Campbell’s Bay

Bouffe Pontiac users double since pre-pandemic

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

The sudden increase in Pontiac food bank users caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is not showing any signs of slowing down, according to Bouffe Pontiac director Kim Laroche.

In 2024, the number of people using the Campbell’s Bay food bank increased from 718 to 800, and this number doesn’t account for one of the organization’s busiest times of year – the holiday season.

“That’s a big jump for a small food bank,” Laroche said, still adamant this increase would in no way affect Bouffe’s ability to feed people, just as it usually does, through this holiday season.

“I thought that after the pandemic, [the number of people we get] would stop increasing, but it’s still going up,” Laroche said. “What we’re hearing is that high housing costs are bringing more people to the food bank.”

In 2019, the food bank was serving between 400 and 500 people. She said of these people, almost none actually had jobs.

“Now, we have many, many people who do have minimum wage jobs – in grocery stores, restaurants, depanneurs – and still need to use the food bank. They’re people who were able to get by on minimum wage before, and now they’re no longer able,” Laroche said, noting she’s also seen an increase in the amount of unhoused people relying on Bouffe Pontiac for food.

Among the minimum wage workers who use the food bank are two of Bouffe Pontiac’s own employees.

One, who requested to remain anonymous to protect his privacy, said he has two jobs to pay his monthly bills, working on average 15 hours a day, five days a week.

“Everything is so expensive. The food has gone up since covid, the gas has gone up since covid. The rent? My god, it’s unbelievable. Who can afford a $1,300 rent? It’s not livable anymore,” the employee said. “It mentally burns me.”

One of the greatest challenges for Bouffe Pontiac in meeting the growing need is that the donations received from the community are not keeping pace, which means year over year, the organization has to use an increasing amount of its budget on buying food to meet the growing demand.

In 2020, Bouffe Pontiac spent $43,139 of its budget on food. In 2021, it increased to $54,281, to $81,576 in 2022, and a total of $128,827 in 2023.

“We know we got more clients, and the cost of food has also gone up, and we think we have fewer food donations than we’ve had in the past, which means we need to buy more food to feed our clients,” Laroche said. “I can’t make a box for our clients with only what we receive in donations. They would go hungry.”

So while the number of community members it serves has more or less doubled since 2019, the amount of its budget spent on food has more than tripled, and in less time.

This makes it very difficult for Laroche to pay her employees the wages she knows would make it possible for them to stay at the food bank long term.

“The second a position opens anywhere else [in the area], I lose them,” Laroche said. “When I put all my money towards food, I cannot [pay them enough].”

A challenging location

Part of the challenge for Laroche is that as food banks go, Bouffe Pontiac is fairly isolated.

The food donations she receives come from a few different sources – private donations, grocery stores giving away expired products, and a weekly delivery of five or six pallets of products from food bank supplier Moisson Outaouais.

But private donations, according to Laroche, are slowing, and while the donations she gets from the local grocery stores is critical to the food bank’s survival, they can’t match the massive donations urban food banks receive from larger box stores like Walmart and IGA.

“They’re not mega-big grocery stores so we don’t receive as many donations from them, which means we have to buy,” she said.

Laroche recently began visiting food banks across the Outaouais to get ideas for how to manage Bouffe, and said when other directors learned of how much of her budget goes towards purchasing food, they were shocked.

One such food bank is the Aylmer Food Centre, which currently serves about 16,000 people.

Its director Denis Parizeau said 95 per cent of the food that passes through this food bank has been donated, either by individuals or by any of the many large grocery stores that surround it.

In the 2023-2024 budget year, the centre spent $82,000 on buying food.

“We have all the food chains that are helping us every week,” Parizeau said. “So that helps a lot, but they don’t have that luxury over there [in Campbell’s Bay].”

Lack of funding

Bouffe Pontiac receives various forms of funding from the province’s health ministry in the form of both grants that are to be dedicated to special projects, and general funding that goes towards what she calls “la mission globale,” or the general mission fund.

She can use this money for whatever she needs to keep the operation going, whether it’s building repairs, buying food, or paying staff salaries.

But according to the Table régionale des organismes communautaires autonomes de l’Outaouais (TROCAO), a group dedicated to advocating for social service organizations across the region, the provincial funding to services like Bouffe Pontiac is seriously lacking.

In a press release last week, the TROCAO called on Quebec to more than double the $54 million in “mission globale” funding it estimates will be offered to the 180 community action groups across the Outaouais – a need it said is based on each organization’s assessment of how much money it would need to be able to accomplish its mission.

“There’s a lot of organizations that are having trouble paying a decent living wage because of the lack of funding, and there’s always increasing needs of the community,” said TROCAO director Daniel Cayley-Daoust.

He said while labour in the community services has historically been undervalued, it is essential to “how we build resilient communities and support people at the margins,” and for this reason believes the province should be investing far more money into it.

Bouffe Pontiac did receive an increase of about $3,000 to the “mission globale” pot this year, but Laroche said this is pennies compared to the expenses she is facing.

“I know that if I had more money coming into that general pot, it would solve a lot of my problems,”she said.

Laroche said Bouffe Pontiac’s food drive, this year scheduled for Dec. 5 from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., will be critical to the food bank’s ability to give out Christmas hampers, just as it is ever year.

“It’s an approximately $18,000 cost for the hampers. We raise close to $10,000 each year and are hoping to get at least that amount.”

Bouffe Pontiac users double since pre-pandemic Read More »

Citizens of the Pontiac wants residents to protect themselves against a radioactive gas

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sarah Pledge Dickson, LJI Journalist

Local activism group Citizens of the Pontiac (CoP) organized a public information session in Campbell’s Bay on Saturday to raise awareness about the presence of radon in the region, and how it can affect residents’ health.

