K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

Pontiac’s council of mayors has rejected a request from Alleyn and Cawood for a pause to the MRC’s legal action to collect its unpaid 2024 municipal shares.

In January, a majority of mayors voted in favour of pursuing legal action against Alleyn and Cawood to recover its 2024 municipal shares, which the municipality refused to pay in protest of what it calls a “flawed evaluation process” that caused its shares to increase from over $112,000 in 2023 to over $289,000 the following year.
The MRC hired law firm Deveau Dufour Mottet Avocats to recover the amount owed in shares, plus an additional $35,000 in interest accrued during the year.

At the council’s March meeting last Wednesday night, Alleyn and Cawood pro-mayor Sidney Squitti tabled a resolution requesting legal proceedings be paused until the municipality receives word from Quebec’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MAMH) as to whether it will compensate the municipality for the $138,000 in shares it believes it was overcharged by the MRC last year.

The resolution was voted down by the mayors, with 13 voting against the motion and only mayors from Otter Lake, Thorne and Alleyn and Cawood supporting it. Mayors from Bryson and Fort Coulonge were absent.

Shawville mayor Bill McCleary asked Squitti if her municipality planned to pay the remainder of the amount owed, about $150,000.

“What our lawyer has proposed that we do is put the main balance into a trust with the courts until the case is settled,” Squitti responded.

Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence responded by saying that the $138,000 the municipality owes in shares is essential to the operation of the MRC.

“I think what the MRC could do in the interim to not affect their budget is take that money from the surplus,” Squitti said, noting she did not know how much longer the municipality would have to wait before receiving a formal response from MAMH.

Litchfield mayor Colleen Lariviere raised the issue of interest, saying that $35,000 in interest has already accrued, an amount that could grow the longer Alleyn and Cawood does not get an answer from municipal affairs.

“You want the MRC to put it on hold, but you have no idea how long it’s going to take, and in the meantime interest continues to build,” she said.

MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller said after the meeting the mayors did not support the resolution because Alleyn and Cawood did not give a timeline when they would expect financial assistance from municipal affairs.

“I think they felt that the answers were not sufficient to be able to support pausing, because one of the biggest concerns was that [ . . . ] no time frame was given.”

Toller said there was also a feeling among the mayors that Alleyn and Cawood not paying its municipal shares could be precedent-setting, encouraging municipalities in the future to believe it is okay to not pay their shares.

Toller said she contacted Alleyn and Cawood mayor Carl Mayer and director general Isabelle Cardinal in December to ask if they would consider a partial payment, but was told the municipality would not do this.

“Their council had voted, under the advice of their lawyer, to pay nothing,” she said.

Cardinal said in an interview Friday that their lawyer’s advice was to keep the remainder of the money until they heard back from municipal affairs.

“What we had for advice is that before paying anything, we wanted to have a commitment from the MRC and we wanted to have communication with the MRC, which we are not having right now,” she said.

“We were hoping not to be in a situation where we pay a portion and then everything is forgotten about and they just expect us to pay the rest.”

Cardinal said while she was not surprised the resolution did not pass, she was disappointed, because if the municipality receives the money from the province, the entire legal action could be dropped.

She said there will be a meeting this week with MAMH as well as in-person meetings in April and June to discuss receiving aid for the amount they believe they were unfairly charged.

“If you compare the three last years of shares, you can see that there was something wrong that happened in 2024 and it doesn’t bear fruit, so that’s what we’re trying to prove,” she said.

Cardinal doesn’t believe there is a precedent for a municipality receiving assistance from municipal affairs in this fashion, but given the legislative change they have already been able to make at the MRC and provincial level, they are hopeful the answer will be a positive one.

“We’ve had some good communication with them, but I don’t know which way they’ll go,” she said.

Toller said she could not share any updates about the status or nature of the legal proceedings.

“I can’t comment on much, but at this point, our lawyer has been engaged.”

Recording, photography banned in council meetings

Mayors voted in favour of a new bylaw regarding the management of MRC council meetings, which will now forbid recording of meetings for everyone except the media.

The bylaw came from the Federation of Quebec Municipalities (FQM) as a response to an increasing number of public officials leaving their posts due to harassment and abuse.

Article 14 of the bylaw passed on Wednesday states, “It is forbidden to film and photograph inside the place where municipal council meetings are held, and the use of any photographic device, video camera, television camera, or other is prohibited.”

The draft bylaw was first tabled at the February meeting, and at that time did not include an exception for media, though one was written into the bylaw passed this month.

“This provision does not apply to journalists who are members of the press,” the article reads.

Other changes to council sittings include the addition of a second question period at the end of the public meeting. This period, now called ‘question and statement period,’ will last 10 minutes, unless the presiding officer extends it by up to 20 additional minutes.

“I thought question period was an awkward term. What right do we have to limit the public coming to one of our public meetings, and if they have a concern, and we tell them that they can only express it in a question?” said Toller.

The bylaw mandates the meeting’s agenda to be posted on the Monday before the public meeting, and all of the resolutions on the agenda to be read out in full at the meeting.

“When people are listening, they need to understand not just what is the topic, but what is the resolution? It will make the meetings a little longer, but I think it’s important to clarify that,” Toller said.