K.C. Jordan

K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

Waltham is the latest Pontiac municipality to explore a fire services agreement with a neighbouring municipality to better serve its residents.

The municipality is exploring a possible agreement with Mansfield and Pontefract for fire services, which could see Mansfield’s department become responsible for calls on Waltham’s territory. 

Waltham’s current agreement with Mansfield is for mutual aid, meaning that each department helps the other to reach a strike force. This means that for fires in Waltham, the municipality pays its own firefighters, but also Mansfield’s when they are called in. 

But now, updated fire maps have revealed some new information that could change the way the two departments collaborate.

Last year, MRC Pontiac officials began working on a new fire safety cover plan as mandated by the province. Still in the process of being finalized, the plan’s maps are designed to show which fire departments can respond fastest to any location within a municipality’s perimeter. 

“The faster you are [ . . . ], the bigger chunk of map you’re going to get,” said MRC public security coordinator Julien Gagnon, who has been working with municipalities to go over 9-1-1 call data, ensuring all information on the map accurately reflects each department’s response time. 

Gagnon said the idea is to make sure firefighters can respond as quickly as possible in the event of an emergency, regardless of which department they belong to. 

“As a resident you just don’t care where the fire truck comes from, as long as it’s got some water in it, it’s a big red fire truck and it puts water on your house as soon as possible,” he said. 

Gagnon said the maps show an interesting development – that Mansfield’s department can reach a full strike force faster during daytime hours than Waltham’s department on a large part of its own territory. 

“It’s sort of a perfect storm scenario where the Mansfield Fire Department is one of the Pontiac’s fastest departments and Waltham is on the slower end, for various reasons,” he said. 

Waltham mayor Odette Godin said this information reflects the reality she sees on the ground, which is that during the day many Waltham firefighters are not always nearby because they work or live elsewhere.

“There’s absolutely no employment, so they all have to drive, so during the day there’s not enough to meet the strike force [ . . . ] and we now have a lot of firemen who don’t live in this municipality,” she said. 

According to the new fire safety cover plan, the fire departments that are shown to respond most quickly on the map will automatically be dispatched to the scene. This is different from what happens now, where help is dispatched only if it is needed to reach a strike force.

Gagnon said this practice will not be allowed anymore. 

“We do not want these small local fire departments to be waiting those 10 to 12 minutes before calling the neighbour [ . . . ]  You have to mobilize the best strike force to get to the fire as fast as possible.”

Godin said that in this case, without some form of official fire agreement with Mansfield, her municipality would have to pay two separate fire departments for fire services on its territory.  

“So no matter what now, we [would] have to pay our budget for our firemen, and for Mansfield to come here,” she said. 

Waltham set aside a base amount of $121,555 in its 2025 budget for fire protection services, plus costs per call. But if an agreement is reached, Godin said Waltham could pay an all-inclusive amount every year. 

Fire department pushback

Waltham chief Larry Perry has publicly decried the municipality’s decision to explore this agreement, saying it undermines the volunteers who founded the department and continue to serve the community. 

“By assigning our territory permanently to another municipality we lose our responsibility and therefore the rationale for funding a local fire department,” he said. 

Perry is also disputing the maps’ accuracy, claiming that his department is often first on the scene. 

“[Mansfield] can’t serve this area as quickly and efficiently as we can,” he said. 

Gagnon said while Waltham may often be first to the scene, what matters for the maps is reaching a strike force of eight firefighters – which is what the province says is enough to fight a structure fire. 

“It’s not the speed or time of your fastest firefighter, in fact it’s your slowest firefighter. If you’re telling me you’ve got [ . . . ] eight firefighters, you’ve got to give me the time of that eighth firefighter,” he said. 

Gagnon said in the end the maps do not bind municipalities into signing an agreement. “If they disagree with the map, ultimately their protocols are their own,” he said.  

But, he said, costs for fire services have been increasing across the province, leaving many municipalities trying to find ways to cover the bills. 

He said an MRC study done a few years ago shows that since 2002, the 18 Pontiac municipalities collectively spent about $450,000 on fire services. By this year, the number has risen to $2.6 million – more than a fivefold increase, well outpacing inflation and any increase in population. “We are looking for solutions,” he said. 

Mansfield and Pontefract mayor Sandra Armstrong said the agreement would qualify her municipality for a grant of up to $350,000 from the province’s municipal affairs ministry, meant to encourage intermunicipal cooperation. 

“That would take our budget down for three years,” she said, adding that the grant could help improve the fire department. 

Gagnon, who has been overseeing many mergers, said merged fire departments are an unavoidable future for small, squeezed municipalities.

“Municipalities have seen this coming for about a year. There’s a reason Bryson and Calumet Island went to Campbell’s Bay. There’s a reason Thorne is looking. It’s inevitable that they will have to work together.”

Waltham will be holding a public information session on Sept. 11 to inform residents about the possibility of a merger. 

Perry will be there to dispute the fire maps, even though earlier this year before the chats with Mansfield he announced his intention to resign from the department he has served for 50 years.

“I get it, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. But for us it’s very much about surviving as a community and having pride in ourselves,” he said. 

Godin said whatever decision is made, it does not take away from the heart and soul of those firefighters. 

“Nobody’s saying they’re not great. They are great. Everything they have done is appreciated,” she said.

But she said for now, nothing is final, and that the municipality is also exploring conversations with the Pontiac Ouest department. “No decision has been made. No vote has been made.”

K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

The Municipality of Pontiac has been chosen as one of 20 municipalities across the province whose code of ethics and professional conduct will undergo an audit by the Quebec Municipal Commission this year. 

“This work has the goal of evaluating if, above legal requirements, the codes of ethics adopted by municipalities to regulate the behaviour of elected officials and employees actively contribute to the reinforcement of an ethical culture,” reads a June 12 release on the CMQ’s website.  

“A clear, well-formulated code of ethics that is appropriate to the municipal context and, above all, known to all, promotes more consistent decision-making, reduces the risk of misconduct and protects the municipality from the financial, legal or reputational consequences of ethical lapses,” the release elaborates. 

All municipalities being audited have fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. 

Municipalities are chosen for audits like these according to a number of different factors, wrote CMQ director Barbara Hernandez in an email. 

“This planning process considers many sources of information, including subjects of interest and concerns relayed by the municipal sector or reported in the news, financial analysis or other relevant information to municipal management.”

Pontiac assistant director general Sandra Martineau said her understanding is that the municipality was chosen at random for this audit, and that all municipalities must go through this process. 

Martineau attached this excerpt sent in an email from the ministry concerning the nature of the audit.  

“It is important to clarify that the work carried out by the vice-presidency for verification does not constitute an investigation concerning your municipality, nor does it constitute any form of supervision, provisional administration, mediation or an escort.” 

Pontiac mayor Roger Larose said he is not sure when the work will begin or what exactly it will look like, adding he is not concerned about the audit.

“It’s a good thing to go through, because it’s [being] clear about everything,” he said. 

When the audit is complete, a full report will be available to the public on the CMQ website describing the commission’s conclusions and recommendations.