The hazardous radioactive gas is produced as uranium breaks down in rock and soil. While not particularly dangerous if diluted outdoors, the invisible, odorless and tasteless gas can be harmful to human health if it accumulates indoors. According to Health Canada, radon is the number one cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

Judith Spence, CoP’s organizer for the event, tested for radon in her Clarendon home and got results two months ago. The test found the gas in her home at 2,200 Becquerels per cubic metre (Bq/m3), levels 11 times higher than Health Canada’s recommended maximum exposure level of 200 Bq/m3.
“I was scared shitless when I found out that my levels were extremely high,” Spence said.

She organized Saturday’s event in collaboration with the MRC Pontiac and CISSSO to raise awareness about the gas and help other Pontiac residents protect themselves against it.

The information session brought together radon experts from across the Outaouais to explain what radon is, and how to detect and reduce its presence.

“Everybody will be supported as much as possible,” Spence said. “We’re here to get some of the information today and we’ll be out there to help you.”

Kelley Bush, a member of the Health Canada Radon Protection Bureau, was one of three presenters at the event. She explained that inside buildings that have direct contact with the ground, radon can creep through cracks and tiny holes in the foundation. Without proper ventilation, the gas can build up indoors and pose a serious health risk.

“Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer for people who don’t smoke and the second main cause of lung cancer after smoking. We estimate that about 3,200 Canadians a year die of radon-induced lung cancer. That’s about eight per day,” Bush said.

According to the Association pulmonaire du Québec, 21.86 per cent of homes in the Outaouais region have higher-than-recommended levels of radon. This is up from the national average in 2018 of 18 per cent.

“It’s never a question of, ‘Do I have it?’ You do. It’s how much do you have, and the only way to know that is to test,” Bush said.

“There is no safe level of radiation exposure. Certainly the risk under 200 Bq/m3 is low, but if your levels are 199, it does not mean you’re safe.”

There are relatively simple ways to detect radon, and protect your home against it. Arthur Ladouceur from Radon Ottawa Gatineau recommends that first, people walk through their basements and look for openings near plumbing pipes or gaps in the concrete. Sealing these holes can have a significant impact on the radon concentration.

There are also single-use tests and digital readers that can be purchased or even borrowed to get an idea of how much radon is in your home. Both types of tests must be left in the home for three months to provide an accurate reading. Single-use tests are mailed back to a lab to be analyzed, while digital tests will provide accurate results after three months. They can be reset and reused by other households.

Tests can be purchased from TakeActiononRadon.ca and cost anywhere from $50 to $200.

“We are working hard to make sure that testing is available and as cost effective as possible,” Bush said, noting Health Canada is helping library programs share digital tests in the community.

If patching holes in your basement doesn’t result in a decrease in radon exposure, Ladouceur recommends contacting a certified professional to install a radon mitigation device in your basement.

“We typically get between 90 to 98 per cent reduction in the radon level with that kind of technique,” said Marcel Brascoupé, founding member of the Canadian Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists, describing how a small fan and pipe can be used to suck radon gas from under a home’s foundation and release it outdoors.

Some regions have building codes that require radon levels in homes be below the 200 Bq/m3 guideline. One such region is Chelsea, where Brascoupé worked on developing the codes. Despite the good intentions, Brascoupé said that contractors do not always live up to the codes. Some building codes also predate 2008, when Health Canada reduced its recommended radon limit from 800 Bq/m3 to 200 Bq/m3.

Pascal Proulx, assistant general director of the Western Quebec School Board (WQSB), said Saturday he was pleased to announce all 31 schools in the WQSB have radon levels below Health Canada’s recommended limit. Going forward, the WQSB plans to test five schools each year so that every six-year cycle, all 31 schools are retested.

Going forward, Spence said Citizens of the Pontiac plans to give a presentation to the MRC Pontiac’s 18 mayors about radon and what they can do to mitigate its harmful effects.

She also said CoP is now a stakeholder with CARST and is networking with Brascoupé to hold a public Zoom meeting.

Citizens of the Pontiac wants residents to protect themselves against a radioactive gas Read More »

MRC waste committee disbanded, members say work is not done

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

Several members of the recently disbanded MRC Pontiac waste committee are calling for the committee to be reinstated, given an official mandate, and the power to report to the MRC’s council of mayors.

At Wednesday’s MRC council meeting, Otter Lake pro-mayor Jennifer Quaile requested a discussion about the future of the waste committee be added to the evening’s agenda, to which many mayors around the table agreed.

“This follows up on the discussion we had on Wednesday when our warden announced our waste management committee would be abolished,” Quaile said, referring to a conversation that took place in the plenary meeting on Oct. 9.

The committee in question was made up of 18 elected officials representing each of the MRC’s municipalities, most of them the councillors responsible for waste management, but in some cases a mayor would sit in where a councillor was not available.

In an email to THE EQUITY, the MRC’s communications advisor Francis Beausoleil quoted the original email sent out to municipalities inviting them to join the committee.

“The mandate of this committee is to work on improving the management of residual materials (recyclables, composting, construction residues). This will be an opportunity for the 18 municipalities to work together, with MRC staff, to review current procedures, share experiences, identify where services need to be improved, and actively participate in the revision of the Residual Materials Management Plan,” the email said.

Beausoleil emphasized the committee was a “working committee to share ideas between municipalities and to work on updating the PGMR [Pontiac Residual Waste Management Plan], which was then adopted in October 2023.”.

