Alleyn and Cawood

MRC passes shares bylaw at December meeting: Alleyn and Cawood motion to defer bylaw vote rejected

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

MRC Pontiac’s December council of mayors meeting saw the long-awaited passing of a bylaw that will determine a new method for calculating the money each municipality pays to the county for a collection of shared services.

The Municipality of Alleyn and Cawood has been pushing for a new bylaw since the spring, arguing the now former system used to calculate shares was flawed and unfair.

Until the passing of this new bylaw, municipal shares were calculated based on a municipality’s assessed property value in year one, and based on its standardized value, determined by the comparative factor, in years two and three of the triennial assessment roll.

The comparative factor is a number produced in years two and three of an evaluation cycle, that reflects the difference between the property evaluations in year one and what the market is doing in those second and third years.

The number is used by the province and by some MRC’s to charge municipalities various taxes and shares based on a general calculation of their global property value in the years when they’re not getting a thorough property assessment done.

In 2023, the sale of a collection of empty lots to a developer for an inflated price caused a significant spike in Alleyn and Cawood’s standardized property evaluation, which in turn increased its shares from $112,539 in 2023 to $289,148 in 2024.

This increase did not represent the municipality’s actual property value, and so it was charged shares that it could not recuperate from its tax base. The municipality has been calling for doing away completely with the use of the comparative factor in calculating shares.

The bylaw passed in December is the MRC’s first attempt at mitigating the impact the comparative factor has on share calculations, but does not completely eliminate its use.

“We moved the bylaw tonight as a starting point,” said Warden Jane Toller following the meeting. “But if we find new information that could make our bylaw a better bylaw, we have the ability to create a new one, in this year. So this is a work in progress.”

Under the new bylaw, 50 per cent of shares will be calculated using a municipality’s year one property evaluation, and 50 per cent will be based on its standardized property evaluation, determined by the comparative factor, deposited in years two and three of its evaluation cycle.

Since the draft bylaw was tabled at the MRC’s November meeting, it was amended to note interest will be charged on any amount of shares due in 2024 but not paid by Jan. 1, 2025, at the rate of 2 per cent per month.

At the time of the MRC’s December council meeting, Alleyn and Cawood had yet to pay its 2024 shares.
Motion to defer vote rejected

Before the bylaw was voted on, Alleyn and Cawood mayor Carl Mayer tabled a motion to defer the vote until after the mayors received a presentation from former MRC evaluator Charles Lepoutre this month.

“It’s been going on long enough that I just hope delaying [the vote] one month so that you can get more information would be something we could align on,” said taskforce member Angela Giroux, addressing the mayors during question period before the motion was tabled.

While only four mayors, along with Mayer, supported the motion to defer the vote on the bylaw (Brent Orr of Bristol, Alain Gagnon of Bryson, Thorne pro-mayor Robert Wills and Otter Lake pro-mayor Robin Zacharias), the warden assured Lepoutre would still be invited to speak to the mayors in January.

Lepoutre is a longtime municipal assessor who established the MRC’s evaluation department in 1981. He spoke at an information meeting hosted by Alleyn in Cawood on Dec. 14 to explain why he believes the use of the comparative factor is flawed.

Toller, in attendance at this meeting, told Lepoutre she believes the standardized evaluations should not be used.

“I agree with you, we don’t need that information,” she said. “Have your property evaluated once, and then you’re fine until year four.”

This approach is what Alleyn and Cawood have been arguing since the spring.

At the MRC meeting four days later, THE EQUITY asked Toller what led her to support this approach, she said it was Lepoutre’s explanation that helped her better understand the problem with the comparative factor.

“I think that it was just always being referred to as the comparative factor. And it wasn’t until I heard the presentation that I actually understood that this was something that was . . . it was the way he expressed it.

He said, ‘That information is unnecessary. We don’t need that. Why is that information factoring in, when the evaluation is just done in the first year of the roll?’,” Toller said.

“In year two and three, in my opinion, nothing should change.”

Toller also said she believes moving towards a calculation of shares based on a weighted assessment of the resources and infrastructure in each municipality was a good idea.

