LJI reporter

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.