The members would meet sometimes once a month, sometimes less frequently, to share information about their own municipality’s waste practices and discuss strategies for reducing the amount of waste they send to landfill.

After more than two years of meetings, a decision was made to dissolve the committee at the mayors’ Oct. 9 plenary meeting,

“I feel very strongly that that’s a mistake,” Quaile said Wednesday. “I feel that it should be given a clear mandate and be given legitimacy just as other committees that are struck by the table of mayors. [ . . . ] We have unfinished work.”

In response, Warden Jane Toller said the committee was only ever an unofficial working committee, established by herself in 2021, that she decided to dissolve this month because of feedback received from MRC staff involved who felt it had served its purpose.

Following the council meeting, Toller explained she established the unofficial working committee with the view of learning about how each of the MRC’s 18 municipalities were managing their waste.

“The mandate said that the committee, with representatives from the 18 municipalities, [was] to be able to, at one meeting, inform our staff what they were currently doing. That was it. The committee has lasted two years, and now we’re at a point where we know what everybody was doing,” she said.

“It’s really now best handled with the director generals and the mayors, because we’re really trying to move forward at a good pace. And we’ve talked about wanting to reduce what’s going to landfill for seven years, so it’s just nice to finally see some action.”

But Quaile said she believes there is still an important role to be played by a small group of interested elected officials in moving conversations forward at the MRC level around best waste management strategies for the county.

“There are a lot of different pieces to the issue of waste management that are going to be a little bit different in each municipality. That’s our value added,” Quaile said.

Following her comments, Waltham mayor Odette Godin shared she valued being on the committee as discussions gave her ideas of how to reduce the amount of her municipality’s waste sent to landfill, which she said it’s done in recent years.

“The only thing different that I liked about that committee is that I got some ideas that aren’t part of the MRC,” Godin said, inquiring as to whether some form of the committee might be able to continue to meet at the same time as MRC staff are working on a territorial waste management plan.

“I know that they’ve hired a person specifically to handle waste, but that doesn’t mean other people don’t have good ideas. It doesn’t mean that other people don’t have something to offer,” Godin later told THE EQUITY. “It just seemed kind of very heavy-handed to say, ‘That’s it, we don’t need this committee anymore.’”

Sheenboro mayor Doris Ranger also offered her opinion at Wednesday’s council of mayors meeting.

“I do think they were doing good work,” she said, suggesting an alternative model wherein the committee would appoint an elected representative to present its recommendations to mayors at the plenary meetings. “Could that not be done?”

While no decision was made to reinstate the committee at Wednesday’s council meeting, Warden Toller did suggest the conversation could be picked up at the November plenary meeting.

The compost conundrum

One of the questions being discussed at the time the committee was dissolved was how to manage compost waste across the MRC.

In the English summary of the PGMR, available to the public on the MRC’s website, the MRC does state one of its goals for the 2023-2030 period to be to “implement a collection system for organic waste from the municipal sector,” and that one of the steps to achieving this goal is to “propose organic matter management solutions adapted to each municipality.”

While THE EQUITY was not able to obtain an update from MRC staff about what options it is currently considering for compost management, the warden indicated door-to-door pick up was high on the list.

“I think our goal eventually will be to have something similar to what they’re doing in Pontiac municipality under des Collines, where at every door they have recycling, composting and garbage picked up,” Toller said, noting there may be financial support available from the provincial government to support this. “But not if composting is being done in backyards.”

Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose said the municipality does provide door-to-door collection of recycling and garbage, but not organic compost.

“A big reason is always the cost. Door-to-door is really expensive,” Larose said. “And the other reason is we have 50 per cent farmers. It’s pretty hard to ask a farmer to pay for door-to-door composting when I know they just throw it in their backyard.”

His municipality makes home composting bins available for residents to buy, and is working on a pilot project that would look at best composting practices for residents without a lot of land for doing it in a big bin outside.

Quaile said nine MRC Pontiac municipalities currently use some form of door-to-door collection, while nine use a transfer station, and adopting door-to-door collection in the more rural municipalities like Otter Lake would be a significant financial burden.

In a Letter to the Editor published in the Oct. 16 issue of THE EQUITY, Thorne councillor Robert Wills, also a member of the former waste committee, echoed this idea, writing that door-to-door collection would be “logistically unworkable” and “very costly” in Thorne, and suggesting backyard composting as a better alternative.

Part of the “unfinished work” that Quaile alluded to Wednesday was the analysis of data collected by a survey the committee designed and circulated to all 18 municipalities over the summer to better understand the diversity of waste management practices being used.

Quaile believes the results of this data will offer useful insight into which waste practices are working and could be adopted by other municipalities, and which are not.

MRC waste committee disbanded, members say work is not done Read More »

MRC still considering options for new shares bylaw

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

A crowd of about 40 residents from across the MRC Pontiac were present at the monthly MRC council of mayors meeting in Campbell’s Bay on Wednesday night.

Some were there to express their frustrations around what many felt were unfair property evaluations, which were released in September, while others were there to once again urge action from the MRC on producing a new bylaw that would reconfigure the calculation of municipal shares.

In August, the 370% Evaluation Taskforce from Alleyn and Cawood presented a draft bylaw to the MRC which suggested the total elimination of the comparative factor as a way of calculating the amount each municipality owes to the MRC every year.

The task force was hoping the MRC would adopt its suggested bylaw, but neither the bylaw, nor an alternative version of it, has been tabled in either of the two council meetings that have taken place since then.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Alleyn and Cawood mayor Carl Mayer requested to add the proposed bylaw to the meeting’s agenda, but he was ultimately the only mayor on council to vote in favour of this amendment.