“I think this makes perfect sense, to take all of our municipalities and weight them according to what is in the municipality. [ . . . ] And this could help us with how the shares are properly allocated.”

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Finding Grace: Woman safe after 42 hours lost in the bush

Sarah Pledge Dickson, LJI Journalist

Alleyn and Cawood resident Grace Early was found safe and sound on Saturday morning after getting lost in the forest for two nights about five kilometres from her home.

Her safe return was thanks to a massive search effort that saw more than 400 community volunteers comb the woods for hours alongside police, local firefighters, and search and rescue teams.

From Grace’s bed at the Pontiac Hospital, where she was taken after being found on Saturday morning, the 73-year-old woman shared details of the two nights she spent lost in the bush.

Grace said that at around 4 p.m. on Thursday, she went to look for her husband, David Early, who was out working on clearing a private road near their home.

She said when her car slid off the unfinished road near but not visible from where he was working, she started walking into the forest in an effort to get back home.

“I was going to walk home but when it gets dark, everything looks the same,” Grace told THE EQUITY. “I got distracted and just kept walking until it got too dark. Then I stopped at a tree and rock and that’s where I stayed the night.”

Grace said that it was then she realized she was lost.

“I was lost, but I was not afraid.”

Friday morning, Grace got up and kept walking until she found another tree and rock shelter. She sat down for the night, but when Saturday morning rolled around, she was too cold and sore to stand.

“I’d spent the night before in the rain,” Grace said. “I was so wet and dirty and by the next morning, I couldn’t move at all. So I sat there and I prayed.”

It wasn’t until Friday morning that Grace’s husband began to worry. He went over to Grace’s best friend Jean Milford’s, where he assumed she had been, to look for her. When he didn’t find her, he started calling family and friends.

The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) was informed of the disappearance Friday afternoon and sent officers to start the search. Maggie Early, one of Grace’s seven daughters, said the first officers arrived 20 minutes after they made the call on Friday.

SQ spokesperson Sgt. Marc Tessier confirmed that canine teams and drones were deployed as part of the effort, which Grace said that she could hear, along with a helicopter, while she was in the bush.

A trail camera clue
It was Friday that Maggie went to look at her trail cameras in hopes of figuring out where her mom had ended up.

The camera showed Grace walking away from her truck at around 5 p.m. on Thursday.This confirmed for the family that Grace had indeed walked away from the truck, which until then they had not known as fact.

On Saturday morning, Maggie put a call out on Facebook asking for the public’s help in locating her mother, and a few hours later the SQ put out a press release making the same call for help.

An estimated 400 people responded, gathering at Grace’s home on chemin Cawood Ouest as early as 6:30 a.m. sporting warm clothes, hunting gear and bright orange vests, ready to search the forest, including a group from Ottawa Volunteer Search and Rescue.

Teams of approximately 15 people went out in waves to perform grid searches of various areas in hopes of tracking Grace down.

One of these search volunteers was Connor Brown, whose mom had told him Friday night she’d heard Grace had gone missing. Brown and his girlfriend drove up to the search meeting spot first thing Saturday morning, and Grace is lucky they did, as Brown was the volunteer who, at 11:30 a.m. that morning, discovered her sitting on the ground.

“When I first walked up, I just looked around and I noticed a pair of boots sticking off to the side, then I noticed the rest of her body,” Brown told THE EQUITY on Saturday after he had returned from the search. “When I shouted out that I found her, she shouted out to me.”

Grace was found sitting down about 200 yards from a tree stand on her niece’s property, almost a kilometre from the truck. She was found south of her truck, having traveled in the exact opposite direction of her home.

Immediately, Brown said he felt a huge sense of relief hearing Grace’s voice.

“When she answered back, it was a really good feeling,” Brown said.

The team of searchers quickly gathered around to help get Grace warm. The weather had been cold and rainy for the past couple days so Grace’s clothing was wet.

“We ran over right away and took off her wet clothes and got her all bundled up in everybody’s jackets,” Brown said. “We made a fire for her and tried to get her warm and comfortable.”

