff a new 600-bed hospital. He said hospital emergency rooms in Hull and Gatineau are operating between 25 and 40 per cent capacity. 

“That’s the million dollar question,” Chartrand told the Low Down when asked who will staff the new hospital. “We have three openings in Wakefield for doctors, and another one, Dr. Menard, [who] announced his retirement last week or the week before, so that will be four, and we can’t replace them.”

Chartrand said that his organization was assured that services at the Wakefield Hospital would not be diminished when the government builds its new hospital.

By Trevor Greenway

MRC des Collines Police allege that a Zamboni driver under the influence of alcohol crashed into the boards at the Meredith Centre Oct. 21 and caused damage to one of the doors inside the Chelsea arena. 

According to police, the 25-year-old Zamboni driver, who has not been named, was arrested for drunk driving and will appear in court at a later date. The man’s licence was suspended. 

Police allege the man was cleaning the ice around 9:45 p.m. when he slammed into the end of the rink boards. 

A video released by police of the event appears to show the Zamboni crashing into the boards at the far end of the ice. The driver then reverses, and there is some yelling between a referee on the ice and the driver. 

According to MRC des Collines Police spokesperson Martin Fournel, a witness at the arena called the cops shortly after the incident. When police arrived, they performed a sobriety test, which police say he failed. Fournel told the Low Down that the driver’s blood-alcohol content was above .08 per cent, which is the legal limit. 

“It’s important to remember that our officers intervened after receiving a call from a concerned person that was on site and because it was possible for that person to observe symptoms of impairment, plus the fact the person just had a collision causing damages with a big machine and kept driving after – it was unsafe for the driver himself and for anyone present there at the time,” added Fournel. 

He continued: “And it was the right thing to do. Any citizen witnessing something like this should also call. So, once on site, our officers confirmed the fact that the gentleman was driving under the influence of alcohol, and he got arrested.”

The incident has raised questions about whether or not the driver should have been arrested for a DUI, as he wasn’t driving on a public road. 

According to Fournel, it doesn’t matter where or what you’re driving, if it’s a “motor vehicle” and you’re under the influence of alcohol or drugs, you can be charged. 

“You can be arrested driving a boat, a train, a plane, an ATV and you are not on the road,” Fournel explained, citing the Criminal Code, which defines a motor vehicle as “a vehicle that is drawn, propelled or driven by any means other than muscular power.” 

Fournel said the 25-year-old was cooperative, but was led out of the arena in handcuffs, which he said is standard police procedure. 

According to Chelsea Foundation executive-director Amanda DeGrace, the organization which runs the Meredith Centre, the driver was not a municipal employee but rather a staffer with the Chelsea Foundation. 

While she wouldn’t discuss the specifics of the incident, citing that it was an internal matter, she did say that the Chelsea Foundation takes these events seriously. 

“Public and staff safety is a high priority for us,” said DeGrace. “We do have extensive training protocols in place as well that all staff follow. DeGrace wouldn’t comment on whether or not the employee was fired or disciplined. 

When asked if he was a municipal or Foundation employee, she said, “He is, was, an employee of the Chelsea Foundation.”

This is not the first time in Canada that a Zamboni driver has been charged for driving an ice resurfacer while drunk. A man in Manitoba was arrested after he crashed into the boards during a game in 2015. Another incident that same year, this time in North Dakota saw a man spend nine days in jail for driving a Zamboni while under the influence. 

By Trevor Greenway

Wakefield needs to fix its aging sewer system, but despite the state of disrepair, La Pêche says it has nothing to do with the recent spring contamination at the top of Valley Drive. 

According to La Pêche Mayor Guillaume Lamoureux, a Ministry of Environment assessment in 2022 revealed a number of fixes that the municipality must make on the sewer system in Wakefield that was built nearly 30 years ago, namely failing pump stations. 

“Our biggest concern is around backup pumps for the pumping stations,” said Lamoureux. “We had to rent two pumps last year when maintenance on our pumps was required. We have also had issues with control panels; they must be replaced.”

The work will cost close to $350,000, and workers will begin repairs immediately, with a completion date of next summer. La Pêche passed a borrowing bylaw Oct. 24 for $357,000 to complete the work. 

“The sewers were built in 1996,” said Lamoureux. “Components of the system are used up and must be replaced. Also, the work needs to be done to avoid having to do urgent repairs in the near future if we wait until components fail. This equipment is very specialized, and there can be considerable delays for obtaining components.”

Lamoureux told the Low Down that the municipality is certain that the aging system isn’t linked to recent boil water advisories that have affected the Wakefield spring on Valley Drive. He said the effluence from the treatment plant is not contaminating Wakefield’s water source. 

“The outlet of the sewer system is in the Gatineau River, located near the intersection of Riverside and Chemin de la Vallée-de-Wakefield,” said Lamoureux. “On top of installing flowmeters, we have done a lot of tests and camera inspections in recent years to ensure the impermeability of the system and found no leak on the system’s outlet.”

Lamoureux added that the municipality has no plans to expand the sewer system, as the capacity of the aerated ponds is at just 50 per cent. He said there is “no need” to expand capacity, but he did leave the door open to extending the network to service new areas.

By Trevor Greenway

Nathalie Coutou wants to share her story – and STO Union is helping her tell it. 

