LJI reporter – Page 6

Enviro groups hope to grow Noire and Coulonge protected area

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 28, 2024 / Fort Coulonge, KC Jordan, LJI reporter

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

This month, Pontiac MP Sophie Chatel spent the day in a canoe on the Noire River with partners from two Outaouais environmental organizations to celebrate the progress they have made designating the Noire and Coulonge river watersheds as protected areas.

In 2023, after years of work by the Regional Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development of the Outaouais (CREDDO) and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS) Ottawa Valley chapter, the Quebec government officially recognized the watersheds as a protected area, a status that ensures protection from industrial activities such as mining and logging.

But both organizations want to expand the territory the protected area covers from 85,000 to 115,000 hectares, which was their original goal when they began this work in 2019.

They used this money to conduct studies on the environmental value of the landscape, as well as the potential impacts on the forestry industry and on access to the territory and its woodland trail system.

They held public meetings called “harmonization tables” which brought together residents, municipalities, Indigenous communities, municipalities, ecotourism agencies, and more to discuss how they wanted the territory to be managed.

Geneviève LeBlanc, a conservation coordinator with CPAWS’ Ottawa Valley chapter, said to THE EQUITY in an email “the funding improved our community outreach efforts. It covered expenses related to the harmonization table and community information workshops.”

LeBlanc said in these meetings they were hearing that people wanted more territory to be included.

“We were really grateful, but we noticed that there’s actually more to protect in that area and that people wanted the protected area to be expanded.”

The proposed extensions would include the eastern branch of the Coulonge River, as well as areas that will improve connectivity between the two watersheds.

LeBlanc, who has been working on this project for over six years, said the landscape has tremendous ecological value, with more than 200 species identified, more than 20 of which are provincially or federally threatened or vulnerable.

“There are some species at risk that are really key there,” she said, noting the Noire and Coulonge rivers are situated in an important north-south corridor where species migrate.

There are also important forest ecosystems, including an old-growth cedar forest more than 300 years old.

“They have some old-growth forests and some forests that are growing toward being old-growth forests, which consumes a lot of carbon, so keeping them intact has a really high value,” she said.
Pontiac MP Sophie Chatel, a partner in this project, said the goal is to create a protected area that is ecologically valuable, but also where people can enjoy nature.

“It’s not just about protection, it’s about saving the natural beauty so that our children will be able to enjoy it, but also tourists will come and have a unique experience.”

In 2022, MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller told THE EQUITY the protected area could help boost the region’s ecotourism industry.

“Our ecotourism [ . . . ] is attracting a lot of people,” she said. “People are in search of wilderness experiences now. And 50 per cent of people are leaving cities to go to wilderness natural areas, and the Pontiac offers that. So, it’s attracting tourists, it’s attracting permanent residents.”

Naomi Kamanga of CREDDO said during their public meetings they encountered some people who were resistant to the idea of a protected area.

“People were afraid of the term ‘protected area’ because they didn’t know what activities are allowed and what activities aren’t allowed.”

LeBlanc said landowners and people who use the land for recreational purposes will still be able to continue with those activities.

“Having a protected area is connecting people with nature. In a way that means that they can still enjoy all their activities. They’re doing their fishing, hunting, even some ATV or Ski-Doo.”

She noted that the only activities that will not be allowed on the land are industrial activities, citing mining and logging as examples.

During the public meeting some people were concerned that tourism would overrun the area, similar to what has happened at Mont-Tremblant.

LeBlanc said the chances of this happening are low because the land is publicly owned.

“It’s land that’s owned by the provincial government; crown land. So there’s no private land. The government will not be selling its land to a Tim Horton’s.”

Overall, LeBlanc said the public seems excited about the project, and that she has received a lot of positive feedback.

MRC environmental coordinator Kari Richardson said the MRC has always been a supporter of the Coulonge and Noire River protected area, but that she is concerned about how the MRC is going to maintain roads in an area where no extraction or mining is allowed.

“It’s important to have areas where those activities aren’t permitted, but then if we have to maintain infrastructure we need a gravel pit to do that,” she said.

Work from CREDDO and CPAWS has largely paused, as they are waiting for the Bureau d’audience publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), the provincial agency that evaluates projects that will have impacts on the environment, to hold an information session informing the community about the project.

That’s also where CREDDO and CPAWS will have an opportunity to formally propose the expansion.
LeBlanc doesn’t know exactly when the BAPE will hold that session, but she’s hoping it’s sooner than later. She said if any mining projects begin in the areas designated for expansion, that could jeopardize the success of the project.

“Once a mine is there, it’s part of the area for a really long time, if not forever [ . . . ] That’s one of the things that could derail the project, if there’s an active mining claim.”

LeBlanc said she expects the session won’t be held until all of the projects in the Outaouais are at the same stage of the process.

Enviro groups hope to grow Noire and Coulonge protected area Read More »

Producers form abattoir co-op

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 28, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, shawville

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The group of local producers who this spring collaborated with the MRC to save the Shawville abattoir have formed the co-operative that will run the facility going forward.

The Coopérative de solidarité Agrisaveur du Pontiac, which became officially registered as a non-profit on July 30, consists of six agricultural producers from MRC Pontiac and three from MRC des Collines.
In mid-August, the group held a meeting to name its executive members by way of a vote.

Bristol beef producer William Armitage was elected president of the new co-op. The three other executive members are vice-president Kyle Kidder, secretary Roger St-Cyr and treasurer Ben Younge.

He said the members are excited at the opportunity to bring back this essential service to the Pontiac.

When he and the eight other local producers saw the abattoir go up for foreclosure in February, they saw a perfect opportunity to keep the abattoir in the area.