For context, the comparative factor is a number determined in the property valuation process. According to the MRC’s website, it is “established based on sales on the municipality’s territory during the previous year, compared with the value deposited during the first year of the triennial roll.”

The sale of over 120 vacant lots in Alleyn and Cawood in years two and three of that municipality’s triennial roll led to a high comparative factor of 3.7 last year, causing all property values, including those of full-time residents, to increase by as much as 370 per cent.

While the municipality changed its mill rate to reduce the impact of higher property evaluations on ratepayers’ wallets, it still had to pay municipal shares to the MRC based on the inflated comparative factor and therefore pay money it hadn’t collected in taxes. It’s this system that Alleyn and Cawood residents and elected officials are taking issue with.

On Wednesday, several fellow mayors expressed support for the residents’ desire to see this process changed, but ultimately said they were not ready to vote on the matter because they still lacked the information they needed to make a decision.

“The bylaw that was presented, there has to be so much more put into it so we know what we’re voting on,” said Litchfield mayor Colleen Larivière. “We want to make sure that what we’re doing is right. Patience and understanding is what we’re asking from you.”

In an interview with THE EQUITY on Friday, Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence also voiced his support for the residents.

“We do support them. We understand their pain, of course we do. We want to do something about it,” he said, noting that there are still certain guidelines that need to be followed.

“There’s only so much the MRC can do, because we get the laws from the province. So we have to work with the tools we have.”

Spence, who chairs the MRC’s budget committee, said they discussed the item at a recent meeting and have come up with a few different options for recalculating municipal shares.

He said the meetings have been going well, but they need to wait for approval from their legal counsel and from the ministry of housing before writing a bylaw.

“We’re working on ways to make sure it’s fair for everybody, and first we’ve got to make sure it’s legal.”
While Toller wouldn’t say what ideas have been discussed in the budget committee meetings, she noted there is some payment flexibility in other provinces, which she thinks is a good idea.

“You can give people a break by not expecting it all to be paid in the first year,” she said.

She also said the possibility of evaluating all 18 municipalities at the same time, instead of the staggered system that currently exists, is attractive.

Alleyn and Cawood director general Isabelle Cardinal said during Wednesday’s question period the municipality will be meeting with the province’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and will discuss the possibility of changing the evaluation process at a provincial level.

“We put a big package together with what we think are the problems [ . . . ] and we also have solutions. We’re not just saying, ‘your system doesn’t work,’ we actually have solutions to present,” she said, adding that in their conversations the department agreed it was an outdated system.

“We’re not fighting for just Alleyn and Cawood, we’re doing this for all of us small municipalities.”

Toller said the budget committee will continue to look at solutions, but they will require two more meetings before a bylaw can be passed; first, a meeting where the motion for the bylaw would be tabled, and second, a meeting where the bylaw can be voted on by the council of mayors. She did not provide a timeframe by which they intend to have a bylaw.

MRC still considering options for new shares bylaw Read More »

Big week for Bouffe Pontiac donations

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

Campbell’s Bay-based food bank Bouffe Pontiac received two significant donations from community groups last week.

The first came from the Oktoberfest organizing committee, which donated 350 pounds of leftover food from the previous weekend’s celebrations, including some German sausage.

“We were low on meat this week and these came at the perfect time,” said Kim Laroche, director of Bouffe Pontiac.

She said the food bank usually receives food donations that range between five and 50 pounds, so 350 pounds was a big leg up.

The second donation, this one monetary, came from Le Jardin Éducatif du Pontiac, which raised $2,000 for the food bank at its 35th anniversary community barbecue held in August.

“All the food that was sold that day that was made by the youth and some adults, all the money that we raised from that, we decided to give as a donation to the food bank,” said Martin Riopel, director of Jardin Éducatif.

Jardin Éducatif is a non-profit organization that runs vegetable farming programs for at-risk youth as a way to teach them critical life skills. This summer it hired 23 youth to work at the Campbell’s Bay based vegetable farm.

Part of their work included using the kitchen at Bouffe Pontiac to transform the vegetables they were growing into meals that could be given to the people who use the food bank.

Laroche said $2,000 is enough money to supply four one-person families with milk, eggs, bread and meat, or those same staples to a single four-person family for an entire year.

“As a director, it means a lot,” Laroche said. “It reinforces the importance of community support. It’s also a reminder that we are not alone in this fight against hunger.”

Big week for Bouffe Pontiac donations Read More »

MRC breakfast raises $9,700 for Centraide

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

The MRC Pontiac hosted its third annual fundraiser breakfast for Centraide Outaouais on Wednesday morning at the RA centre in Campbell’s Bay in celebration of the charity organization’s 80th anniversary.  

The event raised $9,700 for Centraide, known in English as the United Way, which this year gave over $200,000 to the seven non-profit social service organizations it supports in the Pontiac region. 

Those organizations are Bouffe Pontiac, Centre Serge-Bélair, Comptoir St-Pierre de Fort-Coulonge/Mansfield, Le Jardin Éducatif du Pontiac, Les Maisons des jeunes du Pontiac, Maison de la famille du Pontiac, and Le Patro Fort Coulonge/Mansfield.

Centraide Outaouais offers not only financial support, but also emotional and training support to the staff at the community organizations it works with in this region. 

MRC Pontiac’s financial contribution of $9,700 to Centraide surpassed its original goal of raising $8,000 for the charity as a contribution to its annual fundraising drive. 

“I think it’s very important because whatever we raise here, they return the benefit to us by eight times,” said MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller. 