The owner of Khewa, an Indigenous boutique in Wakefield, says she has faced questions about her ancestry and her connection to Indigenous, Inuit and Métis culture. She wants to tell the story of how devastating it is when someone questions your heritage and scrutinizes your right to share stories from your past. 

Coutou is collaborating with STO Union, a world-renowned and award-winning, Wakefield-based, theatre company to explore what it means to belong. 

The three-event series will feature Algonquin Traditional Elder Annie Smith St-George, Hereditary Chief on the Mi’Kmaq Grand Council Elder Stephen Augustine and Wakefield resident Elizabeth Logue, along with STO Union Artistic Director Nadia Ross and Coutou. 

“I started to question my place of belonging, and that’s when fear kicked in,” said Coutou, who has owned and operated her Khewa Indigenous Art Boutique for 23 years in Wakefield. 

When she first opened her boutique in 2001, she said nobody would come inside because of the stigma of the Oka Crisis – a 78-day standoff between Mohawk protesters and Quebec’s provincial law enforcement over a proposed golf course expansion on disputed land that encompassed a Mohawk burial ground. 

The stigma of that standoff, in which Sûreté du Québec Corporal Marcel Lemay was killed, was still present and people began to question where Coutou was from and why she had set up an Indigenous boutique on unceded Algonquin territory, according to Coutou. 

“Then it was like, ‘How Indigenous are you?’” said Coutou about customers who came in and asked where she was from. She said she would tell them that she is of French-European-Mi’kmaq-ancestry in Quebec and a single mother of two, rebuilding her life, alone. But she said they continued to press her, asking, “‘Well, this is unceded Algonquin territory. How come she’s here?’ Those are not questions I used to have.”

Through a three-event series entitled “A Soft Place to Land,” STO Union and Coutou are inviting the public to come, listen, learn and understand the different ways that people feel they belong – or don’t.

“As identity politics gained ground in the late 2010s and early 20s, [Coutou’s] identity and right to share anything from her mixed heritage’s perspective began to get scrutinized,” wrote Ross in the event’s official press release. “Who was she? And did she have the right to reconnect to her ancestry as a proud woman of mixed ancestry and share stories with the public about Indigenous, Inuit and Métis culture?”

Coutou said the questions about her heritage have brought up trauma from her past, as her father was a victim of “yellow journalism” – fake news that emphasized sensationalism over fact-based reporting. Coutou’s father, Claude, a well-known breeder of malamute dogs at his kennel in Saint-Alexis north of Montreal, would become the centre of a sensationalized media campaign in the Montreal-based tabloid Allô Police in the 1980s. The media campaign against her father was rumoured to have been initiated by organizations with competing agendas – that the smear campaign was meant to discredit the dog breed and her father as a breeder, according to Coutou and Ross.

“The family was completely destroyed by these weekly Sunday reports in this newspaper of people saying that their breed of dog were child killers – this specific breed of dog, the Malamute breed of dog, were child killers,” said Ross. The stress of the coverage tore Coutou’s family apart, with her father dying of cancer, leaving his 29-year-old wife to care for Coutou and her three siblings. Coutou said her father was in the midst of suing the tabloid over defamation when he fell ill and died. 

The three-part series is happening at the Wakefield community centre over three different evenings: part 1 of the series, “A soft place to land”, takes place Nov. 8.; part 2, “Malamute”, is on Nov. 9; and the final part, “Welcome home”, is on Nov. 10. All three events start at 7 p.m. and they are non-ticketed with a $20 suggested donation.

“My hope is that we can come together to share stories and discuss what belonging means to us as a community,” added Coutou.

For more information, visit https://stounion.com/

By Trevor Greenway

Anglophone residents looking to navigate the province’s healthcare system won’t have to look far to find someone who speaks English at local CLSC clinics and hospitals. 

More than 1,000 healthcare workers in the Outaouais are now wearing yellow badges with the words, “Allo, vous parlez Anglais?” They are all bilingual employees and will get you the care you need, whether you speak French or English. 

“Just look for an employee with a yellow badge and directly go and ask them, ‘Can you help me?’” says Joanne Dubois, CISSSO’s coordinator for accessing English services across the region. She’s responsible for implementing the yellow-card system for anglophone services, something she said she saw her colleagues in Côte-Nord do with great success. “My role is to make sure that there’s access [to healthcare] for the English-speaking population,” she added. “Because there’s no language when it comes to your health.”

CISSSO’s yellow-card badge system is simple: anglophones needing help in their mother tongue no longer have to wander hospital hallways looking for the right examination room, elevators or even washrooms. All they will need to do is look for someone wearing a yellow badge. According to Dubois, those employees have volunteered to be bilingual representatives and are committed to helping anglophones navigate clinics and hospitals that do not have bilingual status. 

Dubois said the CISSSO has always had an English language coordinator, but she admitted that her role has become much more active and important with the adoption of Bill 96 – the province’s overhaul of the charter of the French Language, which restricts the use of English in government institutions. 

In July, the CAQ government published a health directive outlining, in excruciating detail, when English could be used in a health or social services setting. The directive suggested anglophones would be required to produce an English eligibility certificate to receive health and social services in their mother tongue. Anglo leaders decried that directive, and the CAQ quickly scrapped the 31-page document and replaced it with a new one in September, which clearly states that English residents are entitled to health and social services. 