“As a group of local producers, when we heard about the possible closure of the local slaughterhouse in Shawville, we came together with a common goal to preserve a much needed local service,” stated a press release from the co-operative, sent to THE EQUITY on Monday.

Armitage said the return of the abattoir to the Pontiac is going to have a huge impact for local producers.

“There’s tons of great potential that the slaughterhouse has. It’s local and producers don’t have to go too far.”

The nearest abattoir in Quebec right now is in Thurso, an hour and a half away from Shawville. In addition to paying someone else to cut their beef, producers have to pay for the gas back and forth from the Thurso facility.

Roger St-Cyr, a local producer and secretary of the co-op, said the Thurso facility has a year wait time right now for appointments.

“Thurso is the only facility left in the area and they are overbooked,” he said.

Now, producers will once again have an abattoir in the Pontiac, which helps to keep costs down.

“Having the abattoir here is huge to help that bottleneck,” said Armitage.

They are confident that the abattoir will attract business from outside the MRC Pontiac, given the high demand for abattoir services.

St-Cyr also highlighted the fact that the abattoir brings jobs to the area, adding that the abattoir at one point had more than 10 employees on site.

The MRC currently owns the assets to the abattoir, which it purchased in May using provincial funding designated for its AgriSaveur food transformation project.

Now, the MRC intends for the abattoir facility to operate under the AgriSaveur umbrella. In addition to slaughtering and butchering animals, the facility will eventually also help local producers add value to their products, such as making sausage from meat or making jam from fruit.

Armitage was grateful the MRC was willing to collaborate on this project.

“We wouldn’t be able to even talk about this business without the support of the MRC,” he said.
St-Cyr was especially happy about the MRC’s involvement, given the alternative of building a new abattoir entirely.

“If we had built a new abattoir, it would make the budgeting pretty hard.”

There are several things that must be done before the abattoir can be opened. The co-op must meet with the MRC to discuss a lease, and to buy back the slaughterhouse equipment the MRC purchased in May.

According to the press release, the co-op is taking steps toward getting the proper permits to operate the facility.

“We are currently collaborating with MAPAQ in their process for permitting the Shawville facility.”

The co-op must also begin hiring staff, and according to Armitage there are some former abattoir employees who are interested in returning to work.

In addition to seats for nine producers, the co-op has a seat for one employee member and a seat for one MRC support member.

At last Wednesday’s MRC Council of Mayors meeting, director general Kim Lesage was appointed as the support person for the AgriSaveur co-op.

“I have a vote at the table, however I’m not a member that is going to be using the services,” said Lesage in conversation with THE EQUITY last week.

Lesage also said the MRC Pontiac has hired someone to take on the AgriSaveur file, and that it will announce who that person is in the coming weeks.

Armitage said the co-op wants to support the next generation of farmers, too. He and a few other members will be at the Shawville Fair this weekend to announce their decision to donate two spots at the abattoir to cut and wrap a cow and a lamb. All proceeds from those animals will go back into the 4-H club.

“We’re all producers, and at one point our passion started not just on the family farm, but through the 4-H,” he said.

“Those kids, [ . . . ] they need to know that we support them.”

Armitage isn’t sure when exactly the abattoir will be back up and running, but he said now that the co-op is registered with the province, things can start moving faster.

He said they are working tirelessly to make this happen, and that he hopes they can be open sometime in the fall.

“I’ve been working from five or six in the morning to sometimes ten or 11,” he said, between his farm work and now the abattoir work on top of it.

He said they are looking for more members to join the co-op, as well as qualified candidates to work at the abattoir. If anyone is interested, they can get in touch with him at (613) 795-5083 or armohrfarm@gmail.com.

Producers form abattoir co-op Read More »

Wrongdoing in Waltham

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 21, 2024 / LJI reporter, Sophie Kuijper Dickson, Waltham

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Investigation finds ethical and professional breaches by former DG

An investigation conducted by Quebec’s municipal commission (CMQ) has found the former director general of the Municipality of Waltham contravened the province’s municipal code in multiple ways during his near 40 years at the administrative helm of the town.

The director general in question, who has requested he not be named in this article and who was not referred to by name in the commission’s findings, began his tenure with the municipality in 1985 and resigned in February 2024, around the time the CMQ began its investigation.

The full report that came of this investigation was published, only in French, on Aug. 16 (https://tinyurl.com/4z2f3hzc).

It states the director general’s management and governance of the municipality led to an organizational and administrative failure of the municipal office, and allowed him to implement irregular practices that favoured his personal interests at the expense of the municipality’s.

His actions, the report states, were in serious breach of ethical and professional standards that are to be adhered to by municipal employees and led to an abusive use of funds of a public body.

These actions include his practice of getting mayors to sign collections of blank cheques without invoices attached; his failure to ensure employee contracts were created for people working for the municipality; his creation of a job for his wife, for which the municipality paid her an annual salary for work she did from home; and his failure to maintain a proper system of documentation of all municipal paperwork, which made it very difficult for the investigation to track any of these breaches.

The commission concludes the former director general used the municipality’s resources for personal purposes and that through his actions, he took advantage of both his status at the municipality and the council’s trust in him.

The former director general declined to be interviewed for this article but in a statement to THE EQUITY he said he disagrees “with the factual findings and the conclusions included in the report.”

“I do not intend to openly contest all of the allegations that I consider wrong and defamatory against me and my wife,” he wrote.

The investigation found that the former director general’s governance of the municipality relied entirely on the trust of the elected officials in his work, and on his word.

The report states he did not adequately inform councils over the years, the members of which did not understand their own roles and responsibilities as elected officials.

In this context, the report says, the director general was able to make decisions which the council supported without questioning.

The CMQ investigation was triggered when, in the fall of 2023, an external audit report of the municipality’s finances became known to elected officials after current mayor Odette Godin reached out to the auditor with some questions.