When the call came in to Maggie, who was leading the operations back at her parents’ home that Grace had been found alive, she was overwhelmed with emotion.

“I was screaming, yelling, crying, there are no words,” Maggie said.

William Holmes, Grace’s grandson, came back from the location where she’d be found to let people know how she was doing, saying she was in good spirits.

“Everybody was just so happy,” Holmes said. “She’s safe and it’s just pure relief and joy.”

Brown said that apart from being cold, dehydrated, and sore, Grace seemed alright.

“She looked very cold but she was talking and moving around a bit,” Brown said. “She was just looking for a smoke.”

A press release put out by the SQ at 2 p.m. on Saturday confirmed Grace had been found safe and sound, and was sent to hospital for preventative care.

On Monday Grace was unsure when she would be released from the hospital but, in good spirits, was slowly rebuilding her strength.

Recalling how she felt when she learned of the community’s effort to bring her home, she was at a loss of words. Emotionally, she said it was simply “overwhelming.”

“It took a long time to get that word out, but it was overwhelming when I saw the pictures.”

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Alleyn and Cawood receives $14K from province to kickstart composting program

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

The municipality of Alleyn and Cawood has received over $14,000 from the provincial government that will help kickstart a composting program in the coming months.

The amount, which was obtained from Quebec’s environment ministry, will pay for half the cost of acquiring rolling compost bins and small indoor compost bins. The remaining 50 per cent will be covered by the municipality.

Each residential property will receive one rolling compost bin and each commercial property will receive two, while residential properties will also receive an additional smaller bin intended for indoor use.

Isabelle Cardinal, Alleyn and Cawood’s director general, said the composting program is part of a broader effort to reduce the municipality’s garbage tonnage

Garbage is more expensive to ship than compost, and she is hoping that by separating collection of garbage, compost and recycling, the municipality can save money on waste collection.

One tonne of garbage, she said, costs the municipality $300 to drop at the transfer site, while a tonne of compost will cost them $125.

Recyc-Québec, the province’s recycling authority, estimates that 40 per cent of the weight of municipally collected garbage bags is actually compostable material – an amount that Cardinal hopes they can get residents to put into a compost bin instead of a garbage bag

She said a small investment in the compost bins will yield a larger savings on garbage collection in the future.

“Yes, it’s going to cost money up front, but at the end of the line we will reap the benefits,” she said.

Alleyn and Cawood implemented a similar program last September whereby each household received a blue rolling bin to bring their recycling out to the street – the goal being to get people to separate out their recycling instead of putting it in the garbage.

Cardinal said the uptake has been huge, and people seem to be recycling more now.

“We’ve already seen a big difference,” Cardinal told THE EQUITY in French. “The garbage bags are smaller than the rolling recycling bins [ . . . ] people seem to be recycling more.”

Cardinal said she is hoping the composting program will be similarly successful.

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Alleyn and Cawood DG answers key questions about property valuation