Bill 96, now Law 14 after its adoption in 2022, still requires that all CLSCs without bilingual status adhere to the updated language rules, meaning no posted signage in English, no English pamphlets or resource information. 

But now, after launching the yellow-badge initiative in September, more than 1,000 CISSSO employees across the Outaouais are designated bilingual healthcare workers. Dubois said she feels the system will be a major stress reliever for mental health patients in particular. 

She said that anglophones could be in Maniwaki, Shawville or in the city when they need mental health support, but the region’s mental health hospital is in Hull, a predominantly French facility. 

“Already, you’re nervous, saying, ‘Oh, my god, nobody is going to speak English because we’re in Quebec and this law came in.’ Knowing that once you go into the building and find someone with a yellow badge decreases the stress level of the family that is going in to get an evaluation for their child.”

Dubois said she was not surprised at the positive response from staffers, as the initiative was offered on a voluntary basis. She said the high number of healthcare workers who want to help reinforces the Hippocratic Oath, a mantra doctors undertake to ensure that the “health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration,” according to the oath.

Vigi Santé spokesperson Marcel Chartrand told the Low Down that while the initiative is a good move, he still finds it hard to accept that we’ve gotten to a point where we must identify what language we speak to get healthcare. 

He was impressed, however, with the number of workers who came forward to volunteer to wear the bilingual badges. 

“Well, at first, I was sort of ambivalent,” said Chartrand when asked his initial thoughts on the yellow badge system. “I said, ‘Oh, my God. Are we there? Now, we have to identify people who can speak to you. But I looked at it again, and I guess it’s a step in the right direction. And more importantly, there are over 1,000 employees who now have that card.” Chartrand said the initiative couldn’t have come at a better time, as it will “reinforce” anglo rights while the government continues to cut English services across the province. 

Vigi Santé owns and operates long-term care homes in the region and has also become a health watchdog and a leading voice for regional healthcare.

“It will reinforce the notion that it doesn’t matter where you go; you’ll be served in your language, contrary to that stupid directive that we saw a couple months ago,” said Chartrand. 

“Things are getting clearer, and anglophones can feel safe to go anywhere in the system and be addressed in their language and be understood and be served.”

Yellow cards good, but real issue is funding (SUBHED)

SOS Outaouais executive-director Jean Pigeon told the Low Down that while he sees the yellow badge initiative as a “step in the right direction,” he does have concerns that it’s not a mandatory requirement for healthcare workers. However, he said the initiative will remove some “tongue barriers” for English speakers in health settings.

“What I think is very important is accessibility,” said Pigeon. “Accessibility should be done in any way for anybody at any time – whatever language they speak, whatever religion they are, whatever race they are. Accessibility should be offered to 100 per cent of the clientele. So that’s a big responsibility of the healthcare system.”

However, Pigeon said he remains focused on a much bigger task – one that SOS Outaouais, a coalition of organizations and citizens who share concerns about the state of health and social services in the region, could make or break the Outaouais in the years to come: funding. 

According to SOS Outaouais, the region is facing a $181 million shortfall to be on par with other regions of the province. 

This underfunding and the lack of salary parity for Ontario and Quebec healthcare workers continues to plague the Outaouais region. 

“We’re faced with the underfunding, and we’re faced also with the fact that there are so very few healthcare workers and social workers in our system that we’re not even providing accessibility to these services, and that has nothing to do with the language we’re speaking or the colour of our skin or whatever,” Pigeon said.

According to SOS, the Gatineau emergency room is operating at less than 30 per cent capacity, while Hull’s ER is working with less than 50 per cent of its staff. 

Because of a lack of staffing, CISSSO paid over $14 million to personnel placement agency services to get more workers to the region from April to July of this year alone. The Gatineau operating room is at 25 per cent capacity, while the Hull operating room is at just 43 per cent capacity. 

This means that wait times for elective surgeries across the entire Outaouais region continue to be the longest  wait times in the province. 

By Trevor Greenway

Lily Kunstadt is going on Chelsea’s Wall of Fame. 

The 13-year-old elite skier is this year’s recipient of the inaugural Rising Star award for the Chelsea Foundation’s Wall of Fame and will be inducted, along with 11 other leaders in sport, innovation and leadership, on Oct. 26.

Kunstadt was one of the best skiers in her age group across the province, but the young athlete was severely injured in a ski lift accident in Switzerland earlier this year and is currently recovering at the Holland Bloorview Rehabilitation Centre in Toronto. 

“Lily continues to be her funny, positive self and is working hard at physio,” said her mom, Shannon. She added that her daughter hopes to be in attendance this Saturday at the awards ceremony, although her family is waiting for the go-ahead from doctors. 

Lily placed second in giant slalom and slalom at the U14 international ski race in Tärnaby, Sweden, earlier this spring, and just missed first place by less than 0.2 seconds in each race. Lily hopes to continue racing but is facing 1–2 years of recovery, according to her parents. 

Joining Lily are another 11 individuals who have contributed to Chelsea in some way, through sports, arts and culture and community building. These include: professional racing cyclist Mike Woods, who won Stage 9 of the Tour de France in 2023 and Canadian former Lethwei fighter Dave Leduc. 