Mayor Godin said when she was elected in the fall of 2021, after eight years as councillor for the municipality, she learned the director general had a stack of blank cheques that had been signed by the previous mayor before he left office that were being used to make municipal payments.

She said this struck her as problematic, but at the time, she did not challenge the practice, and when the director general ran out of previously signed cheques, she signed the next batch he presented her.
“Nobody wants to rock the boat right off the bat,” Godin said. “If you asked questions, you got knocked back pretty quickly with, ‘Well that’s just the way it’s done.’”

The report details that when Godin expressed her discomfort with the practice and put an end to it, the director general pushed back, maintaining that her refusal to sign in advance would likely cause the municipality charges for late payments and that he would hold her personally responsible, if necessary.

In his statement to THE EQUITY, the former director general said the blank cheques were “always used to pay for legitimate expenses that were approved by the municipality’s council” and that “this was done only to facilitate the payment process and avoid unnecessary delays.”

But the CMQ makes clear in its report that signing blank cheques should be prohibited as it undermines a mayor’s ability to fulfill their responsibility, as outlined in the municipal act, to guarantee that public funds are used in accordance with the law.

Mayor Godin said that, at a later date, when she requested to see a list of all the municipality’s employees, she was surprised to learn the director general’s wife was on the list, something she said she had never been aware of in her eight years as councillor.

The investigation confirmed it appears the former director general’s wife received a salary from the municipality for almost 10 years, and one that was higher than some employees who had been employed by the municipality for longer periods of time.

The CMQ states its investigation could not confirm the DG’s wife was officially employed by the municipality by way of resolution, employment contract, employee file or performance evaluations, and that the issuance of municipal cheques in her name is the only existing evidence linking her to the municipality.

According to the report, the director general and his wife said she did indeed work for Waltham, entirely from home, performing duties that they described as sorting and preparing municipal mail.

The budget item to pay her for this work was listed under “urban planning” according to the report.

After several years of frustrations around what seemed to Godin to be a lack of transparency around the municipality’s governance, she reached out to an external auditor to get some answers.

“When I started discovering things, I immediately thought of the welfare of the municipality, and that is the only reason I stepped forward,” Godin told THE EQUITY.

“I knew what was going on. I promise you I tried to work with [him] just to get things back on track. Nobody else had to be involved,” Godin added, expressing her desire to resolve matters internally. She said when she raised her concerns with him, she felt as though he was patting her on the head in a dismissive way as he told her not to worry about it.

“When I questioned him, he was very passive aggressive.”

The former director general, for his part, claims he was never informed that some of the municipality’s administrative procedures were flawed.

“In all of my years of service to the municipality before the audit in Sept. 2023, I was never informed that some of our administrative procedures were flawed and/or that some changes were required,” he wrote in his statement. “If I had been informed of an irregularity, I would have made the necessary changes to make sure that everything was done correctly.”

The Sept. 2023 audit report did indeed offer evidence of flawed practices, pointing to several deficiencies and questioning the hiring of the director general’s wife.

In October 2023, he presented council with her letter of resignation, written by himself.

The CMQ investigation noted that following this resignation, the director general presented a resolution to council to increase his salary by the amount that was paid to his wife. Godin vetoed this resolution, which was not adopted, however the director general’s budget was still substantially increased in the following budget, which he prepared himself.

In Waltham’s 2023 municipal budget, available to the public on the municipality’s website, $77,403 are allotted to “urban planning and regional development.” In that same budget, the director general’s salary is listed as $49,000.

In the 2024 municipal budget, prepared in 2023, only $44,078 is allotted to the urban planning department, while the director general’s salary is listed as $79,560, an increase of $30,560 which is only $2,765 less than the difference in both years’ urban planning budgets.

“My employment conditions and those of my wife were known and approved by the members of the previous councils,” the former director general wrote in his statement to THE EQUITY. “I have never tried to hide or obtain payment for any expense that was not to the benefit of the municipality.”

Report holds previous mayors, councillors accountable

Beyond the blank cheques and the hiring of his wife, the former director general committed a list of other infractions, according to the investigation, including potential abuse of the municipality’s vacation pay system; charging home expenses to the municipality as business expenses incurred from working at home; and charging the municipality a monthly fee for rental of a computer that he purchased, and continuing to charge this fee well after the cost of the computer had been paid off.

This was all made possible, according to the report, because councillors were kept in the dark on how money was moving through the municipality, and did not properly understand their roles and responsibilities as elected officials.

The report indicates, in fact, that the auditor’s annual offer, made to the director general, to present the external audit to council was never actually shared with council, and so councillors may have never seen an external audit.

The CMQ’s investigations are damning, holding not only the director general responsible for a serious breach of ethical and professional standards, a serious case of mismanagement within a public body and misuse of public body funds, but also, indirectly, the previous mayors and municipal councillors.

“The municipal councils until today, and more particularly, the mayors in place until the November 2021 elections, have allowed these reprehensible acts to be committed,” the report states, translated from French.

The report also notes that the mayor, referring to Mayor Godin, “despite the opposition she may have encountered, behaved as she was supposed to. She fulfilled her duties of surveillance and investigation in accordance with the Act, questioned non-recommended practices and had a desire to follow up on the recommendations of the external auditor.”

Godin said after reading the report last week, she was relieved.

“Everything I suspected was proven, but I paid. I paid dearly, for bringing all this to light. I hope that people see that what I did, I did for them.”

She said she has heard people in the community ask whether the municipality will be pressing charges, but she said she doesn’t think this will be possible.

“We’re not going to be able to lay charges against [him] or recoup any money because nobody can prove how much and when it started. There’s no paper trail, the report mentioned that.”

Now, the municipality’s current director general, Annik Plante, is saddled with restoring some form of organization and proper municipal procedures to a governing body that has been operating with neither for four decades.