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

A town hall meeting was hosted in Alleyn and Cawood on Saturday for residents of the municipality hoping to better understand why their property valuations were up by 370 per cent, which they first learned of when they received their property assessment with their tax bill last winter.
The meeting was hosted by the task force of residents, local elected officials and municipal staff that formed this spring to raise awareness and advocate for changes to what they say is a flawed property assessment process.
Isabelle Cardinal, Alleyn and Cawood’s director general and also a member of the task force, was among those hosting the town hall. THE EQUITY spoke with her ahead of the meeting to get some key questions answered.
Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How are property valuations currently performed?
A: What happens is every municipality has what is called a triennial roll. It’s a research of the real estate market. An evaluator from the MRC looks at all the properties that were sold, including in the 18 months before this triennial roll is deposited, and they just go through and compare the sale price of properties sold with the current municipal evaluation.
That usually gives you a figure. So for example, in our municipality there were a lot of vacant lots that were worth about $12,000 and were selling for $40,000, $50,000. If you take those two and you divide them together, it’s going to give you your comparative factor.
Every three years they do an in-depth analysis of the real estate market, and they divide it into four categories as well – housing, forestry, vacant lots and cottages. When you get your year one triennial roll, they do a more in depth analysis and look at each sale within its respective category, and each category will give you a different comparative factor.
What happened to us is that we are currently in year three of the triennial roll, and in year two and three of the triennial roll, the analysis is not as in -depth as when they are preparing the new roll in year one. In years two and three, instead of dividing it by category, it’s one generalized comparative factor across the board.
[Last year] we had over 120 sales of vacant lots, but we didn’t have the same amounts of residential sales. So we had a number generalized across the board but it’s not really representative of our real estate market.
[THE EQUITY’s note: The 2023 assessments in year three of the municipality’s triennial roll set Alleyn and Cawood’s comparative factor at 3.7 per cent, based on empty lots that sold for prices much higher than their value, but not based on what homes were selling for. The municipality will receive its year one triennial roll in September, which will offer a far more accurate portrait of its property values.]
Q: What’s wrong with this process, in your opinion?
A: Right now a lot of people are saying the comparative factor doesn’t have a big impact but it does because our municipal shares are calculated based on that, our Sûreté de Québec taxes, our school taxes, and mutations tax. So the comparative factor does have a big impact, and it’s not really representative of what’s happening.
We, as a municipality this year, are taxing on property value not taking into consideration the comparative factor. So for example, our total evaluations of all the properties in our municipality is about $75 million, but this year, because of our new comparative factor, we are paying shares to the MRC based on a total municipal evaluation of $277 million. We’re kind of almost $200 million overcharged, so that’s a big problem.
Myself, I’m a ratepayer from here. And on my tax bill, my house is worth more than $1 million, but I can guarantee you, I will never sell my house for one million dollars. If somebody wants to buy it for that much, I’ll be happy to pack my boxes and leave.
That’s why it’s important. Because small municipalities like us, whenever we see a lot of sales in a sector, it gives you not the right average for your comparative factor. And I’ve told the other DGs that some of them will be in the same boat, because there will be other subdivision projects.
The evaluator did his job right. I don’t doubt the data that he used. The thing I am doubting is that lots sold for three times more, but not houses, so that’s where the problem is. We cannot generalize that. It’s a problem with the process. The process does not work.
Q: Why do you start paying higher municipal shares now if a more in-depth roll will come out in September?
There’s a couple of MRCs in Quebec that are still using that formula of comparative factor but I would say that most MRCs across Quebec have their own bylaw with a different calculation for the shares. I’ve made a request at the MRC to see if they could have a bylaw to minimize the impact of the comparative factor on our shares. Because in Alleyn and Cawood, we went from paying $114,000 a year, and this year we’re almost paying $300,000, and this is a big portion of our budget. The MRC keeps that because they make their budget based on these revenues. I don’t know if municipalities are not fully aware of that or what’s happening.
And we are not currently taxing our rate payers on these evaluations. So I’ve made the request. Tim Ferrigan at the MRC has been doing a lot of research. I have to say he’s been a great help for me by sharing knowledge and assisting me. Now I’m just hoping the people in charge of the finance at the MRC truly take this into consideration and create a bylaw. I need to also mention that Alicia Jones, the director general for Chichester, was in a similar situation two years ago and she asked the MRC to work on a bylaw to change the calculation of her shares, and nothing has been done. I’m hoping that this time around they take us seriously because if something would have been done two years ago Alleyn and Cawood would not be in this situation right now.
Q: So how are you proposing the process be changed?
What we are proposing is that the comparative factor in year two and three of the triennial roll has no effect on the calculation of our municipal shares or anything else, and that the comparative factor is based by value instead of units.
We are asking the province to lower the impact of this comparative factor so that it does not have an effect on the municipal shares we pay to the MRC, on the calculation of the SQ tax that all the municipalities pay for the police force, on the mutations tax, or the school tax. So we’re asking the province to review its policy.
We can keep [the comparative factor] as a reference for what’s happening on the real estate market, but I don’t think it should have an impact on items that we need to pay because these evaluations are an idea but they don’t indicate the true value. The true values are really coming in year one of our triennial roll. So we’re asking for our evaluations to be frozen for three years. And then when it’s time to have a new triennial roll, our evaluation can be adjusted with the real estate market, per category.
Q: What impact will this 3.7 comparative factor have on ratepayers?
One thing that I need to say is that the municipality won’t have a 3.7 comparative factor in 2025. I already had conversations with the evaluator and the comparative factor is going to be lower. We can see vacant lots facing a bigger comparative factor because of what happened with the development, however in housing and cottages, we don’t see the same trend. That’s why I’m saying that our global evaluation for the municipality is going to be much lower than what it is right now with this 3.7 comparative factor.
When we have the true evaluations in September, that’s when we’ll be able to start working on our budget and figuring out what our mill rate is going to be for 2025. I know council already adopted a resolution in March that the mill rate will be adjusted according to the evaluation. We don’t want to see a big jump in municipal tax. We could have a slight increase, which is normal according to inflation, but we can guarantee that nobody is going to see a 370 per cent increase on their tax bill.
We have no power over [the school tax, SQ tax, or mutations tax], unfortunately, but school taxes are coming out in July, so I have yet to see what the impact of the comparative factor will be on our school tax.
What I’m really curious to see, when our new triennial roll will be deposited on Sept. 15, is what our global evaluation will be in comparison with this evaluation taking into consideration the comparative factor.