K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

A group of volunteers at the scout camp in Otter Lake is relieved this week after narrowly avoiding having to close a camp that has been in operation for more than 50 years.

Over the years the camp has been a playground for thousands of young people, offering outdoor adventures for scouting groups as well as other community organizations.

Earlier this year, Scouts Canada informed the committee that operates the camp of its recommendation to put the Picanoc Road property up for divestment, citing financial deficits, distance from urban centres and lack of utilities among the factors leading to the decision.

“We were shocked,” said committee member Dan Drummond of the moment they heard the news, adding that he and other volunteers felt that some of Scouts Canada’s claims were inaccurate.

In an official letter sent to Scouts Canada on July 15, committee chair Perry Schippers requested the board of governors re-evaluate its recommendations.

“On behalf of the Scout Camp Otter Lake QC Property Committee and the hundreds of persons who have encouraged me to respond, we formally request the Board of Governors and those involved in the decision-making process to remove Camp Otter Lake QC from the divestment list,” the letter reads.

Last week, the committee received an official response from Scouts Canada, saying that the board had considered their request and that it had been accepted.

“We are so happy the camp is being saved,” said committee member Alain Guy, who has been involved with the group for almost 10 years.

Guy said Scouts Canada’s claims that the camp is running deficits is not exactly accurate, since the volunteer committee does its own fundraising which usually results in a small surplus at the end of every year.

“Our camp is a volunteer camp, and we’ve been running it for so many years successfully [ . . . ] It’s always been financially viable,” he said.

Scouts Canada also argued that the property has no utilities, but Guy said the committee has been working on getting hydro for quite some time and has in fact been waiting to get the final approval from Scouts Canada.

“Everything is done, the wiring is done, everything is in place, the pole is there. It’s just a matter of connecting the pole and getting our electricity network wiring certified,” he said.

“We’ve been asking on a repeated basis since last year to complete the whole work, but we’re not getting anywhere yet.”

Guy said after a tough post-pandemic period when the camp was forced to close, reservation numbers have started to climb again and the committee is anticipating a bright future.

“We went from being a beehive to nothing, and we are building back our clientele because it took time to build everything back and put everything back to snuff,” he said.

Scouts Canada’s executive director of commercial ventures Tim Bennett said the post-pandemic decline has been felt nationwide, with membership numbers dropping from 60,000 pre-pandemic to now 45,000.

“We have been on the decline as an organization for a while, and we just have not been able to come up to that level through covid. That’s resulted in things such as decrease in revenue [ . . . ] and that has contributed to an increased cost to operate.”

He said this decline prompted a re-evaluation of the properties it wanted to keep, including those in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec.

He said one of the major factors why Otter Lake was recommended for divestment was its distance from major population centres.

“We have areas of the province where there are nine or 10 camps within a 90-minute drive time of [a] members base, and there’s not enough membership to sustain and grow nine properties. That was one of the things we were looking at,” he said.

In the end, Bennett said the response from the Otter Lake volunteers was enough to convince the board that the property had a bright enough future.

“There was great communication back from the camp committee regarding the property [ . . . ] It was noted over the last couple of years the camp committee has done great work to ensure we’re bringing the budget back into a break-even or small surplus of a property,” he said.

Drummond, who was one of the very first scouts to attend the Otter Lake camp when it opened in the ’70s, said the camp’s remote location and wilderness feel make it unique within the Scouts Canada ecosystem.

“What’s exceptional about the camp is that while it’s relatively close to the town, it feels very much like a wilderness experience [ . . . ] there aren’t many that have that feel,” he said.

Guy said he expects the upward trend to continue at the camp as the committee expands the amount of activities available, adding that the existing canoeing, archery, bicycle rentals and trails, and an obstacle course will be supplemented with sailing and other new additions this fall.

Drummond said the fact that the camp doesn’t have many expenses throughout the year should help it be sustainable.
Guy, who got involved in scouting in the 90s when his own kids joined, said he is happy to have the opportunity to continue making outdoor experiences accessible to younger generations.

“We have an affordable camp. It may not be top-notch, which is not our intent, but we have a great outdoor program that offers wilderness-style activities [ . . . ] It’s a great adventure where kids can disconnect from technology and actually enjoy the wilderness.”

K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

Thorne council provided a statement at its meeting last Tuesday addressing growing concerns around how medical emergencies will be responded to across its territory.

Council voted at a May special meeting to decline an offer from Otter Lake’s Pontiac North fire department to provide Thorne with first responders – the trained individuals who provide basic emergency care until an ambulance arrives on the scene – while Thorne works to train its own contingent.

Thorne previously had access to first responders under a 2023 service agreement with Otter Lake. But this agreement ended on June 30, 30 days after Thorne council voted to enter a new deal with the Shawville-Clarendon Fire Department (SCFD) starting July 1.

Since the SCFD does not use first responders, and only one of seven active Thorne firefighters is a trained first responder as of June 30, the Municipality of Thorne no longer has access to this service.

Many Thorne residents have been vocal about the decision online, saying that the service is essential. Some of those residents packed the council chambers in Ladysmith on Tuesday to hear the council’s statement.

“As of June 30, Thorne Fire Department is not affiliated with Pontiac North. This decision was not made lightly,” read councillor Deborah Stafford.

“As councillors, we have concerns of transparency in the department. We paid 40 per cent of the contributions to the joint cost of the fire department,” she continued, explaining why Thorne’s council decided to opt out of receiving emergency services from Otter Lake altogether.

“Regarding the statements going around about the first responders and that we are not looking after our ratepayers, this is not the case. We always take our ratepayers into consideration [ . . . ] Council met many times and discussed it before making a decision to move forward.”

Thorne mayor Karen Daly Kelly said in an interview after the meeting that the option to remain with Otter Lake was never seriously considered by the council.

“It was along the lines of, ‘Do we really need them?’ All these years we haven’t had first responders, we had ambulances,” she said of the years prior to teaming up with Otter Lake.

She said due to the high cost it did not make financial sense to continue paying Otter Lake for this service.

“It’s not that cost-effective at this point, mainly because we’re developing our own private department and our own first responders. In the meantime, the ambulance is there.”

She said while she understands many residents’ concerns that turning down Otter Lake’s offer might leave a gap in emergency services, the ambulance will continue to service the territory.

Shawville-Clarendon fire chief Lee Laframboise, who as of July 1 is also Thorne’s chief, said first responders can play a crucial role in emergency response, especially in remote areas.

“If you’re far from an ambulance station, it’s good to have first responders because you can get there to save somebody quicker than an ambulance can,” he said.

But he said since ambulances often come from Shawville, the distance to cover is less, meaning that an ambulance can sometimes get to Thorne faster than the first responder.

“I did ask somebody, over the last year or so, being a first responder, how many times would the ambulance beat the first responder to the call? And that person told me, 50 per cent at least,” he said.

Kelly said her municipality’s proximity to Shawville played a part in the council’s final decision.

“[Otter Lake] needs first responders because they’re quite a swath [of an] area. They’re up north further, and we’re not like that,” she said.