Leduc is a former six-time Lethwei world champion who held the openweight Lethwei Golden Belt and was undefeated under traditional rules KO to win. Lethwei, or Burmese boxing, is a full-contact, combat sport originating from Myanmar and is regarded as one of the most brutal martial arts in the world. Leduc first gained widespread notoriety after winning a controversial prison fight inside a maximum security prison in Thailand. He was not a prisoner. 

Ray Zahab is another inductee this year. The ultra-marathoner took the world by storm when he ran across the Sahara Desert in 2006 while filming the documentary film ‘Running the Sahara’, produced by Matt Damon. The film raised awareness for the drinking water crisis in North Africa. In 2008, Zahab founded his Impossible2Possible charity, which inspires and educates youth through adventure learning, inclusion and participation in expeditions. 

In 2022, Zahab was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer Lymphoma, but that didn’t stop him. In February of the following year, in between chemotherapy treatment, Zahab and Val Gagne and Kevin Vallely completed a winter crossing of Baffin Island through the Paalik Valley. 

Other inductees this year include: Monica Dashwood in the Sport Builders category; Carson Becke, Paula Murray, James Stephens and Ian Tamblyn in the Arts & Culture category; and Dr. Nicole Bruinsma, Michelle Hegge and Stephen Woodley in the Community Builders category. 

Tickets for the gala are on sale now at https://chelseafoundation.ca/. The gala is part of the Chelsea Foundation’s 26th anniversary. 

“This program celebrates our community and its uniqueness both in terms of exceptional individual achievements in sports and the strength and quality of the voluntary sector that sustains and shapes our community,” said Fiona Duguid, president of the non-profit charitable organization, whose principle purpose is to promote sport, culture and leisure, as well as foster a sense of community in the municipality of Chelsea.

By Trevor Greenway

More than 50 trail builders from around the world gathered in Wakefield Sept. 30 to learn how a village of volunteers banded together to extend the Trans Canada Trail from Gatineau Park through their town. 

The Sentiers Wakefield Trails gathering was part of the World Trails Conference in Ottawa in late September, which brought 55 international delegates on a tour along three kilometres of Wakefield’s robust trail network “to get a first-hand look at how a community of volunteers has taken on large trail projects, preserved local history and woven the village of Wakefield into the Trans Canada Trail.”

Sentiers Wakefield got its start in 2005 when the now-defunct Wakefield Ensemble funded a series of trail projects around the village. The trails organization, which became an official non-profit in 2016, has created and maintained an extensive network of trails throughout La Pêche. With the help of hundreds of volunteers over the years, Sentiers Wakefield connected the Trans Canada Trail from Gatineau Park through the Wakefield village, crossing the iconic Gatineau River at Hendrick Park at Maison Fairbairn.

Half of the delegates were led by Wakefield Trails president Ken Bouchard, who has been dubbed the “Old Fart Trail Champion,” while the rest of the group was taken on a tour from Maison Fairbairn by Wakefielder Micheal Cooper. 

The conference in Ottawa was organized around themes revolving around Reconciliation, Regenerative Tourism and Climate and Nature. Wakefielder Elizabeth Logue introduced the group with a short introduction to Anishinabe culture and language. 

“I didn’t expect to be as moved by the conference as I was,” said Sentiers Wakefield Trails spokesperson Laura Wesley. “Over three days, we watched films, heard speakers and talked with fellow trail builders.” 

Among the delegates was National Trails UK, which shared its creative approach to an erosion problem it is facing due to climate change. The UK trails group is using designated coastal trails as conserved land to help reach national targets of conserving 30 per cent of of terrestrial and marine habitat by 2030.

“We have a network of trails that connect the village to the Gatineau Park, people to the natural world and to each other,” said Wesley. “I’m proud of what our community has built. And there are so many opportunities yet to explore. Inspired by what others are doing, I left the conference wondering, ‘What is the story we are creating now that will be told by future generations?’”

By Trevor Greenway

editor@lowdownonline.com

The mayor of Kazabazua says he’s disappointed with a Superior Court decision to deny a temporary injunction on Bill 96 while bilingual municipalities fight the controversial law in court. 

Kazabazua Mayor Robert Bergeron says that his municipality is one of the 23 bilingual municipalities fighting Bill 96 in court and argues that, while only 41 per cent of Kazabazuans identify English as their mother tongue, that number increases significantly when including cottagers. 

“First of all, we’re a bilingual municipality,” Bergeron told the Low Down. “Second of all, if we look at our population count, permanent residents are 42 or 43 per cent English. However, if we take our lakers, then you’re jumping higher – over 50 per cent, close to 60 per cent of English speakers. [Cottagers] pay more than 60 per cent of our taxes, and we felt that they should have service in their language.”

The latest 2021 Canada census shows that, while Kazabazua has more “mother-tongue French speakers,” more than half of its population – 54.1 per cent – speak English at home, compared to the 51.2 per cent that speak French at home. Bergeron said that maintaining a bilingual municipality helps it thrive, as it’s easier to retain employees and bid for contracts, and it offers more flexibility when working on municipal initiatives. 

“If you look or listen to our municipal council meetings, the minutes are always bilingual,” said Bergeron. “And all of our signage and communications are bilingual.”