“I think when we have a breakfast like this it increases the awareness of these organizations and I think everyone feels good about spending $20, which is going directly to Centraide.” 

Feeding the 200 or so breakfast attendees was a team effort on the part of the MRC, with economic development staff member Rachel Soar Flandé leading the organizing committee, and the MRC’s new assistant director general Terry Lafleur flipping french toast in the kitchen the morning of, to name but a few of those who contributed to making the event happen.

Leading the kitchen effort was Elsa Taylor, former owner of La Jonction restaurant in Campbell’s Bay, with the help of her mother Edie Taylor and her sister Keri Taylor. 

“Mentally, I’ve been up since 1:25 this morning,” Elsa said, as the breakfast was winding down. 

“But to serve this many people, and so many old customers I got to see, I just love it.” 

MRC breakfast raises $9,700 for Centraide Read More »

MRC to send fire prevention trainee to new program in Gatineau

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The MRC Pontiac announced it will participate in a fire prevention technician (FPT) training program, sending one trainee to a certification course at the Cégep de l’Outaouais in Gatineau starting in January 2025.

The program is designed to meet an urgent need for FPTs in the region, a type of specialist whose duties include inspecting properties to ensure compliance with fire codes, as well as organizing public awareness events around fire prevention.

The MRC currently has one technician on staff, and recently hired a contractor to fill the second position.

Public security coordinator Julien Gagnon said the MRC has been trying to hire a second full-time officer for a few years now without success.

The position requires a certification for which, until recently, training wasn’t regularly available in Western Quebec.

“It’s just not available in this area,” he said, noting the nearest Cégep offering the program was previously in Montréal.

The training program is being offered as a partnership between the Cégep de l’Outaouais and the City of Gatineau, with the MRC Pontiac being allotted one seat in the course.

While the MRC’s previous calls for applicants to fill its second position have found no returns, Gagnon said it should be different this time because the training is being offered.

“Any person with a high school diploma who is willing to return to school for one year can be promised the position,” he wrote in an email to THE EQUITY.

“This opens up the candidate pool from near-zero potential candidates to almost anyone.”
Gagnon expects a few local volunteer firefighters to apply, but he notes firefighting is not a prerequisite for the position. Anyone may apply, although he notes the course will only be offered in French by the Cégep.

The MRC will pay for all fees related to the course, including school registration fees, books and application fees.

The program will feature an average of 23 hours a week of instruction over four consecutive school semesters, ending in December 2025.

Upon completion of the training, the MRC will offer a full-time position to the candidate.
Gagnon said the addition of another full-time officer should help to cover an increasingly heavy workload.

“We’ve always needed two of these positions at the MRC,” he said, noting that one inspector alone is not able to perform the number of building inspections they must do.

In 2017 the MRC’s Fire Safety Cover Plan expanded the number of buildings that require inspection. Gagnon wrote in an email that the document “increased our inspection load more than threefold.”

The MRC began to delegate certain inspections to local firefighters, but that practice stopped in 2020 when the Ministry of Public Security mandated that all non-residential, higher-risk buildings be inspected by a trained technician.

The MRC now has to inspect just under 800 buildings every five years, which Gagnon said is a large workload for one FPT and one contractor to handle. He said with these two they are able to complete all of the inspections, but only just.

“We’re just getting by,” he said, adding that the FPT is essentially spending all his time doing inspections and not seeing to the public awareness side of the job.

“We’re sort of lacking on the public awareness side, and that’s where a full-time, in-house prevention officer can do a much better job at that.”

Richard Pleau, the MRC’s current fire prevention technician, said in an emailed statement that the addition of a second full-time technician comes at just the right time.

“We must inspect more farm buildings. We also organize evacuation and public awareness drills. Finally, the department must carry out inspections and contribute to research into the causes of fires. An additional resource will enable us to carry out more tasks, and, ultimately, reduce the risk of fire in the MRC Pontiac.”

MRC to send fire prevention trainee to new program in Gatineau Read More »

Lafleur MRC’s new assistant DG

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

AgriSaveur, des Joachims healthcare also on council agenda

At last week’s MRC Pontiac monthly Council of Mayors meeting, back in session after a one-month summer break, it was announced that Otter Lake mayor Terry Lafleur has been hired as the MRC’s new assistant director general. This is a new position at the MRC, created by way of resolution at the council’s February meeting.

Director general Kim Lesage said Lafleur will work on a number of different files, including leading the economic development team, which has in part been Lesage’s responsibility since the MRC’s economic development director position was vacated earlier this year.

“We’ve been taking on the economic development team in the absence of our director there, and so [the assistant DG] is going to fill in this role and be more of a direct contact with them.”

Lafleur, who has spent over a decade in municipal politics working for several Pontiac municipalities, said he is looking forward to assuming the new position, and believes his experience in many aspects of the job will be an asset.

“I have experience in HR, economic development, financing [ . . . ] and a ton of experience on the urbanism side of things.”

Lesage said it was that diverse experience that helped them choose Lafleur for the position, adding that she has dealt with him at the Council of Mayors table and is confident they will make a good team.

“We’ve always had a good relationship. I feel like I can really work well with him,” she said.

The new position will start Sept. 16. Meanwhile, his departure from the Otter Lake mayoral seat will trigger a by-election in his municipality, to be held within four months of when he gives his resignation.

Lesage named MRC AgriSaveur support member

Among the other resolutions passed at Wednesday evening’s meeting was one announcing director general Kim Lesage as the founding MRC support member for the new AgriSaveur co-operative.