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Alleyn and Cawood residents petition for review of property valuation process

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

Residents of Alleyn and Cawood are circulating a petition to protest what they call “unfair” property assessments conducted across the municipality.
This spring, residents received their letter of property assessment in the mail, only to find the value of their property was scheduled to increase by a rate far higher than they had seen in past years.
According to this assessment, conducted by an MRC Pontiac evaluator, property values across Alleyn and Cawood would go up 370 per cent starting in 2025. This would mean a corresponding increase in property tax — something many residents are not prepared to pay.
Over the past few weeks, disturbed residents have formed a task force to try to combat this problem. They have been circulating a petition online that would challenge the recent property valuation increases.
“We demand the evaluation process be reviewed to prevent future unfair assessments,” the petition reads.
Angela Giroux, the elected chair of the task force, said the numbers are so high because a single developer is packaging parcels of land at an inflated cost, and that rate has been applied across the entire municipality.
Maggie Early, also on the task force, is a farmer whose family has owned a Cawood Road homestead for over a century. She said this inflated rate doesn’t reflect the actual value of most properties in the municipality, and that most properties in the area are modest retirement homes.
“The average age of a
permanent resident of Alleyn and Cawood is 73,” she said. “It’s a retirement community.”
If left untouched, these inflated property valuations would leave residents with a lofty tax bill. Early said her annual hit would jump from $4,600 to around $20,000.
“Most people live on pensions,” she said, adding she does not know anyone in the municipality who would be able to afford this kind of increase, including herself.
She said she would need to increase her herd by 70 or 80 head of cattle in order to be able to afford those taxes, something she is not prepared to do.
But according to Isabelle Cardinal, the municipality’s director general, these tax increases won’t come to pass. She said there is “no chance” residents will pay anywhere near a 370 per cent increase.
The municipality has the power to adjust the mill rate for certain property types, lowering the property taxes residents must pay. She said council has discussed adjusting the mill rate for the majority of residential properties, and plans to do so before the 2025 valuations come into effect.
“We’ll make sure tax rates are adjusted,” Cardinal said.
Cardinal is a member of the task force, a group that also includes two council members and six residents. She says the public has expressed concern at the meetings about the so-called tax increases, but she says this is not an accurate description of what is happening.
“I want to stop the misinformation,” she said. “This is not a tax increase, it’s an evaluation increase.”
Cardinal explained these are different because the municipality has the power to mitigate a property valuation increase, but a tax increase is final.
She says valuation increases can have several spin-offs, one of which is increased property taxes. But higher property valuations also affect the amount of school taxes residents pay, as well as the amount of municipal shares that Alleyn and Cawood must pay to the MRC Pontiac.
This is why, she says, the task force includes both municipal council members and local residents. The valuation process impacts everyone, and they want to make sure everyone’s voice is heard.
“Council is working with the task force, and there are elected officials on the task force as well,” she said. “We want to have a positive vibe. We’re all working to fix it.”
With its petition, the task force wants to challenge the way that properties are evaluated in the province. Cardinal will meet with Municipal Affairs Minister Andrée Laforest in the coming weeks, and will ask for a review of the property valuation process.
“It’s a formula, a mathematical process,” Cardinal said.
She previously told THE EQUITY that the municipal evaluator in charge of their file, who has done property evaluations for Alleyn and Cawood for years, suggested to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs that it lower the 370 per cent increase scheduled for 2025, but that the ministry rejected this recommendation.
The task force registered its petition with the Quebec National Assembly, and members are hoping to get the word out there that the evaluation process is outdated.
“The current process is not reflective of the real estate market,” the petition says, noting concern that more land in the Pontiac and beyond is going to be bought by developers and turned into expensive housing.
Early says she and other task force members want to capitalize on this moment and make their voice heard.