Laframboise said while first responder services are a good thing to have, they are not an essential service, adding that only a handful of Pontiac municipalities have them.

“There’s only five municipalities out of 18 that have first responders [ . . . ] Shawville doesn’t have it, Bristol doesn’t have it [ . . . ] The essential service is the ambulance, so you’re still going to get covered.”

Thorne has put out a call for interest for firefighters and first responders, and has already received interest from people wanting to take the training. Laframboise said the department is trying to garner as much interest as possible, even if it takes some time.

“We’re going to make a team of first responders, there’s just a little time gap between when we quit Pontiac North and when we have a new group for Thorne,” he said.

He said the department has gained one firefighter since July 1, bringing the total to seven firefighters, four of whom are active. He said some were previously active with the Thorne department before the Pontiac North merger but have not been active for a few years.

“I’ve got to get them up to snuff for firefighting, that’s my goal right now. But that’s going to take me a couple of months,” he said, adding that he has received some applications for first responders and will organize a training when there is enough interest.

Anyone wishing to join the fire department or take first responder training can get in touch with the Municipality of Thorne.

K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

The Municipality of Thorne will benefit from the fire protection and emergency response services of the Shawville-Clarendon Fire Department (SCFD) starting July 1, thanks to a new agreement between the three municipalities.

According to the agreement, which will be in effect until 2028, the SCFD will respond to emergency calls in Thorne’s territory and provide resources such as pumpers, tankers and emergency response units.

Thorne will pay $80,000 per year plus service fees for these services, and will remain responsible for fire hall costs, inspection of vehicles and equipment, as well as the recruiting, training and development of its firefighters.

This deal replaces Thorne’s previous agreement with Otter Lake, which saw the formation of the Pontiac North Fire Department in 2021. In a special council meeting on May 29, Thorne council passed a motion to end its agreement with Otter Lake, providing the required 30-day notice.

Also at that meeting, council passed a motion to hire SCFD chief Lee Laframboise as chief of the Thorne department, which will remain separate from Shawville-Clarendon.

Laframboise said there are five Thorne firefighters aside from himself, many of whom need to be brought back up to speed since they have not been active.

He said the Thorne department has been running practices without equipment for the last month, with the goal of having firefighters ready for July 1 when the agreement kicks in.

“Some suits needed to be ordered new, so they were ordered [ . . . ] We’ve got who’s driving what truck, who’s going to be an officer, and who’s going to be just a firefighter,” he said of the other activities he has been doing since getting hired.

Laframboise said when a call comes in on Thorne’s territory, the six Thorne firefighters will be called to the scene, plus a select crew of SCFD firefighters he has chosen based on the kind of call they are responding to.

He said the agreement will help the Thorne department meet its minimum numbers while still trying to rebuild an independent and full-fledged fire service, which is its long-term goal.

“Picture it like it’s the NHL and you have a hockey team, but you have no players. They’ve got a really nice new hall in Thorne, and they have decent trucks and good equipment, but they have no players,” he said.

Laframboise said he is proud of such a small department for having well-trained firefighters with many courses under their belt, although he said there is room to grow.

“The guys I’ve got back, they’ve got all the courses. They just need to practice and get up to snuff,” he said, adding that he would like to recruit more firefighters to the department.

THE EQUITY reached out to Thorne mayor Karen Daly Kelly several times to learn more about Thorne’s ambitions to rebuild its own fire department, but she did not respond in time for publication.

K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

The MRC Pontiac’s AgriSaveur kitchen won’t be open for public use until later this summer, but the veil was briefly lifted last Tuesday for a public info session and tour of the facility.

The event, hosted by MRC staff, was an opportunity for producers to learn about how the kitchen works, what equipment is available there and what certifications producers need to obtain to use the facility.

The AgriSaveur kitchen is one of three prongs in the MRC’s project to support the region’s agriculture industry through an abattoir, retail store and transformation kitchen.

In April the MRC announced it would be renting a space at 107 West Street in Shawville where it would install the kitchen, and has spent the last few months filling the space with equipment and preparing it for use.

“What’s really interesting is that we have four pieces of equipment here that you won’t find in your own kitchen,” said Maryse Vallières-Murray, the MRC’s agri-food project manager. She highlighted the facility’s smoker, freeze dryer, fast-cooling machine and smart oven as unique equipment available at the kitchen.

She said the various kinds of equipment as well as other details to do with the kitchen were determined in part by consulting with local producers who expressed interest in the project.

“We really want to be a more flexible space, so people can do bigger stuff but can also do a smaller scale,” she said.

The tour also featured a presentation from food transformation expert Martin Lamoureux, who was there to demystify the process for local producers wanting to use the facility.

“He was explaining about all the permits you need, so if you want to sell to grocery stores, if you want to sell to a farmer’s market, all the rules that apply to this kitchen,” Vallières-Murray said, noting producers wishing to sell directly to consumers will need a different permit than those wanting to sell in stores.

Bristol Market organizer Emily Reid, who has been trying to attract a wider variety of local vendors to her weekly market for a few years, said she hopes this kitchen will remove barriers for local producers such as cost, convenience and information about what certifications are needed.

“The simpler, faster and cheaper it is, the better,” she said. “The more likely the vendors will be willing to go through all those certifications and permits.”

UPA Pontiac president Claude Vallière said he is encouraged by the potential of the project and the wide variety of equipment in the kitchen.

“I was impressed by the equipment that was there. With the fridges and freezers, it’s really important for the quality of the food that will be made,” he said in French.

He said he is hopeful the project can be a reliable staple for local producers wishing to transform their products.

“The goal is to create a demand, to offer a service. So if the service is there, hopefully it will create demand and it will be used [ . . . ] and people can plan to use the service. Before, we had nothing, and it’s certain that doing value-added transformations of our products is worth more [for producers],” he said.

Vallières-Murray said this is precisely part of the idea behind the facility – to fill a local need for value-added products made with producers’ raw ingredients so they don’t have to travel outside the Pontiac.

“We have a lot of producers, but we have really no places to transform [their products],” she said. “You send your raw product somewhere else to be transformed and sold somewhere else [ . . . ] so really what we want to work on is [keeping] our added value in the Pontiac.”

She said work with the abattoir part of the project is progressing slowly but steadily. Although there is no set opening date, she said the producers running the co-op are working toward having a grand opening.

“We’re aiming toward [the] opening pretty soon,” she said. “We have the permits but we still need to run tests with the equipment, make sure everything is working, get the staff working together.”

Vallières-Murray said they are hoping to officially open the kitchen sometime in July.

K.C. Jordan – LJI Reporter

Local officials are saying Hydro-Québec’s recent announcement to begin work on the upper Pontiac’s power grid is a big win for the region and its development.

Hydro-Québec announced last week it will build a 120-25 kV substation near Fort Coulonge, as well as rebuild the Cadieux substation in Bryson and update 30 kilometres of supply lines between the two.

Hydro-Québec spokesperson Pascal Poinlane said these upgrades will shorten the distance the distribution lines have to cover to get power to people’s homes after leaving the substation, the place where power voltage is lessened before being distributed.