The co-op, which is registered with the province as the “Coopérative de solidarité AgriSaveur du Pontiac”, is made up primarily of nine producers, six of which are from the Pontiac, who intend to resume operations of the abattoir outside of Shawville.

The MRC, which currently owns the assets to the abattoir, will sell all but the building to the co-op and rent it the building at a yet to be determined price. The MRC will use part of the space to run its AgriSaveur project, a commercial kitchen where producers can come to add value to their products.

The group held its first meeting on Aug. 14 to name its executive members, and Lesage was there as the lone MRC member. She will sit at the co-op table as the MRC representative in discussions related to the project.

“I have a vote at the table, however I’m not a member that is going to be using the services.”

There will also be an employee member of the co-op once staff has been hired.

Lesage said the MRC has hired a local person to take charge of the AgriSaveur project, and said the person will be announced in the coming weeks.

The MRC has also hired a firm to help in drafting a business plan for the new project, and will meet with them Sept. 3 to review a first draft.

Lesage said they are hoping to open the facility in the fall.

Rapides des Joachims seeks interprovincial healthcare

The MRC Pontiac passed a resolution in support of the Municipality of Rapides des Joachims’ call for changes to an interprovincial medical services agreement that currently allows the municipality’s residents to access family doctor services in Ontario.

Mayor Lucie Rivet Paquette said the agreement currently fails to provide the residents of her community with some essential medical services close to home.

The rural community, which sits in the northwestern corner of the MRC Pontiac, has two nearby hospitals: Deep River, Ont. (27 kilometres away) and Pembroke (77 kilometres).

But sometimes more complicated procedures have to be done further afield in larger hospitals such as Ottawa or Montreal.

Paquette said she understands that sometimes urgent care requires being treated at a larger hospital with more services, but she wishes patients with longer-term conditions could be transferred back to Deep River or Pembroke to recover closer to home.

“We’re talking about long-term recovery here,” she said. “We can’t go to Ottawa or Montreal to give them support.”

Paquette said it’s unfair that residents of her community should have to travel so far for healthcare when there are hospitals in Ontario that are nearby.

She also wants to see an exception made for medications. The nearest pharmacy is in Mansfield, and the pharmacies on the Ontario side won’t accept Quebec’s public medication insurance.

At the end of September the community will be hosting CISSSO’s Pontiac director Nicole Boucher-Larivière for a barbecue where they will discuss what changes could be made to the agreement.

Lafleur MRC’s new assistant DG Read More »

Mayors vote to hand over recycling to MRC

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

K.C. Jordan, LJI Reporter

The MRC Pontiac held a special council sitting on Wednesday to formalize, by way of a resolution, its jurisdiction of all household recycling across the county.

Until now, recycling has been managed individually by all 18 municipalities. Going forward, the MRC will hire one waste management service to take care of recycling in all municipalities.

The MRC originally declared its intention to acquire the competency to manage municipal recycling in February of this year.

Municipalities then had 90 days to object to the declaration, but MRC environmental coordinator Kari Richardson said the MRC got no feedback.

“They have 90 days to send a letter saying what kind of services are getting impacted [ . . . ] but we didn’t receive any letters,” she said.

The MRC called a special sitting on Wednesday because it is legally obligated to pass the new bylaw within 180 days of its original declaration of intention, and waiting until the regular Council of Mayors meeting scheduled for Aug. 21 would have been too late.

At Wednesday’s special sitting, the MRC Pontiac’s 18 mayors voted unanimously to adopt the resolution.
MRC director general Kim Lesage said the MRC plans to open the call for tenders this fall for a contract that will begin Jan. 1, 2025.

Mayors vote to hand over recycling to MRC Read More »

France’s culture on display at Campbell’s Bay Bastille Day celebration

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KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

A group of French expats, friends, and Pontiac residents with French ties gathered at a home in Campbell’s Bay on Saturday to celebrate Bastille Day, France’s national holiday.
Attendees proudly sported red, white and blue attire, sang the Marseillaise (France’s national anthem) and played pétanque, a popular lawn bowling-style game that originates in the south of France.
Marco Izquierdo, who hosted the event with his wife Annie Filion in the backyard of their home, moved to Canada from France about 15 years ago, and after living in Ottawa for a while ended up getting a job in the Pontiac. That’s when the annual tradition of celebrating Bastille Day started.
“There were many French expats living here in Campbell’s Bay,” he said, adding that most of them happened to live on the same street.
“It was like a little France.”
A small group of them started getting together every year to celebrate, and since then the tradition has grown to include other French expats, friends, and neighbours.
The holiday commemorates the storming of the Bastille, an event that is widely recognized as marking the end of the monarchy’s oppressive rule and the beginning of the French Revolution.
Now, for many the holiday symbolizes the national motto of the country: liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity), the fundamental values that define French society today.
Food and wine were naturally an important component of the festivities. Before dinner, guests were served a pinard — the Parisian term for a pre-dinner glass of wine.
Izquierdo kept busy grilling sausages and chicken on the barbecue, and also prepared the evening’s main course, a leg of lamb roasted on an open flame, seasoned with North African spices and served with potatoes and beans.
Other culinary highlights included a wide array of breads brought from a Breton baker in Gatineau, including two entire bakery trays piled high with baguettes, fougasses, and crusty loaves stuffed with blue cheese and nuts.
An after-dinner cheese course featured cheeses of varying prices and pungencies, and were served with still more bread.
Josey Bouchard attends the event every year. She said it’s a great occasion to celebrate French culture.
“We do this every year,” she said. “We eat lamb and drink wine and we sing the Marseillaise. It’s a great excuse to get everyone together.”
Some neighbours with no personal ties to France have also been attending the party for years, including Clément Hoeck, an artist in Campbell’s Bay.
He looks forward to the celebration every year, and even tries his hand at pétanque.
“I’m not competitive, but I try to play,” he said.
He was one of 12 players who ventured across the street to the makeshift pétanque grounds, where teams battled it out while they waited for dinner to arrive.
Vincent Lo Monaco organizes the tournament every year. He is from La Ciotat, the town in France where the sport originated in the 1910s.
He had an official rulebook on hand, as well as a pamphlet with a brief history of the sport.
In pétanque, each two-person team throws six combined metal balls (called boules) toward a smaller ball (the cochonnier), trying to get their balls closest to the target. The first team to reach 13 points is declared the winner.
Lo Monaco was the official referee of the tournament, bringing in his tape measure if there were any disputes about whose ball was closest.
The tournament did not reach a conclusion because, once the players adjourned for dinner, they never returned to the game.