The CMQ recommended the municipality hire the human resources needed to support Plante in this task, and will appoint an overseer to ensure the municipality works to correct the problems identified in the report, which will be officially presented to council at its next meeting on Sept. 3.

“We will follow the recommendations from the CMQ,” Godin said.

Wrongdoing in Waltham Read More »

Jardin Éducatif celebrates 35th year giving youth a chance to flourish

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 21, 2024 / KC Jordan, Litchfield, LJI reporter

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The Jardin Éducatif du Pontiac hosted a community BBQ to celebrate its 35th anniversary on Friday night at its gardens just outside Campbell’s Bay.

The community organization, which helps youth in need by giving them a summer job on a farm, fed the hundreds of attendees a BBQ spread of hot dogs, hamburgers, and corn on the cob.

Some of the youth prepared salads with homemade vinaigrette dressings and an array of fresh vegetables picked straight from the gardens, only metres away from where the BBQ was held.

There was also music courtesy of DJ Erica Energy, a bouncy castle, and fresh vegetables for sale at the garden’s farm stall.

This year the BBQ, an end-of-summer tradition at the Jardin Éducatif, was an opportunity to recognize the founding and legacy of the organization that has become a staple in Pontiac life.

Litchfield mayor Colleen Larivière presented director Martin Riopel with a plaque celebrating the organization’s 35th anniversary at their Litchfield farm.

Riopel, who has been with the Jardin for eight years, said kids need to be given a chance, no matter their situation in life.

“All young people need help at one time or another. All young people have personal situations or familial situations. We are there to support them as much as possible,” he told THE EQUITY in French.

He said it’s important for kids to have a place to learn that is not a classroom.

“Yes, academic achievement is important, but it’s also important to have personal successes in life in general.”

After thanking some of the founders, the sponsors and the volunteers that made the BBQ possible, Riopel handed the mic over to the Jardin’s youth workers to give awards to some of the youth who this year, for the first time, were paid to work in the gardens.

Addison Williams received the leadership award, Landon St-Cyr the future entrpreneur award, Cameron Crawford the personality award, Mickaël Molnar-Belley and Gaïa Riopel the awards for best gardeners, Alex Bélair and Rylan Lévesque the awards for best cooks, and Laydon Lavigne the most improved award. Each award-winner received a small potted plant to symbolize the hard work they put in over the course of the summer.

Sylvie Landriault and Claire Taillefer, two of five founding members of the Jardin Éducatif, said they always gave the youth end-of-summer awards.

“We made trophies in the shape of tractors,” Landriault told THE EQUITY in French.

At the time, both women worked for readaptation centres for Outaouais youth in need. They saw that Pontiac kids they were working with had nothing to do in the summer, and they wanted to give them a positive activity to participate in.

Taillefer had somewhat of a green thumb, and pitched the idea of a garden.

“Gardening was a medium we could use to bring them together, and then to teach them,” she said in French, recalling her rationale at the time.

So, with $2,300 given to them by a community fund, and a piece of land gifted to them for $1 a year by a local farmer, they started the garden.

They used some of that money to hire a summer employee, and another chunk to purchase a bus, which they used to pick up the kids if they didn’t have transportation.

Taillefer found the youth took to gardening well, in part because agriculture was already part of everyday life.

“In the Pontiac, people are cultivators, so it was a medium that wouldn’t intimidate anybody,” she said.
Landriault said she figured the work was rewarding because the kids got to feel a sense of accomplishment.

“It was an activity that wasn’t expensive, and what’s more, you walk away happy because you can bring vegetables home with you as well.”

In addition to the annual end-of-summer celebration, which often featured a theatrical performance produced by the youth, the founders also took the youth on excursions, including snowshoeing and canoeing.

Taillefer said she has seen the positive impact the garden has had on youth. At least one former garden participant has progressed up the ranks to become a director of the garden, and a number of couples have also met in the program over the years.

Riopel said the work is rewarding, especially when he runs into former participants later in life and they tell him how helpful the program was to their development.

“Sometimes I’ll run into one of them at the Shawville Fair, or in Ottawa, and they’ll say ‘thank you, Martin!’ [ . . . ] I’ve got a job and a girlfriend now.”

All the proceeds from the BBQ will go toward Bouffe Pontiac.

Jardin Éducatif celebrates 35th year giving youth a chance to flourish Read More »

Mayors vote to hand over recycling to MRC

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 21, 2024 / Campbell's Bay, KC Jordan, LJI reporter

K.C. Jordan, LJI Reporter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mayors vote to hand over recycling to MRC Read More »

Calumet Island fishing derby raises money for cemetery revitalization

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 14, 2024 / Calumet Island, Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Over a hundred people spent their Saturday hoping to reel in a catch that might win them first place prize in Groupe L’Île-du-Grand-Calumet’s sixth annual fishing derby.

The fundraising tournament is a competition to see who can catch the heaviest fish in the Pontiac among three divisions for children, teenagers and adults. While the derby’s home base was on Calumet Island, it was open to entries from people fishing across the Pontiac.

The tournament began at the early hour of 7 a.m. and ran until 4 p.m.. The organizing committee stationed itself at the Calumet Island docks all day, serving barbecue hot dogs and hamburgers, and weighing participants’ catches as they came in.

As the derby was nearing its close, over a dozen boats returned from the river to enter their day’s work in the competition.

Guylaine La Salle, one of the organizers with the group, said the fishing derby is one of two fundraising events the Groupe L’Île-du-Grand-Calumet holds every year, along with their annual treasure hunt in the spring. She said the area doesn’t have many community events, and believes the derby is appreciated by the community.

The volunteer community organization has as its mission to highlight the culture, heritage and tourist attractions of Calumet Island.