“Right now the situation is you have the distribution system in this area that was starting from Cadieux,” Poinlane said. “But if you have a new substation in the Coulonge area, then you have less of a distribution system. You are closer to your customers, and that’s why it’s going to be really more reliable.”

Pontiac MNA André Fortin said the investment into this work, estimated by Poinlane to be “a few hundred million dollars,” has been a long time coming for a region that has seen frequent power outages for over 20 years.

“It is a massive investment on the part of Hydro-Québec, but mainly it’s something that is more than overdue for the residents and businesses of the Upper Pontiac and part of Mansfield,” said Fortin, adding that frequent and sometimes lengthy outages have had a slew of negative impacts.

“We’ve heard stories of businesses not wanting to set up here. We’ve heard stories of residents and employers who are getting sick and tired of not being able to do telework. We’ve heard from local farmers whose equipment has failed [ . . . ] so to be able to address that today is a giant leap forward.”

Fortin said the work will help bring the upper Pontiac onto the main power grid, instead of the current system, in which power generated at the Waltham dam gets sent to the Ontario grid before returning once again to the upper Pontiac.

“It creates all sorts of havoc, all sorts of instability to their power supply,” he said, adding that they cannot be fed by the main hydro network because of the distance to the nearest substation at Cadieux.

“By having a local substation close by in and around Mansfield and Fort Coulonge, it allows them to be put on the main hydro network and to stop using the odd historic bypass system to and from Ontario.”

Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence said the news means the difference between a cowpath and a four-lane highway to help the electricity get from the nearest substation to residents of the upper Pontiac.

“We have a big need for electricity in our end, and to get that, there’s only a cowpath from Cadieux station to Allumette Island or to Sheenboro. It just doesn’t work,” he said. “We’re building a four-lane highway with electricity closer to us, which is great.”

He said the news is a big win for the region’s residents, adding that a more reliable power grid could mean more economic investment in the region.

“When a business looks to do anything, one of the first things they look for is the infrastructure in place,” he said. “Now with this being in Mansfield, there’s an area where industry can say, ‘Hey, we can pull power.’”

Spence said Upper Pontiac municipalities and their residents used all available channels to fight this issue, scheduling meetings with Hydro-Québec and encouraging residents of the upper Pontiac to submit tickets to the company when they had an outage.

“I like to call it judo that we used,” he said. “I mean, using their own strengths against them [ . . . ] Every time you get a power outage, you complain. Complain, complain, complain. By law, they have to respond, and these statistics started to pop up and the right people started to realize what was going on here.”

He said the victory is one the entire community should celebrate. “If it wasn’t for these local residents, we wouldn’t have been able to learn so much and see where the problems were.”

Fortin said he heard those voices loud and clear as well, and has been working with Hydro-Québec to come up with solutions for quite some time.

“This is only happening because local people have pushed and pushed and pushed for years. They’ve pushed myself, they’ve pushed Hydro-Québec, they’ve pushed their local officials, and everybody has contributed to getting Hydro-Québec to this decision.”

The project will go through several phases, including two years of technical and environmental studies as well as public consultations before finally doing the work, which is slated for 2028 and 2030. The company estimates the new substation will be ready for 2030 or 2031.

The current phase is for public consultations and planning. To that end, Hydro-Québec will host an open house on May 27 at the Knights of Columbus in Fort Coulonge from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Poinlane said the point of the open house is for residents to come with concerns about the project so the company can determine where exactly the substation and lines are going to be located.

“We need people to come to us and talk with us and we can give suggestions to identify the potential line routes, the substation options,” he said.

K.C. Jordan – LJI Reporter

Shawville council passed a draft on May 13 of an agreement that could see the Shawville-Clarendon Fire Department (SCFD) extend its services to the Municipality of Thorne.

This is the latest in a series of drafts that began last year, when a joint fire committee between Shawville and Clarendon began considering a possible agreement to include servicing Thorne.

While the agreement passed at Shawville council is not final and may still see modifications, mayor Bill McCleary said the agreement could look something like the one Shawville and Clarendon have with Portage du Fort, which pays an annual fee of $25,000 plus the expenses of fires on its territory.

“Thorne is similar except they still have a fire hall, they still have a fire truck, they just don’t have anybody to man it that’s qualified,” he said.

McCleary said his council was interested in the agreement with Thorne because it would bring in extra money for the department.

“They’ll be paying us a service fee to provide them with fire service. It can be put toward a truck,” he said, as an example.

Thorne has been serviced by a joint department with Otter Lake called Pontiac North since 2021, when the two departments merged due to low firefighter numbers in Thorne.

But Thorne mayor Karen Daly Kelly said they are considering an agreement with the Shawville-Clarendon department because of its proximity to Thorne’s territory.

“It’s mainly the ease of access and the compatibility element,” she said.

Kelly said sometimes both Pontiac North and SCFD respond to calls on Thorne Lake and other locations on the border between Thorne and Clarendon municipalities, and she hopes the agreement will do away with some of those mix-ups.

She said Thorne will wait for the draft agreement to be passed by Shawville and Clarendon councils before making its own decision. Although Thorne is under agreement with Otter Lake for fire service, Thorne director general Jessica Ménard said the agreement can be terminated on 30 days’ notice.

At Clarendon’s first monthly meeting, also on May 13, council suggested some modifications to the draft agreement, although those changes are not public yet because it is a draft.

The joint Shawville-Clarendon fire committee will meet again this week to review the changes, and if a final version is agreed upon the draft could go back to a vote at Clarendon council for its second monthly meeting next week.

McCleary said if Clarendon passes the draft, it would then be seen again by Shawville council before finally going to Thorne.

“But Shawville-Clarendon has to get their ducks in a row before it can go to Thorne,” he said. “This is all hypotheticals until there’s a final verdict.”

The Otter Lake Community Assembly’s first official meeting on Saturday saw members narrow down a select few projects the group will focus its efforts on over the coming weeks and months.

After a lively discussion from the roughly 20 attendees in which some project ideas were removed and others refined, the group decided it will organize a community garden and help the municipality of Otter Lake put on a free tree day on June 7.

“We are going to make a proposal to the council for the community garden,” said organizer Thomas Villeneuve, adding that they need the go-ahead from Otter Lake council to use the RA grounds before submitting an application to the municipality’s call for community projects due next month.

He said the free tree day is also going to be a perfect occasion to stir up interest for the community garden and for the assembly. “We are going to try to tie those events together to raise excitement and raise awareness about having a garden,” he said.

The group held its first get-together in April, a potluck where Villeneuve and his family explained the project to 80 or so people at the Otter Lake RA. That meeting concluded with a group brainstorm where attendees voiced projects they would like to see in the community.

Since that meeting, Villeneuve and other organizers created five categories of projects attendees had brainstormed – farm to table, education and skills, collaboration, special projects and town enhancement.
On Saturday, all ideas were posted on the walls of the RA building and attendees were given a chance to move those projects into different categories as they saw fit. Then, the group transitioned into a discussion about which projects to tackle first.