France’s culture on display at Campbell’s Bay Bastille Day celebration Read More »

Campbell’s Bay receives $70,000 grant for downtown core revitalization

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Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

The Municipality of Campbell’s Bay has received a $70,000 grant from the Quebec government to revitalize its downtown core in an effort to make the town more resilient to climate change.
The grant is made available through a new program called OASIS, offered by Quebec’s environment ministry. The program is dedicated to supporting greenery projects focused on reducing the impact of heat waves and torrential rains on lived environments.
According to the ministry, these weather phenomena are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of climate change.
Sarah Bertrand, director general for Campbell’s Bay, said the municipality has partnered with an Outaouais environmental association, the Conseil régional de l’environnement et du développement durable de l’Outaouais (CREDDO), to map out what it can do to combat the effects of climate change and reduce the impact of what are known as urban heat islands.
“Through the CREDDO, we will have access to urban planners and professional services to help us determine the problems, analyze the risks and come up with a plan that will tell us how we should go about reducing these heat islands,” Bertrand said.
Myriam Gemme, a climate change adaptation project coordinator with CREDDO, explained that urban heat islands are areas containing dense infrastructure, such as paved roads and brick buildings which are prone to retaining heat from the sun and increasing the ambient temperature.

“When you walk in a city where the streets are very large and you don’t see many trees around, those places are even hotter than other spaces like forests,” Gemme said.
“We work essentially in greening projects, so tree planting in urban areas, and also adaptation to floods. Some zones in the Outaouais are more likely to have floods. So we also work with those communities to help them prepare and adapt for the future.”
Bertrand said Campbell’s Bay had hoped to collaborate with other municipalities on the project to capitalize on the maximum of $2 million in funding available for the first phase of the project, but was the only municipality in the region to apply for it.
The OASIS program operates over three phases of funding. The municipality will use this first phase of money to analyze how heat and heavy rainfall affect the town’s village core, and develop adaptation plans.
According to documents provided to THE EQUITY by the Municipality of Campbell’s Bay, the official objectives for the project are to combat heat islands and the effects of heavy precipitation in the Campbell’s Bay village core, improve residents’ quality of life, and revitalize the village core to increase its attractiveness.

Campbell’s Bay receives $70,000 grant for downtown core revitalization Read More »

Incinerator again dominates questions at meeting of mayors

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Charles Dickson, LJI Reporter

At the April meeting of Pontiac County mayors, held last Wednesday at the MRC office in Campbell’s Bay, questions about the proposed garbage incinerator project were again the primary focus of the public participation section of the agenda.
Christine Armitage led off with her inquiry about the fate of a document known as the initial business case for the energy-from-waste (EFW) project. Produced by two consulting firms, Deloitte and Ramboll, it lays out their analysis and recommendations for how the project could be structured.
The MRC commissioned the study last November under a sole-source contract at a cost of approximately $120,000 and received the report in late January. Citizens engaged in the incinerator debate argued that since the document was paid for with public funds, it should be released to the public.
Regardless, the warden and mayors withheld the document through a series of public presentations of its findings that they convened over recent weeks. Their explanations for why it was not being released included that it was very technical, Pontiacers wouldn’t get much out of it, and no one would come to hear the MRC’s presentation of the report if they could read it for themselves.
They did commit, however, to publishing the document after the series of presentations had concluded. Though it was finally posted on the MRC website on the afternoon of Thursday, Apr. 11, it had disappeared by Friday morning, which led to Christine Armitage’s question at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Council of Mayors.
“Late last Thursday, the Deloitte and Ramboll EFW documents were briefly posted, then the links were subsequently removed the following morning. Can you explain why?” Armitage asked.
“The reason for that was that it came to our attention that, according to the contract with the consultants, that there was some confidential information,” Warden Toller explained.
“We just wanted to make sure that there is no possible violation of the contract,” she said. “And so, at this point, what we are doing is we are working with the consultants, and we do hope to be in a position to be able to repost it.”
“But it is very fortunate that, in the time period that it was posted, that many groups received it and posted it on their website,” the warden added.
In a statement issued on Monday of last week (Apr. 15), the MRC alluded to an apparent disagreement between MRC Pontiac and Deloitte over a detail of the contract governing publication of the document.
“We were advised Friday morning by the parties involved that releasing these documents violated a third-party confidentiality clause that was written into the contract to commission the analysis. In our opinion, these documents are in the public domain since they were paid for with taxpayers’ money. That said, we have for the time being removed the links to the documents while we carry out legal verifications concerning the publication of these documents,” the MRC statement read.
On Monday of this week (April 22), the MRC provided THE EQUITY with the text of the confidentiality clause:
Limitation on use and distribution. Except as otherwise agreed in writing, all services in connection with this engagement shall be solely for the Company’s internal purposes and use, and this engagement does not create privity between Deloitte and any person or party other than the Company (“third party”). This engagement is not intended for the express or implied benefit of any third party. No third party is entitled to rely, in any manner or for any purpose, on the advice, opinions, reports, or Services of Deloitte. The Company further agrees that the advice, opinions, reports or other materials prepared or provided by Deloitte are to be used only for the purpose contemplated by the Engagement Letter and shall not be distributed to any third party without the prior written consent of Deloitte Canada.