“We’re pretty lucky, the weather has been very good today. We had a little bit of rain, but nothing serious,” Irène Pieschke, another member of the community group, said in a French interview with THE EQUITY.

Pieschke explained the group’s various community events, specifically the treasure hunt in June, are “about helping people discover the places we have here on the island.”

The group has also been working on a project at an old cemetery in town, which over the last 200 years, has lost some of its tombstones and grave markings. La Salle explained the group has been working on tracking down the cemetery’s lost names since 2018, and that revitalization work began last year.

The group has funded the construction of a gazebo on the grounds, and La Salle said the next step is to build plaques inside with the names of those buried in the cemetery, which means first confirming the names of those buried, which were identified through old church records.

“We really need people to come and confirm what we’ve found,” La Salle told THE EQUITY in French.

“Since 2018, we’ve discovered nearly 1,800 of our ancestors buried in this cemetery, which dates back to the early 1800s.”

According to La Salle, the fishing derby was a success, with over 70 door prizes handed out at the end of the tournament. This year’s winners were Jack Mignault in the kids’ division, Jakob Dumouchel in the teens’, and Danik Laroche in the adults’.

Calumet Island fishing derby raises money for cemetery revitalization Read More »

Community Players gear up for show about rural family life

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 14, 2024 / Bristol, KC Jordan, LJI reporter

K.C. Jordan, LJI Reporter

Bristol’s Coronation Hall played host to the Pontiac Community Players on Thursday night as they rehearsed their summer production.

The community theatre group is putting the final touches on its show, an adaptation of Toronto playwright David S. Craig’s Having Hope at Home, to be performed over three days next week.

The rehearsal went largely without a hitch, save for a few panicked calls of “Line?” from the actors.

The play is set at an old farmhouse in rural Ontario, and the plot centres around a young pregnant couple, Carolyn and Michel, who are set to welcome their new baby into the world with the help of their midwife, Dawn.

Tensions flare as Carolyn’s father Bill, an obstetrician, can’t seem to get on board with his daughter’s decision to have a home birth instead of going to the hospital.

Bill’s wife Jane and father Russell each chime in with their own two cents, while the erstwhile happy couple try to find peace amidst the familial chaos.

William Bastien and Darlene Pashak are co-directing the Pontiac Community Players’ adaptation of this story.

Bastien said the play is both heart-warming and heart-wrenching at points.

“It’s funny, but between the funny is really earnest, sensitive moments. [ . . . ] It leaves you feeling kind of nice.”

Pashak said the play’s themes will be relatable to those who live in the Pontiac.

”Farming is the heart of the Pontiac, and we have a lot of people who are professionals,” she said. “I think there could be some tensions in families between those different lifestyles.”

She said for her, each character feels familiar.

“Every person I see on stage is a composite of people I know.”

Bastien echoed that feeling. “When we were reading it, it was like, ‘I know these people’. I have friends that have been in this exact situation.”

“The grandfather in the show, some of the style, I swear to God, is picked up off the streets of Shawville. I’ve heard people say, ‘I know this man’,” he said. “It’s everyone’s grandfather in the Pontiac.”

Preparations for the show began in May, and soon after reading through the play everyone involved knew they had something special on their hands.

“On the first read-through with the cast it came to life,” Pashak said. “The line you read on paper was getting out-loud laughs on the first read.”

Both directors agreed the cast, ranging from professional actors to some who haven’t acted since elementary school, has been splendid.

“Seeing them develop their characters on stage and even their confidence has been really nice to watch. It’s been so impressive,” Bastien said.

The rehearsals haven’t been without their challenges, some of which are related to Coronation Hall’s steel roof and lack of ventilation.

“If it’s hot, this building is incredibly, incredibly hot, and if it rains, it’s hard to hear,” Bastien said.

But of the six Pontiac Community Players productions he’s been a part of, Bastien said Having Hope at Home has been the smoothest thus far.

“Last season was a little hectic. We got our rights late, we got our scripts even later, it was an incredibly rushed process,” he recalled. “This year is going so smoothly.”

He also said the actors even found new meaning in the script as they acted it out on stage, particularly between the characters of Michel, the baby’s father, and Dawn, the midwife.

In the script, only Michel is meant to be francophone, but the actor chosen to play Dawn is also from a Franco-Ontarian background, bringing new meaning to the dynamic between those characters.

“We found these two characters who would otherwise have no connection, find a little bit of camaraderie because they are both these outsider francophones.”

The Players are looking forward to inviting the public to see their production, and are especially excited to have it in Coronation Hall, a venue that Bastien said goes perfectly with the play.

“In the play they live in a sketchy little homestead, and so this building fit very well.”

He said they want to give the impression the characters are living in Coronation Hall, and that the audience is invited into their living room.

Pashak said the play was written to take place on a rhubarb farm, but the directors got permission from its author to change the setting to an apple farm, given their venue of choice.

Each attendee will receive a slice of apple pie and a sweet apple cider that they can enjoy while taking in the show.

The play will run from Aug. 21 to 24 at Coronation Hall in Bristol.

Tickets cost $25, and those who wish to purchase them can call 819-647-2547.

Community Players gear up for show about rural family life Read More »

Technicians haven’t confirmed Pontiac departure, CISSSO says

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 14, 2024 / LJI reporter, Pontiac, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Outaouais’ health and social service provider (CISSSO) has said none of the five Pontiac imaging technicians who have been offered higher paying positions in Gatineau and Papineau have confirmed with CISSSO they are in fact leaving their jobs.

“The plans are not definitive, it’s something they’re considering, but nothing is confirmed from any of the five,” the healthcare network’s Pontiac director Nicole Boucher-Larivière told THE EQUITY.

She said negotiations between their union, the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS) and the provincial government are still ongoing.