“We are the test case,” she said. “It’s going to happen to other municipalities, so we have to set a precedent now. We can’t let this be a standardization.”
Cardinal appreciates residents are becoming involved in municipal issues. She says in her 13 years living in Alleyn and Cawood, she has never seen the community so engaged.
“It’s nice to see the involvement,” she said. “It’s nice to see we have each other’s back.”

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Alleyn and Cawood property valuations set to increase by 370 per cent next year

Municipality’s shares paid to MRC already more than doubled this year based on higher assessment

Charles Dickson, LJI Reporter

When Angela Giroux opened her municipal tax bill in February, she couldn’t believe what she saw. On a second page entitled “Notice of Assessment” she read that the assessed value of her property would be going up by 370 per cent in 2025.
“My property is currently evaluated at $202,000. With this increase of 370 per cent, my evaluation next year will go up to $748,000,” Giroux told THE EQUITY last week. “So, my taxes will go from $2,300 a year to like $8,545!” she said.
“I just retired. I have a pension. I’m a lot better off than some. But we have elderly ladies in this community who don’t even have a CPP. You know, they were housewives, they can’t pay money like that on their tax bill,” she said.
Giroux’s first move was to contact the MRC but was told she should take the matter up with Alleyn and Cawood’s municipal council, which she did by showing up at its April meeting accompanied by a few other concerned ratepayers.
“When we went to our council they said, ‘We don’t set those evaluations. They come from the MRC. There’s nothing we can do about it,’” Giroux said.
“We said, ‘No, the council and mayor need to be proactive and stop this before it’s implemented. We need some action, and we’re giving you one month. If you don’t come back with progress, the taxpayers will take the next steps,’” she said.
That month came to an end this Monday evening when approximately 60 residents of Alleyn and Cawood filled Bethany Hall for the May council meeting. Isabelle Cardinal, the municipality’s director general, arranged for the meeting to be moved to the larger venue in anticipation of the larger-than-usual public attendance.
“Ratepayers are clearly shocked and scared about this, which I completely understand,” Cardinal told THE EQUITY last week. “I’m a ratepayer here, and I don’t want to see this huge evaluation.”
“So, I’m happy we’re having this conversation and these discussions around the council table early so we can get ready and we can do our homework,” Cardinal said.
The director general explained that the pandemic created a lot of demand for property in the Pontiac from people wanting to relocate to the country. In Alleyn and Cawood, this expressed itself in the sale of 120 lots over the past few years.
Mayor Carl Mayer told THE EQUITY that the biggest problem is that one-acre lots with municipal valuations of $12,000 sold for $50,000 each. Cardinal agreed that the high prices paid for properties is what led the evaluator to arrive at the figure of a 370 per cent increase.
“But the evaluator suggested to [the Ministry of] Municipal Affairs that maybe we should consider lowering it because this is something that is happening in a specific timeframe, and he doesn’t know if it’s going to last, whether we’re going to continue to have all these sales all the time. So yes, he had suggested to consider lowering it, which was rejected by Municipal Affairs,” Cardinal said.
“Which is why I would like to meet with Municipal Affairs to understand why the recommendation from the evaluator was rejected. That’s my first question. I want to know why, because he has a good understanding of our real estate market and our municipality, and has been our evaluator for many years,” Cardinal said.
The director general told THE EQUITY she hopes ratepayers will have confidence that the municipality is trying to do everything possible.
“We are fighting, and this is my top priority, and we’ll see what we can do. But it’s something so much bigger than us,” Cardinal said.
“A lot of people don’t understand the evaluation process. I get ratepayers asking me if the council voted for this. No, this is not political at all. This is totally administrative. Council didn’t have a vote on it. The municipality didn’t have a say on it. It’s very like external from us.