In the summer of 2023, a coalition of 23 municipalities joined forces to fight Bill 96 in court, namely five areas of the law, which they argue will bring “serious and irreparable harm” to their municipalities. Those five areas included contracts and communication, the requirement to adopt a resolution to maintain bilingual status, alleged illegal searches and seizures, government grants and the obligation to discipline employees.

According to municipal lawyer Julius Grey, that lawsuit could take years to wind its way through the courts. In the meantime, he requested an injunction from Superior Court Judge Silvana Conte to suspend part of the law while the legal challenge continues. 

Grey asked the judge to suspend four provisions of Bill 96 for the 23 bilingual municipalities pending the outcome of their legal challenge, including:

the provision that requires all municipal contracts to be drafted in French, even when all parties are anglophones;

the provision that allows the province to withhold grants and subsidies to municipalities failing to comply with Bill 96;

the provision that allows inspectors from the Office Québécois de la langue française (OQLF) to conduct searches and seizures of documents without a warrant and without notice;

the provision requiring municipalities to discipline employees who don’t comply with Bill 96.

Grey said the municipalities shouldn’t have to comply with these provisions while waiting for the case to be decided on its merits.

On Oct. 15, Conte denied the request, arguing that the municipalities had not proved serious or irreparable damage. 

“It’s disappointing for sure, but we will just have to find another way of approaching it, but we certainly will keep on trying,” he said.

Communities with bilingual status have the right to serve their citizens in English and French, while municipalities without that status are prohibited from communicating with residents in English.

Chelsea confident about its bilingual service (SUBHED)

Chelsea has bilingual status but didn’t join the coalition to fight the law in court. Mayor Pierre Guénard told the Low Down that he and his council feel they have a good hold on bilingual services, with the municipality holding bilingual meetings, serving residents in both languages and translating minutes and documents into English. 

According to the 2021 census, Chelsea’s demographic data shows that 46.4 per cent of residents have a mother tongue of French, compared to 43.1 English. Despite the slight prevalence of French speakers, Chelsea still has bilingual status and intends to keep it that way, according to Guénard.

“My two kids now are fully bilingual. Why? Because they grew up in Chelsea,” said Guénard. “For the Chelsea council, it was always important to ask the province to keep the bilingual status and to keep serving the population in both languages.”

The province’s OQLF made two visits to Chelsea in the past year: once after a complaint about signage at the Meredith Centre and another at the Nearly New thrift shop. 

By Trevor Greenway

Anglophone residents looking to navigate the province’s healthcare system won’t have to look far to find someone who speaks English at local CLSC clinics and hospitals. 

More than 1,000 healthcare workers in the Outaouais are now wearing yellow badges with the words, “Allo, vous parlez Anglais?” They are all bilingual employees and will get you the care you need, whether you speak French or English. 

“Just look for an employee with a yellow badge and directly go and ask them, ‘Can you help me?’” says Joanne Dubois, CISSSO’s coordinator for accessing English services across the region. She’s responsible for implementing the yellow-card system for anglophone services, something she said she saw her colleagues in Côte-Nord do with great success. “My role is to make sure that there’s access [to healthcare] for the English-speaking population,” she added. “Because there’s no language when it comes to your health.”

CISSSO’s yellow-card badge system is simple: anglophones needing help in their mother tongue no longer have to wander hospital hallways looking for the right examination room, elevators or even washrooms. All they will need to do is look for someone wearing a yellow badge. According to Dubois, those employees have volunteered to be bilingual representatives and are committed to helping anglophones navigate clinics and hospitals that do not have bilingual status. 

Dubois said the CISSSO has always had an English language coordinator, but she admitted that her role has become much more active and important with the adoption of Bill 96 – the province’s overhaul of the charter of the French Language, which restricts the use of English in government institutions. 

In July, the CAQ government published a health directive outlining, in excruciating detail, when English could be used in a health or social services setting. The directive suggested anglophones would be required to produce an English eligibility certificate to receive health and social services in their mother tongue. Anglo leaders decried that directive, and the CAQ quickly scrapped the 31-page document and replaced it with a new one in September, which clearly states that English residents are entitled to health and social services. 

Bill 96, now Law 14 after its adoption in 2022, still requires that all CLSCs without bilingual status adhere to the updated language rules, meaning no posted signage in English, no English pamphlets or resource information. 

But now, after launching the yellow-badge initiative in September, more than 1,000 CISSSO employees across the Outaouais are designated bilingual healthcare workers. Dubois said she feels the system will be a major stress reliever for mental health patients in particular. 

She said that anglophones could be in Maniwaki, Shawville or in the city when they need mental health support, but the region’s mental health hospital is in Hull, a predominantly French facility. 

“Already, you’re nervous, saying, ‘Oh, my god, nobody is going to speak English because we’re in Quebec and this law came in.’ Knowing that once you go into the building and find someone with a yellow badge decreases the stress level of the family that is going in to get an evaluation for their child.”

Dubois said she was not surprised at the positive response from staffers, as the initiative was offered on a voluntary basis. She said the high number of healthcare workers who want to help reinforces the Hippocratic Oath, a mantra doctors undertake to ensure that the “health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration,” according to the oath.

Vigi Santé spokesperson Marcel Chartrand told the Low Down that while the initiative is a good move, he still finds it hard to accept that we’ve gotten to a point where we must identify what language we speak to get healthcare. 