Attendee Kat MacGregor, who has experience in community-based agriculture and has worked on farms across the country, said while she is for the idea of a community garden, they can end up to be more than organizers had bargained for.

“People really love the idea of community gardens, but when you are dealing with natural systems there is a lot of complexity and knowledge that is required to find success,” she said, adding that there might be more financial investment required than the maximum $20,000 the project could receive from the municipality’s participatory budgeting initiative.

Rachelle Villeneuve, a special needs educator and mother of two young children who was attending the assembly for the first time, said she would like to see the group start projects related to learning and development, such as building a treehouse for children.

“There’s a lot of children in the Pontiac that have special needs, that are high-energy kids, that have sensory issues [ . . . ] and we don’t have enough stuff for the children to be able to play with,” she said, adding that she wanted to come out and be a voice for the young parents in the community.

“I knew that there were no parents at the meetings, so I thought it was important to be at least the parent here [ . . . ] My children are both in school next year, and I find it really important to have projects for the kids.”
Thomas said he was encouraged by the attendees’ engagement and willingness to take initiative. “We need to get people engaged, we need people to feel like they are part of the process right away, and this was the way that we came up with to do that,” he said.

“Putting those projects up, I think it was a really big hit, people moving them around, it got them to take ownership of those projects.”

MacGregor said while she thinks things are going in the right direction in terms of community engagement, people might need to be signed up for roles instead of volunteering for them.

“We haven’t been taught to be part of a community, so we might need to have roles assigned to people,” she said. “Not everyone is happy to step up, but a lot of people are willing to step in.”

The assembly’s next meeting will be sometime in June. If you would like to get in touch with the community assembly, the email is info@olcac.ca.

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

A British Columbia-based company that has finished the first phase of exploration activities on an area of land spanning several Pontiac municipalities indicated in a January press release it will continue toward a second phase of exploration.

Showcase Minerals Inc. owns about 60 mining claims in the area, spanning about 3,461 hectares across the municipalities of Litchfield, Mansfield and Pontefract, and Otter Lake.

In the release, the company said it had completed the first phase of surveying activities on the land, including geological mapping, rock sampling and ground prospecting, finding rare earth elements (REEs), uranium and other minerals.

“We are excited by the results [ . . . ] These findings highlight the property’s significant rare earth element potential,” Kirk Reed, CEO of Showcase Minerals was quoted as saying in the release.

“As global demand for clean energy technologies and strategic materials continues to grow, the Pontiac Project’s potential as a multi-commodity exploration target aligns with our commitment to advancing projects that support a sustainable future. We look forward to building on these results in Phase II.”

A previous release from September indicated phase two of exploration would involve ​​“trenching and stripping operations” and “further prospecting, geological mapping, and sampling work throughout the property.”

The company did not respond to repeated interview requests, but THE EQUITY was able to determine the company is headquartered in Salmon Arm, B.C., was incorporated in 2020 and listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange in 2023.

In the independent auditor’s report of the company’s most recent annual financial statement, auditor K.R. Margetson Ltd. wrote the company “does not currently have the financial resources to sustain operations in the long-term.”

“The company has incurred net losses of $718,176 since inception, has a working capital deficit of $42,208 and has never made any sales of its products,” the audit continued.

As of Monday, none of the three mayors whose municipalities touch Showcase Mining’s claims had heard about the surveying activity, and neither had MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller.

“At this point there has been no communication with the MRC or municipalities,” confirmed Toller in a message, adding that companies often purchase claims but do not necessarily proceed to the extraction phase.

Mining claims, which are each typically about 10 hectares in size, can be purchased from the province’s natural resources ministry.

“Often, companies speculate or have claims which they announce to draw attention and it could increase stock activity,” Toller said, noting that in her experience as warden, very few claims have amounted to mining activity.

“In the seven and a half years that I’ve been warden, I am only aware of Sphinx [on Calumet Island], and that didn’t work out,” she said. “There could be a lot of claims that are just speculation and interest that will never be followed up on, so I don’t think there’s cause for alarm.”

Region’s mining claims doubled since 2019

According to the online mining claims database available on Quebec’s natural resources ministry’s website, there are currently between 200 and 300 active mining claims in the area Showcase Minerals has surveyed, roughly located between Highway 148 and Highway 301, south of Squaw Lake.

A coalition of mining industry watchdogs found that in 2023 there were over 330,000 active mining claims in Quebec. Per the province’s natural resources ministry, in 2022 only 14 per cent of claims proceeded to the exploration stage.

There were 112,447 mining claims approved in 2023 province-wide, an increase of nearly 40,000 from the year prior. In the Outaouais, the number of active mining claims has more than doubled since 2019.
Carolyn Raab, a co-founder of anti-mining activism group Action Low, said mining claims can be purchased cheaply by companies for less than $80 each.

Raab, who helped form the group to fight a recent increase in mining claims in her home municipality of Low, noted the process happens in several phases. Once the surface-level exam has been done, companies can move to the exploration phase, breaking ground to see if there is enough mineral there to justify mining on a large scale.

She said mining claims can be held on a property without the knowledge of the property owner, but if a company gets government authorization to proceed with exploration, landowners have little-to-no say in the process.

“If it’s private property, you’re going to get expropriated. That typically doesn’t work out well for the landowner, and the landowner has no say in the matter. You don’t own it to begin with, so your negotiating power is pretty minimal.”

Raab explained municipalities can request that certain lands gain a designation called TIAM, or territory incompatible with mining activity, which would exempt land from mineral exploration, and can apply for this exemption if the land falls within an urban perimeter, if the mining activity would interfere with agricultural or touristic areas or with places of historical or cultural importance.

In 2020 the city of Sherbrooke successfully designated all but 77 hectares of its territory as incompatible with mining activity, in response to an increase in mining claims.

Toller said the MRC has already designated areas along the banks of the Coulonge and Black rivers as incompatible with mining activities.

“In our land management plan, we do have incompatible areas, and those would be two of them,” she said.

“No mining can take place there.”

Toller also said that while there hasn’t historically been much mining activity, she believes it could bring jobs to local workers who travel elsewhere to work in mines.

“It would be great someday if we had some form of mining operation, because we have people who are experienced who could work here.”

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

Outside Shawville’s Valu-Mart, Steve Sutton hauls a pair of signs out of the back of his truck and stands them next to the store’s main entrance.

Sutton, a member of the Shawville Lions Club, steps aside to reveal the signs, which celebrate the 75th year of the club and include a list of all the causes it has helped raise money for over its decades serving the community. These signs have been visible outside Valu-Mart and Giant Tiger locations in Shawville over the past few weeks.

Over its three-quarters of a century, the club has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for people in the community, via fundraisers at the Shawville Fair, the annual Country Jamboree, Canada Day breakfasts, as well as countless barbecues and other events.

But the milestone comes with a flip side. The Lions, like many other community service organizations in this country, are losing members or even folding altogether. The Quyon Lionettes decided to call it quits in the fall.