At last week’s meeting of mayors, Armitage also asked about plans regarding one of the recommendations of the report, the proposal to conduct a second business case that would provide information not covered in the initial report.
“Some mayors have stated to their residents at council meetings that they require more information to make a decision,” Armitage said. “You’ve said it would be borne by grants or other partners that seem to be ill-defined . . . ”
“I think we’ve said that we’re going to secure the funding, and the funding will not come from MRC Pontiac,” the warden replied.
“On what basis would this council decide on moving forward with a second business plan?” Armitage asked.
“At this point, Deloitte and Ramboll gave a list of the things that were not included in the initial business case,” the warden responded. “And we all feel that more information is important. We don’t have enough information right now. A majority of people at this table believe we don’t have enough information.”
“And we’re certainly hearing this from the public because, even with our town hall meetings, there were a total of 350 people in attendance [THE EQUITY estimates there were more than 500] . . . and we have a population of 14,700 so we need to find a way to get information to every household, and we’re working on that plan,” Toller said.
“Even with adopting zero waste – which is an excellent aspiration, we all think it’s a good idea, but it will take a long time – and we’re concerned that after the recycling and composting, we’ll have about 50 per cent of our waste that will need to go someplace other than landfills, because landfills may not stay open and we do not support landfill,” the warden said.
Asked by Armitage whether a second business case would be based on 400,000 tons of garbage or a smaller volume of 70,000 tons, the warden replied that it is too early to say.
Pat Shank, a resident of Calumet Island, picked up on the theme of obtaining more information and offered to help.
“You mentioned you need more information . . . what if I was able to, on these screens, to get real professionals that can talk to you about common sense and how zero waste and a circular economy really works, without an incinerator on the Ottawa River which you all were to protect?” he asked, suggesting the name of Dr. Paul Connett, a long-standing critic of garbage incineration who came to local notoriety through a video that has circulated on social media.
“We’ve already heard from Dr. Connett,” the warden responded. “We actually have been very fortunate over the last six months to have the global lead in the world on technologies, and this person has been directly involved with energy from waste.”
When Shank continued to speak, the warden thanked him and repeatedly asked him to sit down or she would have to ask him to leave the meeting.
“And zero waste, Pat, is a great idea and we’re going to look into it . . . but it’s not realistic, and it won’t just cause 50 per cent of our waste to disappear. And so, that’s our answer at this point, but we need more information,” she said as she moved on to the next person with a question.

Warden draws distinction between mayors’ role at municiple vs county tables

“Reading the paper every week, and I’m wondering why a few councils, especially Shawville, are not bringing this [incinerator issue] to a vote with their council members, and I’m wondering why,” an unidentified man asked.
“It’s the decision of each council, it’s not something that is decided here at the MRC,” the warden responded. “The mayors around this table are part of a regional council, and then they also have another responsibility in their own municipality. What happens in their municipality, we don’t get involved in,” she said.
Audience member Sylvie Landriault commented that it was unacceptable to see 20 plastic water bottles distributed around the council table.
“An excellent point,” the warden replied. “I agree with you. Tonight, we’ve used these; we won’t use these again, to set an example,” she said.
Sylvie Landriault also asked if it would be possible to have the meeting agenda posted online ahead of the meeting, to which the warden and several members of the staff responded, saying they would try to post it on Mondays, 72 hours ahead of the meeting.

Outspoken critic of the incinerator project, Linda Davis, challenged the warden on comments she had made at the MRC’s presentation in Campbell’s Bay the previous week. A woman in the audience at that meeting said she had been an expert involved in the operation of Ottawa’s failed Plasco project to convert municipal waste into electricity that would be sold to the public grid. The woman argued that there were features of the Plasco technology that bore certain similarities to the incinerator proposed for the Pontiac that should be of concern.
In response, the warden made reference to the person leading the Ramboll team working on the Pontiac incinerator project.
“We have the global lead from Ramboll, her name is Bettina Kamuk. She sat at the meeting that Mr. Bryden pitched Ottawa before the facility was built,” the warden said. “She stood up and she said, ‘I have to tell you right now, this technology will not work.’ And she was the only one that was correct,” Toller said.
“So, I am really sorry that that has always been described as a real fiasco to us. We would never want to have a Plasco in the Pontiac,” the warden said in the Campbell’s Bay meeting.
In her intervention at last week’s mayors’ meeting, Davis asked the warden whether she had been suggesting that Rod Bryden was prepared not to listen to an engineer who said his multi-million-dollar project wouldn’t work.
“You’re suggesting that this engineer gave advice in a room full of men, and they didn’t listen to her – are you standing by that comment or not?” Davis asked.
“I wasn’t there, but I have it on good authority that it was Bettina Kamuk, and no one else in the room that said it would not work. So, I was impressed with that story because it showed me that she knows what she is talking about,” the warden replied.
Pressed by Davis as to whether she was violating Kamuk’s confidentiality, the warden replied that she was not violating anything, with which she concluded the public question period.

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