He was impressed, however, with the number of workers who came forward to volunteer to wear the bilingual badges. 

“Well, at first, I was sort of ambivalent,” said Chartrand when asked his initial thoughts on the yellow badge system. “I said, ‘Oh, my God. Are we there? Now, we have to identify people who can speak to you. But I looked at it again, and I guess it’s a step in the right direction. And more importantly, there are over 1,000 employees who now have that card.” Chartrand said the initiative couldn’t have come at a better time, as it will “reinforce” anglo rights while the government continues to cut English services across the province. 

Vigi Santé owns and operates long-term care homes in the region and has also become a health watchdog and a leading voice for regional healthcare.

“It will reinforce the notion that it doesn’t matter where you go; you’ll be served in your language, contrary to that stupid directive that we saw a couple months ago,” said Chartrand. 

“Things are getting clearer, and anglophones can feel safe to go anywhere in the system and be addressed in their language and be understood and be served.”

Yellow cards good, but real issue is funding (SUBHED)

SOS Outaouais executive-director Jean Pigeon told the Low Down that while he sees the yellow badge initiative as a “step in the right direction,” he does have concerns that it’s not a mandatory requirement for healthcare workers. However, he said the initiative will remove some “tongue barriers” for English speakers in health settings.

“What I think is very important is accessibility,” said Pigeon. “Accessibility should be done in any way for anybody at any time – whatever language they speak, whatever religion they are, whatever race they are. Accessibility should be offered to 100 per cent of the clientele. So that’s a big responsibility of the healthcare system.”

However, Pigeon said he remains focused on a much bigger task – one that SOS Outaouais, a coalition of organizations and citizens who share concerns about the state of health and social services in the region, could make or break the Outaouais in the years to come: funding. 

According to SOS Outaouais, the region is facing a $181 million shortfall to be on par with other regions of the province. 

This underfunding and the lack of salary parity for Ontario and Quebec healthcare workers continues to plague the Outaouais region. 

“We’re faced with the underfunding, and we’re faced also with the fact that there are so very few healthcare workers and social workers in our system that we’re not even providing accessibility to these services, and that has nothing to do with the language we’re speaking or the colour of our skin or whatever,” Pigeon said.

According to SOS, the Gatineau emergency room is operating at less than 30 per cent capacity, while Hull’s ER is working with less than 50 per cent of its staff. 

Because of a lack of staffing, CISSSO paid over $14 million to personnel placement agency services to get more workers to the region from April to July of this year alone. The Gatineau operating room is at 25 per cent capacity, while the Hull operating room is at just 43 per cent capacity. 

This means that wait times for elective surgeries across the entire Outaouais region continue to be the longest  wait times in the province. 

By Trevor Greenway

Norma Geggie took her last, peaceful breath inside the palliative care home that she helped create. 

The 99-year-old was a community pillar who always believed that those facing end-of-life should have a peaceful place to rest, and her tireless work on establishing Wakefield’s Maison des Collines was integral to its opening in 2019. 

On Sept. 24, just five years after the palliative care home opened its doors, Geggie died within the very walls she helped erect. 

“It’s a very big loss,” says her daughter, Judy, sitting in her mom’s old living room on Sully Road in Wakefield. It’s a warm, inviting room with a central fireplace decorated with dated furniture. It feels lived in, and it was. 

Norma spent much of her life there – just steps away from the bustle of the village – up until three days before her death. Judy looks around and takes a deep breath. “We shared so much together – I’ll just miss her every day.”

Norma’s legacy stretches far and wide throughout the Hills and beyond as the decades-long volunteer had her hand in scores of community projects: from raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Wakefield Hospital through her annual garden parties to helping set up two seniors’ homes in the Hills. She founded the Wakefield Grannies in 2004 – a grandmother-to-grandmother campaign, which connected Wakefield grandmothers with their South African counterparts who were facing an AIDS epidemic. The Wakefield Grannies was the first-ever Granny Group in the world, and more than 250 of them are now set up across North America through the Stephen Lewis Foundation. 

“Norma’s legacy is that a generation in Alexandra Township [in South Africa] has become educated, functional people with a commitment to their communities,” says long-time friend Brenda Rooney.

Rooney was in the room when Norma had the “What if…” question in 2004: What if a group of Wakefield grannies began a relationship with grandmothers (gogos) in Alexandra Township who were caring for children orphaned by AIDS? That idea 20 years ago has since blossomed into a full movement. 

Since the Stephen Lewis Foundation launched its Grandmother to Grandmother campaign in 2006 – two years after the original Wakefield Grannies was born – more than $40 million has been raised in support of grandmothers and the community-led organizations who support them in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Her legacy is going to be the same for Wakefield, with the Scouts, and all of these groups that she’s affected,” adds Rooney. “Look at what she has done for seniors. It is almost impossible to figure out just what her cumulative legacy is, but she certainly has made Wakefield and Alexander Township a better place.”