“We’re confident the discussions are going well so I’m still hoping they’re going to be able to resolve the difference,” Boucher-Larivière said, adding she believes some of the technicians are waiting on the outcome of those negotiations before they make their final decision.

“I’m not minimizing, there is a real risk. But right now we’re still at a waiting phase where we’re waiting to see what will come out of the negotiations that are still going on provincially.”

Meanwhile, Guylaine Laroche, president of the APTS’ Outaouais chapter, says the union has not heard from the government on the subject of extending full bonuses to all radiology technicians since representatives met with Quebec’s Deputy Minister of Health Richard Deschamps on July 25.

She said in that meeting, the union was clear that if hospitals in Maniwaki and Shawville are left with only one full-time imaging technician, the safety of patients in these communities would be at stake.

Laroche said the union also highlighted the fact that Pontiac radiology services help to slim waitlists in Hull and Gatineau, so a loss of technicians in this region will also affect services in the urban centres.

“We felt we had been heard, and they promised us a quick return on the matter,” Laroche told THE EQUITY in French.

She said the union was supposed to meet with the province again two weeks ago but the meeting was cancelled and the union hasn’t heard from the province on this matter since.

“We remain available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for negotiations, but for the moment, we’re waiting to hear back from the government,” Laroche said.

CISSSO considering contingency plans

Boucher-Larivière said the healthcare network is looking into how it would address various scenarios depending on how many of the six full-time technicians currently working at the hospital decide to leave.

“In the past we have been down as low as three [technicians at the hospital] and we were able to keep essential services going,” she said. “The worst outcome for the population would be having to wait a little bit longer for some imaging testing that’s not considered urgent.”

Boucher-Larivière explained that in the past, the network has addressed technician shortages by putting more of the staff members on call, rather than having them show up to regular shifts, to ensure there is always somebody available to respond to an emergency situation.

“But sometimes we have to reduce the amount of hours they’re actually at work so that would mean having to wait a little bit longer for tests that are not mandatory,” she said, adding CISSSO would also try to seek support from technicians working elsewhere in the Outaouais who could fill vacancies in the Pontiac until the hospital finds more permanent staff.

“Nobody wants to dictate anybody, because we want them to have a good quality of life, but if it comes down to essential services being at risk, sometimes we do move people around to assure safety, but that’s usually a very last resort,” she said.

Regarding finding long-term solutions to the chronic staffing shortages in the Pontiac, Boucher-Larivière said a provincial table has been put in place, the members of which will meet throughout the fall to examine how to support better working conditions in the Outaouais’ healthcare services, given the competition the region faces with Ontario.

She said at this table, CISSSO is advocating for healthcare workers in the Outaouais to receive salaries that are on par with those in Ontario.

“We want to see what the discrepancy really is, we want to get the right numbers, so that we can negotiate and maybe we can get special status for the Outaouais, so it is a top priority for us,” she said.

“So now we’re trying to get the imaging situation sorted out but the work that’s being done is going to go far beyond that.”

Technicians haven’t confirmed Pontiac departure, CISSSO says Read More »

Heavy rains wash out more roads in Pontiac municipality

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 14, 2024 / Liz Draper, LJI reporter, Luskville

Liz Draper, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac region received 36.3 millimeters of rain on Friday as the remnants of tropical storm Debby hit southern Quebec, according to data from Environment Canada.

The torrential rains wreaked havoc across this corner of the province, flooding basements, blasting apart beaver dams and drowning out the culverts and ditches designed to control the water.

While Pontiac’s share of the downpour was less than half of the 83 millimeters Environment Canada reported as having fallen across Gatineau that day, the rain still did some damage along the eastern edge of the Municipality of Pontiac.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, the municipality warned residents of several points where roads had been damaged.

The first, and hardest hit, was chemin Elm, on the section between Highway 148 and chemin Terry-Fox.
Pontiac mayor Roger Larose explained a culvert under the road had overflown and the water had washed away a good portion of the road’s edge.

“By tomorrow night I think it should be open,” he told THE EQUITY on Monday afternoon, confirming the Tuesday night reopening originally predicted by the municipality on Saturday.

Other damage included a culvert washout on the western portion of chemin Kawartha, which was repaired by Saturday evening, and some damage along chemin Crégheur in Heyworth, which was “passable with caution,” the municipality wrote in its post.

This is the second time this summer heavy rains have caused road washouts in this municipality.

In July, another downpour caused the culvert on chemin Thérien to give way completely, forcing the residents of the road to use an elaborate detour.

“The roads should hold on pretty good, but it always depends what you get. Lately we’re getting storms like crazy,” Larose said. “Our ditches and culverts, they can only take so much.”

Mayor Larose explained that after significant delays with trying to get the culvert replaced, the municipality has requested a special emergency designation from the province which he said will help expedite the process and do away with some significant administrative hurdles.

Larose said he’s hoping to open conversations with his residents and with the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais around how best to manage the water as it moves from the Gatineau hills down to the Ottawa River, as he anticipates this won’t be the last time his municipality has to deal with a sudden, and significant, load of water.

“This time I think we were right on it because it happened Friday afternoon and everybody was still [in the office],” Larose said, explaining this made it possible for his team to respond quickly. “But the citizens will have to get ready too, because this is going to happen again.”

Heavy rains wash out more roads in Pontiac municipality Read More »

Norway Bay watches former cottager Brousseau swim Olympic relay

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, Norway Bay

K.C. Jordan, LJI Reporter

Canada finishes 4th, narrowly misses medal

Wilf Brousseau’s cottage sits facing the Norway Bay pier, the place where his granddaughter Julie learned to swim.

On Thursday, clad in a red and white jersey bearing his family name and a cardboard cutout of his granddaughter’s face, he hosted family, friends, and other invited guests onto his lawn to watch Julie Brousseau compete in the Olympics for the first time.