The previous decade saw the dissolution of clubs like the Shawville Kinsmen and the Fort Coulonge Lions.
Even many of the clubs still alive now are hurting for members. 

The Bryson Lions Club is below 10 full-time members, while the Renfrew and Pontiac Lions clubs are both hovering around 15 members.

With 27 full-time members, the Shawville Lions’ situation isn’t quite as dire, but Sutton’s signs are just one example of how the club is trying to integrate a younger crowd into their ranks. By sharing what the club has done for the community, it hopes these successes will prompt a younger generation to join.

Lions club member James Howard said he recalls the Shawville club having as many as 32 members, so being down to 27 isn’t that much of a dip.

“The trouble is, you’re talking to a crew that is probably not going to be here in 15 years, and if we don’t get somebody younger in the club to run it, then we have troubles,” he said, highlighting the importance of the recruitment effort.“We just need to get some people with coloured hair in here.”

Member Eric Smith agreed. “The signs show what money we brought in,” he said, adding that people don’t necessarily realize what the Lions Club does. “We raise money to help people that are less fortunate, and we do community service.”

The signs are only one way the Lions are trying to increase membership. At the club’s upcoming dinner on Feb. 13, members are being encouraged to invite whoever they would like as guests in an effort to increase visibility.

“Then it makes [guests] more aware if they want to be a part of this community and give back to it,” said member Jerry Callaghan.

“I think what would be really important to come out of this would be if we could get three or four or five, or even one younger member bringing in a bunch of younger members,” added Howard.

He said the club hasn’t traditionally invited women because for a long time Shawville had a successful Lionettes club, but in the past few years they have opened their doors to more women and are open to continue doing so.

Shawville Lions not only victim of waning volunteerism

Terry Frost, president of the Pontiac Lions Club in Campbell’s Bay, said membership is down to around 15 members this year. He said although numbers are low, there is still hope in the form of three younger members, in their 40s and 50s, who will decide at this month’s meeting whether or not to become full-time members of the club.

Nevertheless they are lowering the barrier to entry by reducing mandatory meeting attendance to twice a month, as well as extending open invitations to anyone who wants to come to a dinner.

“When I first joined, you had to come and ask the members if it was alright to invite somebody to come to your meeting. And now we just threw that out the door,” he said.

Frost said it has been hard to attract members because the Lions club has to compete with other activities for people’s attention.

“It was hard to get people interested,” he said. “They all have families, and nowadays they’re skating, there’s dancing, there’s gymnastics, so the younger ones didn’t want to commit to it.”

He said he believes the club has been in existence since 1937, and that it has been a staple in the community ever since. He said the community would definitely be worse off without the Lions.

“It’d be a lot less donations given around. St. John’s school, we really donate a lot there, Bouffe Pontiac, wheelchairs, anything to do with medical. If people need stuff, they give us a call, like wheelchairs, walkers, we’re always willing to help there,” he said.

Marc Latreille, Shawville Rotary’s secretary for over a decade, said last year the club raised over $30,000 for the community. Despite this success, the average age is getting older.

He said due to lack of numbers the club currently has no sitting president, and the role is being filled by various executive members, including himself.

Like the Pontiac Lions Club, in an effort to attract new members the Rotary is trying to reduce the number of monthly meetings, a decision he said was made because young people don’t seem to have the time they used to.

“Today people seem so busy, everybody’s busy,” he said.

Latreille said the club was able to find two younger members that have joined in recent years, including real estate agent Jarod Croghan and PHS French teacher Lindsay Woodman, and he hopes they can begin to give the club some visibility with the next generation.

“When we had a member like Lindsay, she’s a teacher at the high school, and she’s very well connected with the kids, and she seems to have a lot of energy,” he added.

For her part, Woodman underlined the importance of keeping service clubs like the Rotary alive.

“We need to make sure that we have people there [ . . . ] If the worst were to happen and all the clubs were to go away, then we would have a lot more noticeable hardships in the Pontiac,” she said, encouraging anyone who is interested to get involved.

“I think the best thing for people to do is if they want to get out and help, they are more than welcome to come join or audit to see what it’s about.”

‘We’re open to anyone’

Smith said that anyone who wants to come out to a meeting should get in touch with the club.

“We are wide open to anyone that wants to learn about Lionism or join the Lions Club, and there’s no pressure
[ . . . ] it’s a volunteer thing and you can put in as little or as much effort as you want,” he said.

Howard said despite the relative dip in numbers in recent years he is not worried the Lions club will fold anytime soon. “I’m very hopeful [ . . . ] But I’m also not sure what is going to happen 15 years from now,” he said, underlining the importance of getting young people involved.

Smith was equally optimistic. “This is a great community for people helping people – that’s what we do.”

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

Pontiac’s Liberal MNA André Fortin and Quebec Liberal Party leadership hopeful Charles Milliard toured the Pontiac on Wednesday to kick off Milliard’s campaign for the party’s top seat.

Milliard, who received Fortin’s endorsement last fall and now has the support of three other MNAs, was previously head of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Quebec, as well as pharmacist and executive vice-president of Uniprix.

So far, three other candidates have entered the race, which officially kicked off Jan. 13: former federal cabinet minister Pablo Rodriguez, former Montreal mayor and Liberal MP Denis Coderre, and international tax lawyer Marc Bélanger.

On Wednesday, Milliard and Fortin made stops in Waltham, Campbell’s Bay, Fort Coulonge and Shawville, discussing issues such as healthcare, housing, agriculture and language rights.

Milliard said with his medical background he is well-attuned to the healthcare challenges in the Outaouais. If elected premier, he said he would be committed to passing a law to bring Outaouais healthcare workers’ salaries on par with those offered in Ontario.

“I think it’s a way of recognizing that the region has a particular need, because in the rest of Quebec we don’t have that issue. So if we can redefine work conditions so they are similar to those in Ontario, I think we will re-absorb that labour,” Milliard said.

In previous interviews with media Milliard has also stated his intention to re-invest $200 million into Outaouais healthcare, to bring the region on par with per-person healthcare spending across the province.

“The baseline in Quebec is that you pay your taxes and you get services, no matter where you live,” he said, emphasizing his intention to prioritize rural regions.

“The regions of Quebec, it’s not a one-size-fits-all, there are precise solutions for certain regions, and I am committed to do that in government.”

Milliard, who comes from a francophone family in Lévis but who learned English working as a historical interpreter in Ottawa, said he is committed to honouring the rights of anglophones across the province.

“The contribution of anglophones to life in Quebec is a richness, and mastering English is a ticket to success in business and many other areas. So we must protect the rights of the anglophone community, and I think it’s important that someone like me who comes from a francophone background explains that reality to francophones,” he said.

Fortin said he is endorsing Milliard for leader because he is in touch with issues people in the Pontiac are concerned about.

“He wants to run a bread-and-butter campaign about issues that I hear about here in this region. Healthcare, education, areas in which the CAQ is cutting right now, but that should be our number one priority,” he said.

“People pay taxes for healthcare, and they pay taxes expecting quality education for their children. So having somebody who’s focused on those issues, I think will reach a lot of the aspirations of people in this region.”