“The evaluator does the analysis of the real estate market compared to our current evaluation, and comes up with these figures, and submits them to Municipal Affairs, which they approve or deny, but the municipality is in no way involved in this process,” she said.
At Monday evening’s council meeting, Cardinal explained that a key component of the problem seems to be that high sale prices for vacant lots has resulted in increased valuations for all property types including houses, cottages and forestry lots. She said that the evaluator now plans to analyze each property type on its own which should result in a different comparative factor for each category, not one general average for all categories combined.
Cardinal also told the meeting that she, the mayor and a councillor had met with Pontiac MNA André Fortin last week and that he was totally supportive.
“They are rightfully concerned with the recent and drastic increase in municipal evaluations,” the MNA told THE EQUITY on Friday. “This situation is out of their control. Municipal evaluations are handled by the MRC and are the furthest thing from a political process.”
“In this case, the evaluator was forced to look at the recent price of land and housing sales in the municipality, and compare it to the current municipal evaluation. This has resulted in evaluations increasing by 3.7 times the current value, which is more than twice what any other municipality in the region has experienced,” Fortin said.
“This is completely disproportionate, and will have a major impact on school taxes paid by local residents, all because one single development project has significantly higher prices.”
“The main issue here is that the drastic increase in sale prices in the area is mainly driven by a number of lots being sold in new housing developments. The municipality has reached out to Municipal Affairs to see if the overall increase can be adjusted downwards, as it is not representative of what is really happening in the municipality,” he said, adding that he would also be contacting Municipal Affairs.
Fortin also said that municipalities have the power to decrease their mill rates to ensure most residents don’t see major shifts in their municipal taxes, and that he believes Alleyn and Cawood is planning to adjust their rate significantly. At the Monday evening meeting, both Mayer and Cardinal confirmed they are looking closely at that option.
While Angela Giroux agrees that lowering the mill rate could offer temporary relief to municipal ratepayers, she said it would have to go down a long way to neutralize the effect of the higher evaluation. Regardless, she said, school taxes would still go up because they are based on the evaluation.
At Monday night’s council meeting, Giroux said she had found information on the MRC website that indicates that Alleyn and Cawood will pay municipal shares to the MRC that are more than double what it paid last year.
“We were advised that the increase of 370 per cent would be implemented in 2025, but when we look at the MRC budget for this year, Alleyn and Cawood is paying shares to the MRC based on the comparative factor of 3.7, which is 370 per cent. Our shares to MRC last year were $112,000. This year they will be $289,000, a difference of $176,000. So, we are already paying based on that inflated value of 370 per cent,” she said.
“This is much bigger than Alleyn and Cawood. This is across the Pontiac,” Giroux told THE EQUITY. “Everyone is going to be getting these increases. Five municipalities out of the 18 already got theirs in 2024. Thirteen of the municipalities don’t even know about it yet. Maybe they won’t get an increase of 370 per cent, but they’re going to be substantial.
“Pontiac is one of the poorest MRCs in Quebec. People who live here, they can afford to own their own homes because the property values aren’t inflated, their taxes aren’t as high. But, if this is implemented, it will be devastating to many people, it’s going to be devastating for the whole MRC,” she said.
At Monday evening’s meeting in Danford Lake, many in the audience expressed frustration with the situation and strongly urged Mayor Carl Mayer to step up at the MRC and fight back.
“We need you to get all the municipalities to work together to fight this,” someone in the audience shouted amid cheers and applause.

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