A small group of supporters, mostly Brousseau’s close family, got up at the ripe hour of 5 a.m. to watch the swimmer, who spent her summers in Norway Bay, compete for team Canada in the qualifying rounds of the 4x200m freestyle relay, an event where each country fields a team of four swimmers, who each swim four lengths of the pool.

Don McGowan, Brousseau’s uncle-in-law and a member of the watch party, said some attendees weren’t even sure if Julie would swim for Team Canada at these Olympics. At the Olympic trials in May, she didn’t swim fast enough to qualify for any individual events, casting serious doubt on her chances. But ultimately her time was good enough to get her an invite for the relay team, a distinction many young swimmers get from the national swimming federation if they are considered promising talents who could reasonably benefit from the experience in order to be more successful in future Olympics.

As team Canada swam its qualifying rounds, 18-year-old Brousseau proved herself as one of her team’s fastest swimmers, posting Canada’s second-fastest time in the heats. Don McGowan, Brousseau’s uncle-in-law, said there was a gut feeling among the Norway Bay spectators that, should Canada qualify for the final race, Julie would be given the role of team Canada’s anchor—a position often reserved for the team’s fastest swimmer. “We said, ‘I have a feeling she’s going to make it.’”

The anchor, who swims last, must either hold down her team’s lead, or try to narrow the gap and overtake the leading swimmer, depending on the team’s position.

Sure enough, in Thursday’s final, which was broadcast outside on her grandfather’s lawn in front of a crowd of some 200 cheering fans, Brousseau had the unenviable position of trying to rescue her country from missing out on the podium. As she got ready to jump in the pool for the fourth and final leg of the race, Canada sat in fourth place, behind the United States, Australia, and China. Summer McIntosh, the 17-year-old prodigy who to date has won four medals at these Paris games, preceded Brousseau in the order. She had narrowed the margin between the Canadians and the three leading teams, but there was still work to be done. With a typical look of resolute determination on her face, Julie hopped in the pool, hoping to make up the gap and bring a medal to her country.

McGowan said ever since Brousseau was a kid learning to swim in Norway Bay, she has had a singular drive to succeed. He said outside the pool she is a normal kid, but when she gets in the pool it’s all business. “She’s such a nice kid, and she’s just a goofball, and very smart academically […] but when she gets in the pool she’s absolutely single-minded; so competitive.”

As her leg of the race went on, it became clear the American, Aussie, and Chinese swimmers were too fast, and she wasn’t able to close the gap. Canada finished fourth behind those three teams, who won gold, silver, and bronze, respectively.

At grandfather Brousseau’s cottage, everyone was cheering Julie on until the bitter end. “I think some of the family were more stressed than she was,” McGowan joked, adding that it was nice to get together to celebrate Julie even if her race didn’t result in a medal. The event raised over $900 for the Norway Bay Municipal Association, the group that organizes community events in the summer, including swimming lessons. McGowan said he and other supporters are hoping to attend the next summer games in Los Angeles, should Brousseau qualify.

Norway Bay watches former cottager Brousseau swim Olympic relay Read More »

Residents launch fundraiser for techs

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / LJI reporter, Pontiac, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Union agrees to “flying squad” technicians to relieve looming exodus

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Judith Spence is the spokesperson for Citizens of the Pontiac, a group of residents who on Friday launched a campaign to raise money to entice Pontiac’s medical imaging technicians to continue working in this region for another year rather than taking higher paying positions elsewhere.

A local activism group is hoping to raise $30,000 as soon as possible to pay Pontiac’s six full-time medical imaging technicians to stay in their jobs for another year instead of leaving for higher paying positions elsewhere. Citizens of the Pontiac has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $5,000 for each technician – an amount that would more than equalize the discrepancy between the $22,000 bonus the Quebec government offered to technician positions in Hull, Gatineau and Papineau, and the $18,000 bonus it offered to those in Maniwaki, Wakefield and Pontiac.

The group’s hope is that this additional $5,000 would be enough to convince five of the technicians who, according to their union (APTS), are on track to leave their positions in the Pontiac by Sept. 9, to stay in these positions for another year. “I’ve heard that five out of six are going. That’s going to shut the hospital down. That’s going to turn into a doctor’s office or a CLSC, and that’s basically not the function of a hospital,” said Citizens of the Pontiac spokesperson Judith Spence, explaining the drive behind the fundraiser. “We don’t want to lose people for four grand a piece.”

Spence and three other members – Myles Jones, Amanda Brewster, and Nikki Buechler – have formed what she calls a steering committee responsible for organizing the fundraiser and ensuring the money is managed according to group policies. “You don’t get a lump sum ahead of time,” Spence said, explaining how the money would be distributed to the technicians if the desired sum is raised. “You work, and every month you get a stipend.”

Spence said if the province does decide to pay Pontiac technicians the $22,000, the money raised will be returned to the donors, with the exception of the small percentage claimed by GoFundMe. “We’ve always had to fight for basics,” she said, emphasizing this campaign is in no way political. “This is just, ‘You’re my neighbour and I don’t want you to go.’”

Spence has spent many years in community organizing and activism. She worked as a representative for her nurses union, as well as the president of the Environmental Illness Society of Canada, which lobbied the federal government to recognize multiple chemical sensitivity, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome. “Government people do pay attention when people are sharing their voice and getting attention,” Spence said. “They will pay attention. Will they change? I believe they will.”

By the time this newspaper went to print, the campaign had raised $2,150. Those wishing to contribute can search ‘Keep our Radiology Technicians here with us in Shawville!’ in Google to find the campaign page.