Norma was born in Australia in 1924 but spent most of her life – 71 years – in Wakefield, where she worked as a nurse and midwife in the 1950s. She and a friend had seen an advertisement that the Gatineau Memorial Hospital – now the Wakefield Memorial Hospital – was looking for nurses. Dr. Harold Geggie, who would later become Norma’s father-in-law, founded the hospital in 1953 and later brought his son, Stuart, over from England for a temporary residency. It was then that Norma met Stuart, and although Harold truly needed doctors, Norma always thought it was intended to set her up with his son. And if it was a setup, it worked. 

Norma and Dr. Stuart spent 10 days together before he was due back at his medical residency in the U.K. Norma was planning to head back to Australia for good and had to make a connecting flight in England. While there, Stuart proposed to her. She said yes and never made it back to Australia. 

“He proposed to her at the docks after having spent 10 days together. It was very romantic,” says Judy. They were married days later, spent their honeymoon camping in Scotland and headed back to Wakefield to run the Wakefield hospital. 

“They were great together. They were really, really close. They did everything together,” she adds.

This is when Norma really started to make an impact on the community. She threw extravagant hospital garden parties every year, which would usually bring in anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 for hospital equipment. Readers may remember the impressive straw hats that locals would don for this popular afternoon event. 

With her Wakefield Grannies, she and a dozen others travelled to Alexandra Township to connect with their South African counterparts, bringing supplies – food, clothing, condoms – and hope to struggling families who had been impacted by AIDS. She helped establish two long-term care homes in Wakefield and Masham, raised hundreds of thousands over the years for the Des Collines Health Foundation, and was the treasurer for Maison des Collines; her living room was the venue for early-day meetings as the facility had no office. 

Norma was also highly creative. Long before Kaffè 1870 was a village watering hole, it was a craft shop, where Norma and long-time friend, Nicole Feraud-Lewis, would weave together intricate clothing – neckties, mittens, scarves and even her daughter Judy’s wedding dress. 

“She dyed the fabric, wove it, sewed it,” says Judy. “So my wedding outfit was totally made [by] her…she could just make absolutely anything.”

When Norma wasn’t making clothes or raising money or awareness for village causes, she could often be found deep within the pages of one of her many journals. Norma was “a born writer,” says friend, John Hardie, who joined a creative writing club with her in 2012. A dozen or so locals would gather around her fireplace, tell their stories and share their life struggles. 

“This was shortly after Joan Garnett’s partner, Norma Walmsley, died, and Norma saw a soul in distress, so she said, ‘Why don’t we have a little writing group?’” says Hardie. The group had close to 120 writing sessions before COVID hit. 

“She really, really loved that writing group and adored it,” says Hardie. “It was something she looked forward to every month.” 

Norma also published three historical books: one about local cemeteries, one featuring her father-in-law Harold’s medical journals and one entitled, ‘La Pêche: A History of the Townships of Wakefield and Masham in the Province of Quebec.’

Her volunteer efforts were recognized by Canada as she was awarded the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers in 2012 and the Queen’s Jubilee Medal in 2013.

Her crafting friend Feraud-Lewis  described Norma in just four words: “pragmatic, courageous, generous, curious.” 

Norma often told her friends and family that she never wanted to live to 100, saying that “people are living too long,” and that living to 100 usually meant “losing your capacity.”

Norma died five days before turning 100.

By Trevor Greenway

Kazabazua has a new municipal councillor after its previous one spent too much time in the Bahamas. 

The municipality held a by-election this past Sunday to replace two-term councillor Craig Gabie, who missed too many council meetings because he was on a research assignment in the Bahamas for several months this summer, according to municipal minutes. Gabie had not been at a meeting since February.

Sunday’s election saw the up-the-line municipality elect Brandy Killeen as the new councillor, who beat out several other candidates, including Gabie’s wife, Kelly Connolly. According to Elections Quebec, Killeen won 34.44 per cent of the vote, with an 18.83 per cent voter turnout. 

According to the Act Respecting Elections and Referendums in Municipalities In Quebec, municipal councillors can only miss up to 90 days, or their term automatically ends. Gabie told the Low Down that he missed six meetings while he was working at a research institute focused on sustainability and eco responsibility. 

The work was not part of his councillor role. Gabie told the Low Down earlier this summer that he had planned to attend July’s meeting, but his flights were changed and delayed. He said that, although he was away for such an extended period, he still kept tabs on municipal politics.

“Yes, I have stayed in touch with Kazabazua affairs,” Gabie said. “Our home is Kazabazua, and we are in continuous contact with family, friends and council members.”

Kazabazua Mayor Robert Bergeron said that council agreed to pass a motion this summer to grant Gabie more time to be away so that he could continue his research work and still act as a councillor, but the Commission municipale du Québec (CMQ) ruled that Gabie’s absence was “unjustified” and his term was officially terminated. 

Gabie told the Low Down Oct. 15 that he suggested to council in February that he resign from his seat, as he didn’t know how long his Bahamas work contract would last and wasn’t sure how engaged he could be. But he said he was told that Kaz was legally allowed to grant him extensions, and that he did not need to step down. He tried to join meetings via Zoom, but was told that was not possible. 

Gabie said that, although he is no longer a councillor, he will continue to do everything he can to make Kazabazua a better place to live.

“My dedication to this community is not as a councillor, it is as a community member, as a dad, a son, a brother, an uncle, a friend and a neighbour,” Gabie told the Low Down. “I am a proud member of the Kaz community, and my dedication to it is so that my kids don’t have to leave our community to find better opportunities in life; so that they can have all of those things right here in Kaz.”