The next leader of the Quebec Liberal Party will be elected on June 14.

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

School boards across Quebec, including boards governing Pontiac schools, are facing some tough budget decisions after the Quebec government asked them to cut millions of dollars in costs before the end of this fiscal year.

In December the province announced school boards would lose $200 million in previously-approved budgets for the period ending in Mar. 2025.

In the Pontiac, the Western Quebec School Board (WQSB) must reduce spending by $906,000, less than 0.6 per cent of the board’s annual operating budget, and the Centre de services scolaires des Hauts-Bois-de-l’Outaouais must cut $324,303.

WQSB director general George Singfield said in the coming weeks his school board will start looking at which programs or schools will receive cuts, which the province has said should not affect students’ learning experience.

“We’ll take a hard line on things that we have committed to and we won’t cut in areas where it’s going to have a huge impact on learning,” Singfield said. “We have to be strategic and minimize.”

Singfield said the fact that the board has been able to save money on certain things, such as last year’s elections, will help mitigate the impact of the cuts.

“It’s not about cutting programs, and it’s certainly not about cutting staff. There are things that are sacred that we are going to continue with. It’s really about looking at things that we are not committed to for this year.”

WQSB chairwoman Joanne Labadie said despite the province’s directive that cuts should not impact students’ learning experiences, the board will be hard-pressed to come up with solutions that do not impact students in some way.

“Whether it’s in buildings, IT, library services, special education technicians [ . . . ] everything we do is going to affect student services,” she said, adding that the board is currently in the process of figuring out ways to minimize the impact on students and should complete its recommendations sometime in January.

The government has also implemented a construction moratorium preventing the completion of new projects, as well as a hiring freeze, which Labadie said comes with the same directive – that hiring decisions should not impact students’ experience.

For example, she said the board can continue to hire teachers and special education attendants, but if a position becomes vacant it can only be filled internally. She said the school board only has so many resources and it cannot currently fill all those positions if they became vacant.

“We lose a lot of staff to Ontario, and then to be told that we can only fill positions internally, well, we’re not that big of an organization. You lose two or three people, that creates some pretty big gaps for us,” she said.
Labadie said she is more concerned about what next year’s budget will look like, as she anticipates the province will implement more widespread cuts.

“My biggest concern is that these are budget cuts for this fiscal year, until March of 2025,” she said. “When the new budget comes out we are expecting drastic cuts for next year as well.”

The Centre de services scolaires des Hauts-Bois-de-l’Outaouais was not offering interviews on the subject of the budget cuts, but did offer a brief emailed statement.

“The sources or sectors of spending in danger of being affected have not yet been identified,” wrote communications coordinator Mona Lirette in French. “Our objective remains to preserve the integrity of services offered to students.”

THE EQUITY requested an interview with the provincial education department but did not receive a response before going to print.

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The MRC Pontiac’s public security committee released its year-end review of the Sûreté du Québec’s (SQ) activities on the territory, revealing statistics on crime, collisions and 9-1-1 calls, to name but a few of the data types tracked.

This annual report highlights the SQ’s involvement in the community as well as statistics for the 2023-24 financial period from Apr. 2023 to Mar. 2024.

Before the year began, the public security committee, which is made up of mayors and SQ officers, identified two priorities for the service on the MRC Pontiac territory: increasing security on the roads as well as reducing general crime.

Captain Mélanie Larouche, who is responsible for overseeing stations in Campbell’s Bay, Maniwaki and Mont-Laurier, said in an emailed statement to THE EQUITY that her organization was successful in addressing those priorities, noting the county saw a reduction in collisions and general crime.

“Each year, our objective is always to improve our citizens’ ability to feel safe, to improve safety on the roads and to diminish crime in general,” she said.

The county saw a total of 259 vehicle collisions in 2023-2024, down from 315 the previous year. This total included two fatal collisions and two collisions resulting in serious injury. Larouche said this decrease could be due to a number of factors.

“The weather, the state of the roads, the mechanical state of vehicles on the roads, and the police presence all play a role.”

The 239 personal crimes committed this year represents an 11 per cent decrease in the category, which includes sexual assaults, general assaults, and thefts, but this year’s number is still higher than the five-year average of 219.

At 181 instances of property crime in the 2023-2024 year, the rate stayed more or less consistent with the five-year average.

The MRC saw an increase in 9-1-1 calls for the fourth consecutive year, and this year’s 3,291 calls represents an eight per cent increase over the year prior.

It’s a trend Larouche explained is happening across the province.

“We believe this is, among other reasons, due to the fact that the people who are calling are more comfortable reporting situations because they trust their police service,” she said.

The SQ made 1,555 road stops last year, down from 2,442 the year prior, a difference Larouche attributes to a number of different reasons.

“There could be several explanations, but we have a constant increase in calls, heavier cases, and interventions that require more time,” she said, noting they issued 429 fewer warnings this year than the year prior.

“These warnings are often related to minor infractions for which officers can choose to issue a warning, such as for not having one’s driver’s licence or registration in the car, or for a minor mechanical issue like a burnt-out light, but these warnings are not necessary.”

Larouche said the SQ’s greatest successes in the MRC Pontiac this year included community presence and general safety.

“We were extremely present in schools, we were involved in the community (Christmas baskets). Road safety improved in terms of number of collisions. We are planning our operations to improve road safety, and our presence is bearing fruit,” she said, noting she wants to improve the service’s community reach going forward.

“We want to continue partnering with the population, elected officials, increase operations with our road stops, schools, Bouffe Pontiac, etc, in order to respond to the needs of citizens, to become closer with them and constantly strive to improve the public’s ability to feel safe.”

Alain Gagnon, chair of the MRC’s public security committee and mayor of Bryson, said it is going to request that the SQ get four cadets next summer instead of its current contingent of two.

“Everybody is really happy for the work those cadets did,” he said, adding that they are helping to improve the SQ’s presence on the ground and to forge ties with the community.

“They don’t do any patrol, they can’t arrest anybody, but they are our eyes and ears on any site [ . . . ] It’s more a public relations thing with them.”

Gagnon, who worked for the SQ for over 20 years, said there are some unique challenges to policing a large territory such as the Pontiac, especially when resources are running thin.

“If you’re in Montreal, Gatineau or any city, you’ll have a cruiser that’s 10 streets from you. If you’re in the Pontiac, you’re one car with two police officers, and you could be alone [if you call the police for help],” he said, adding that the more police cars that are on the road, the more municipalities have to pay for policing.

“It would be nice to have two, three, four, five cars on the road, but of course the bill comes with it,” he said.

He said with the holiday season coming up, people should be especially careful about drinking and driving, and should call someone to pick them up instead of driving home.

“It’s always better to call somebody … while being arrested is not a fun thing, having an accident or if somebody is injured, that’s even worse.”

The committee’s priorities for the upcoming year have not been chosen yet, but will be discussed early in the new year.

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

Only two of the MRC Pontiac’s 18 municipalities have chosen to reduce their municipal councils from six to four seats after a new provincial bill made this change possible for municipalities with under 2,000 residents.

