Centre Wakefield La Pêche

By Trevor Greenway

The municipality of La Pêche is the proud new owner of Wakefield’s $4.9 million community centre, but that doesn’t mean it will be getting into the events business anytime soon. 

“The municipality is not in the business of organizing events and all of that, and we really want the co-op to continue focusing on what they do best, which is planning events,” La Pêche Mayor Guillaume Lamoureux  told the Low Down. He was speaking just days after the municipality and Centre Wakefield La Pêche (CWLP) signed a deal that sees the municipality become the landlord of the building, while the cooperative becomes a tenant, which will have rent-free access to the centre 24/7. 

The new agreement will see the municipality handle everything that has to do with maintenance – fixing leaky toilets, repairing the roof, floors and keeping the lights on, while staffers and board members will continue to focus on programming – increasing classes, events and concerts, and keeping the centre buzzing with activity.  

“[The centre] will need support from the community as they did before,” added Lamoureux. “And the fact that the co-op can now really solely focus its energy on community services, that’s paramount.”

The municipality has similar agreements in place with Maison Fairbairn and Place des Arts Farrellton, where La Pêche is the landlord and maintains the buildings, while members run the day-to-day operations. 

When board members presented the draft agreement to the membership a couple of years ago, concerns arose around how the member-run community centre could turn into a regional cultural facility, and its English programming could be cut significantly. 

But the board held a referendum on the issue in June 2022, where 82 per cent of the membership voted in favour of transferring the building over to the municipality. 

And if you ask CWLP board chair Julie Coté, she’ll tell you that board members and staff still have control over the day-to-day operations at the centre, and they will now have more time and flexibility to focus on growing the centre’s offerings for members and the general public. She said that throughout the draft agreement process, board members felt confident that the municipality had their best interests at heart. 

“Working with [the mayor] has been very enlightening, because he’s very community focused. He lives within an arm’s throw of the centre, and I really believe that he’s been a real help with that positive narrative,” said Coté. “Even if you look on the La Pêche website, you see that one of their pillars is to encourage member-led activities within the municipality, and they really want to be that partner to help assist us with obtaining grants and opportunities that will take our programming to the next level.”

Staffers Rob Passmore and Annie Rompre said they were excited to get to work, especially since they no longer have things like fixing toilets or sourcing flooring prices on their list of daily duties. 

“All this maintenance costs a lot, and if there can be more money for programs or staff, that’s amazing, because we have a lot of work to do,” said Passmore. 

Former board member Shaugh McArthur spent hundreds of hours working through the draft agreement with the municipality and said what’s key is that the cooperative’s history is cemented into the agreement and that captures the entire spirit of the centre’s initial mandate when it first opened its doors in 2011. McArthur told the Low Down that the move “sets the tone for a new era partnership” between the CWLP members and the municipality. 

“The preamble [in the agreement] captures the whole history of the community-led grassroots effort, the founding members, the community really rallying, as well as the municipality having our backs and helping out,” he said. 

McArthur said there are a number of clauses in the agreement that “ensure that the community centre always remains a community centre,” and another that allows the CWLP membership to cancel the agreement and revert back to the initial agreement should both parties become unsatisfied with the new agreement. 

The CWLP will host an AGM this fall, where it will look to elect a new board and chair, as Coté is ready to step down after serving on the board since 2023.