Coun. Killeen did not respond to an interview request from the Low Down by press time. 

By Trevor Greenway

Waubgeshig Rice never thought he would find himself exploring abandoned motels, empty roadside stores and deserted homes along Hwy 69 between Sudbury and Parry Sound. But that’s where much of his visual research took him when he was building the decaying world of his new book, ‘Moon of the Turning Leaves.’

The Indigenous author, journalist and storyteller travelled along that highway because he wanted to understand just how buildings age – how the wood rots and swells, how a once-solid roof could collapse from years of neglect and just how quickly vegetation and nature can take over a space that was once buzzing with life and activity. He said he didn’t have to travel far to find that inspiration. 

“With ‘Moon of the Turning Leaves’, it’s farther into the future – it takes place 12 years after the blackout that ends the world,” Rice said, describing the sequel to his first book, ‘Moon of the Crusted Snow.’ “So, you know, with the passage of time, there’s been deterioration. I had to do a bit of research in terms of how buildings decay after abandonment. How do communities decay after there are no people living there anymore? There are a lot of examples around where I live of that because Hwy 69 has changed.”

Rice told the Low Down that the world-building aspects of both his books – ‘Moon of the Crusted Snow’ and now the sequel – were the most fun to write, as he was able to creatively build parts of a new world by using real-life experiences to fill in those unknown gaps. 

“It was a fun sort of writing practice because, when you’re imagining the future, it’s all speculation, but there are, like, real life, current examples that you can draw from.”

Rice’s sequel picks up a decade after his first novel, where a global power outage has caused chaos and disorder. While it has been described as a post-apocalyptic journey, Rice, himself, calls it more of a “post-urban or post-technological or post-industrial” story – one of resilience, survival and heartbreak. He said he feels that we’ve already been through an apocalypse. 

“As is discussed in the books themselves, and more widely among Indigenous authors, is this experience of already having survived [the] apocalypse as Indigenous people,” said Rice. “It’s already our lived experience, having been displaced from our homelands and having been brutalized by the state and so on. And then I think when the pandemic happened, it just…solidified some of those themes for me.”

Rice will be exploring these themes and other issues on Oct. 16 alongside debut author Kai Thomas at this year’s Wakefield Writers Fête. The two Canadian authors are kicking off the 10th anniversary of the festival with ‘Stories of Resilience’ in what promises to be a thoughtful, provocative evening of words. 

Thomas’ debut novel ‘In the Upper Country’ explores slavery in Canada and gives a fresh perspective on the Underground Railroad. 

Both authors will join host Adrian Harewood onstage for an evening of discussion at the Wakefield community centre beginning at 7 p.m. For tickets, visit www.writersfete.com 

By Trevor Greenway

To say that the Chase the Ace fundraiser was a success for the Low arena would be a massive understatement. 

The arena made a whopping near half million dollars – $484,000 to be exact – through CHGA 97.3 FM’s community fundraiser, which saw Ottawa resident Tony Snow win a life-changing $3.8 million. The fundraiser also fed money to several up-the-line organizations, including the Low Heritage Hall, Be and Become youth centre and the Gatineau Valley Retirement Village. 

While the Gatineau Valley Arena doesn’t have a full tally on how many tickets they sold, volunteer Scott Mahoney said it was “far and away the most sold by any of the charities involved.”

“It just took off,” said arena coordinator Mahoney, referring to the wave of ticket sales that picked up after the first few weeks of the contest. 

He praised community members like Lisa Brown and Lisa Fleury, who were getting requests to buy tickets through e-transfers from dozens of locals. 

“It’s mostly about the people; the community. If you don’t have the people buying tickets, you’re dead in the water. People were buying tickets from Buckingham right to Gatineau and Ottawa.”

People were certainly buying tickets. When the Low Down was driving through Gracefield in mid-September, the town’s Ultramar gas station was a hub of activity, with locals and tourists frantically filling out scores of entry forms. 

The radio station drew tickets weekly, and if someone’s name was drawn, they would win the weekly prize – sometimes upwards of $200,000 – and also a chance to pull the ace of spades from a series of envelopes. 

The contest got more and more popular as the weeks went on, as the pot kept getting bigger and bigger after weekly draw winners consistently failed to pull the ace of spades from one of the envelopes, until there was just one single envelope left. That meant whoever’s name was drawn would be the grand-prize winner of $3.8 million – in this case it was Ottawa’s Snow, who purchased his ticket at the Low arena. 

According to Mahoney, the arena has used the money on some much-needed repairs, including an entire kitchen renovation, extensive work on the ice plant and an upgraded second-hand Zamboni, which means no more holes in the ice during Paugan Falls Rapids playoff games. 

“We put money into every aspect you could think of,” said Mahoney, adding that the rink’s doors and windows have also been upgraded. “The kitchen has been transformed.”

Cash comes Rapid-ly 

The money comes at the perfect time as the Rapids are set to open their season in the Eastern Ontario Super Hockey League at home on Oct. 5 when they host their rivals, the Arnprior Rivermen. 

Doors open at 5 p.m. and TSN’s sports reporter AJ Jakubec will host a ceremonial puck drop at 7 p.m. Get your tickets at www.pauganfallsrapids.com