Over the past few months, councils across the MRC have been holding sessions and public consultations about the question of whether or not to resize. Councils have until the end of December to make a decision, which will affect seats in the municipal elections set for Nov. 2025.

Almost all MRC Pontiac municipalities have decided to keep six council seats, except Bryson and Fort Coulonge, which have decided to shrink to four-person councils.

Bill 57, passed by the National Assembly in June, aims to “protect elected officers and to facilitate the unhindered exercise of their functions,” according to its title.

As part of this, it allows for the province’s smallest municipalities to reduce the number of mandatory council seats to help fill seats that had previously been left vacant, or been filled unopposed.

CBC reported this year that close to 5,000 candidates were elected unopposed in Quebec’s 2021 municipal elections.

Local radio station CHIP FM previously reported that in the Pontiac, 73 candidates ran unopposed in the 2021 municipal elections, representing nearly 60 per cent of those running for seats in the county, with the councils of Chichester, Campbell’s Bay and Waltham elected entirely by acclamation.

Bryson mayor Alain Gagnon said his municipality has been trying to reduce its council size since 2017, when it volunteered to go down to four candidates due to low turnout for councillor seats in recent elections.

“We had to fight at the last day to get somebody to put their name in,” he said, adding that at the time, the province’s municipal affairs ministry denied Bryson’s request to reduce its council size due to a high number of requests.

“So they said, ‘We’ll redo the electoral law’, which they did,” said Gagnon.

Clarendon mayor Edward Walsh said his council unanimously decided to remain at six to ensure representation of the whole territory. He noted they wanted to ensure decisions were more democratic in nature.

“If you get down to four, and you get a couple of them that are chummy chummy, they can really swing a lot of votes at council. With six people you usually get a pretty fair opinion of anything,” he said.

Portage du Fort mayor Lynne Cameron said her council also wanted to keep six voices at the table.

“Our councillors do not get a huge wage – $280 [per month]. We had a full council on that, and it had something to do with just having more people’s opinions and thoughts, and they just figured it would be better than four,” she said.

“If two people weren’t here, then there’s two people making a decision for the whole town.”

Waltham’s council, which represents a population of just under 400 people, voted to stick with the six-seat system. Mayor Odette Godin said her council believed the reduction would cause unwanted competition between councillors.

“They didn’t want to do that because it causes bad feelings. In a small town like Waltham, you’re running against relatives, friends, neighbours,” Godin said. “They didn’t think it was right to pit each other against each other.”

She said despite the ultimate decision, she doesn’t think Waltham needs six councillors, and that the reduction would save money.

“Right off the bat it would save the taxpayers money. And with the FQM talking about amalgamation, I’m afraid that if nobody budges there won’t be councillors for Waltham at all. We won’t have a seat at the table,” she said, adding that reducing council would show that council is committed to making life better for Waltham residents.

“If we can show we’re doing what we can to reduce costs while still being able to service the taxpayers, I can’t see that as a bad thing.”

Fort Coulonge is the second of Pontiac’s two municipalities set to reduce its council to four, and its mayor Christine Francoeur told THE EQUITY she is confident it will have enough hands to do the work.

While the decision will save the municipality about $14,000 a year, money was not the biggest factor in the council’s unanimous decision to reduce its size.

“Do we really need six councillors for 1,300 people? [ . . . ] It’s not like we are in a big city where we have projects galore to work on,” she said, adding that in a city being a councillor is a full-time job, but in the Pontiac it is part-time.

The city of Gatineau, for example, has 21 councillors for 291,041 people — roughly one councillor for every 13,860 residents.

With 106 councillors and a 2023 population of 14,860, the MRC Pontiac has one councillor for roughly every 140 residents.

Francoeur said the MRC Pontiac as a whole has too many elected officials and she might consider amalgamation if the option presented itself.

“Our whole council is all in agreement that we do have too many councillors for the Pontiac. Too many councillors and too many mayors. I think it should be reduced [ . . . ] Maybe this is a first step toward [an amalgamation].”

Any municipality that decides to reduce to four councillors must pass a resolution, a draft by-law and hold a public consultation meeting on it, and must inform the FQM of its decision before Dec. 31 of this year.

Any changes to the makeup of councils will take effect during the municipal elections scheduled for Nov. 2025. After this, if a municipality wishes to revert back to having six councillors, it will have to wait until the municipal elections of 2029.

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

Former Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation chief Gilbert Whiteduck announced in a press release last week he will seek the NDP nomination in the federal riding of Pontiac-Kitigan Zibi for the next election.

Whiteduck holds degrees from Carleton University, the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi and the University of Ottawa, as well as a Certificate in Indigenous Law and an Honorary Doctorate degree for his work in education.

He is the president of the Gatineau Valley Historical Society, has worked as a school principal, and served on the band council of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation before serving as chief for seven years. He is currently working as a therapist for First Nations and Inuit people with mental health and substance use disorders.

Whiteduck said people throughout the riding were asking him if he planned on running, and while he didn’t initially consider it, after some thought he decided to put his name forward.

“It came down to saying, from the experience and everything that I’ve gained, and people that I’ve talked to and what they’ve told me, ‘Can I be a different kind of voice? A more affirmative voice.’”
He said his experience as a councillor and as chief of Kitigan Zibi has given him experience in a wide variety of fields, and with all levels of government.

“It’s not at all like a mayor of a municipality, because you are negotiating land claims. You’re overlooking healthcare. [ . . . ] Our education is strictly under us,” he said, describing the unique nature of his work as chief.

“You’re negotiating provincial, federal, speaking to the MRCs. I did all of that in different ways.”
Whiteduck said while he needs to reach out to more people across the riding to understand their concerns, he has identified a few of his own priorities.

“One of them, of course, is homelessness. The reality that poverty exists in maybe more rural [environments]. And that’s all tied to housing, and everything around housing.”

“There’s also, of course, the economic stuff, and what programs and what supports can be made available differently to medium and small businesses,” he said.

He said he sees agriculture as a big concern for the riding, and while he needs to speak with more farmers to understand their concerns, he sees them as crucial drivers of the economy.

“Farmers for me are important. Maybe because they are close to the land, and as an Indigenous person we have always been close to the land, and I’ve told that to the farmers that I’ve met.”

He said he also sees the issue of the Chalk River nuclear research facility as important to the region.

“The water is so important, whether it be the Kitchissippi, the Gatineau River, are all are important rivers that we need collectively to take care of. It’s tied to biodiversity, it’s tied to taking care of the land.”

Whiteduck added that he is being realistic about the NDP’s chances in this election, but regardless of the election result wants to do right by the people and represent their best interests.

“The NDP has never formed government. Do they have a chance to form? Well, we’ll see,” he said.

“As an MP your role is to influence. Your role is at committees, at different levels, at different contacts with ministers to influence that change that will benefit the riding.”

The Pontiac-Kitigan Zibi NDP nomination meeting will happen on Nov. 30 at 11 a.m. at the Wakefield community centre. The party confirmed Whiteduck is so far the only candidate.