Union agrees to ‘flying squad’ technicians

On Thursday, APTS signed a new agreement with the government that will enable its technicians to join the province’s recently created ‘flying squad’ of healthcare workers who can be deployed to regions in need across the province to offer immediate relief of staffing shortages. THE EQUITY was unable to reach a union representative for comment on the most recent development before publication deadline, but based on a French press release, it appears union members will receive a lump-sum payment of $100 per working day if they volunteer to work in regions other than their own.

This appears to be the latest in the union’s agreements with the Quebec government intended to address the shortage of technicians across the Outaouais healthcare network. This spring the union agreed for the Quebec government to offer $22,000 bonuses to imaging technician positions in Papineau, Hull, and Gatineau hospitals in an attempt to keep technicians employed there from moving to higher-paying jobs in Ontario. The union later agreed for those working in Maniwaki, Wakefield, and Pontiac hospitals, originally excluded from these bonuses, to be offered $18,000 bonuses, in an effort to incentivize them to stay in their positions rather than seeking the higher bonuses in urban hospitals.

But last month, APTS said five of the six full-time technicians working in both the hospital in Shawville and the CLSC in Mansfield were still planning to leave their positions even though they had been offered bonuses. The union said last week it is continuing to pressure the province to extend the higher bonuses to all technicians, but this has not happened yet.

Not first community fundraiser for imaging services

Josey Bouchard, founder of local healthcare advocacy group Pontiac Voice, said she is frustrated the government’s management of the staffing shortage has pushed some in the Pontiac community to try to raise the bonus shortfall themselves. “I find it amazing that they’re doing it, and appalling that they have to do that,” Bouchard said. “I hope it relates to them that the community wants their services close by […] It’s appalling that we have to go to this extreme, for the government to wake up.”

She noted this isn’t the first time residents of the region have organized themselves to raise money to support local radiology services, pointing to the $800,000 the community raised in the late ’90s to purchase the hospital’s first CT scan. At the time, Dr. Thomas O’Neill was president of the Pontiac Hospital Foundation, which was spearheading a plan to attract doctors to the region, and so he was very involved in the fundraising efforts. “So we identified [purchasing a CT scan] as something that would be necessary to attract and keep doctors in the area,” Dr. O’Neill said. “The initial goal was to raise $700,000 which we did in a remarkable period of two and a half years, and that was from one of the poorest communities in Quebec.”

He said while he saw that fundraising effort as, at its core, a community proving it was committed enough to its healthcare to raise the needed money, he sees the current fundraising effort underway in a slightly different light. “When you’re looking at this GoFundMe, I really appreciate the people that are doing this, it’s coming from their heart […], but the problem is the real attention needs to be focused on the political aspect because it’s unfair,” Dr. O’Neill said. “It’s the country areas that produce the food, produce the hydro, produce everything. They should, at least, be entitled to basic medical care.”

Dr. O’Neill, who now works as a family doctor at the Lotus Clinic, has spent many decades working at the Pontiac Hospital, as chief of anesthesia and of the department of general medicine, as a doctor in the emergency room, and delivering babies in the now-dissolved obstetrics unit. He said losing five of six technicians – those responsible for running the machines that produce images interpreted by radiologists – would effectively mean the gradual death of the most services offered at the hospital.

“If you lose your technicians, and the surgeons can’t do their jobs, and you can’t run the ICU, you get a cascading effect of the deterioration of the institution,” he said. “You cannot run this hospital at the moment unless you have the diagnostic tools to do it. Part of those tools are having x-ray technicians who will actually run the equipment.”

Residents launch fundraiser for techs Read More »

Chapeau celebrates opening of new farmers market building

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / Chapeau, Leiya Fischer, LJI reporter

Leiya Fischer, LJI Reporter

The Chapeau Agricultural Society hosted the official opening of its new farmers market building on Thursday afternoon with live music, refreshments, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by society members and mayors of the upper Pontiac region.

“This sort of solidifies the agricultural society to still be operating and supporting the agriculture that we have around here,” said Gene O’Brien, president of the agricultural society, noting the society was founded in 1879.

The building has been hosting market vendors three days a week since early June, but Thursday’s event offered an opportunity for the community and all those involved in bringing the building to life to celebrate the accomplishment together. “We’re seeing so many people who live on the island that I didn’t even know live here. It’s really being well supported,” O’Brien said, describing the success of the market building so far. “One thing we’ve learned is people do want to support local, they do want to buy local.”

She said the project broke ground last August, and a year later, the building is up and running, hosting a bustling market and showcasing local producers. Various items and agricultural products were being sold by vendors from many places, such as jewelry, lemonade, tomatoes, ice cream, plants, and so much more.

The market building will be open every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, even during the winter, when the community will be able to use it as a place to warm up. The construction of the building was made possible thanks to federal and provincial grants, as well as funding from Desjardins bank. MRC Pontiac awarded a provincial revitalization grant (FRR2) to the project.

“It really is a project that brings the community together, it supports local producers, and it’s a venue for the community itself,” said Shanna Armstrong, economic development officer for agriculture at the MRC. “This gives [producers] a space that they can market year-round. It also becomes a central focal point that you can draw people to. Tons of people are coming from Pembroke and Petawawa to the market now.”

At 3 p.m. everyone gathered around for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and for some speeches by the people who helped make this farmers market come to life.

“It provides a space for community engagement, acting like a social hub where like-minded people can network and foster a sense of belonging,” said Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence, also noting the economic and educational value this new building brings to the community. “In short, this farmers market is a vital addition to building a vibrant, resilient, and interconnected community,” Spence concluded.

For more on the vision for this new farmers market building, see our story “Chapeau market building opens ahead of schedule,” published June 18.

Chapeau celebrates opening of new farmers market building Read More »

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

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / Alleyn and Cawood, KC Jordan, LJI reporter

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FilloGreen wins MRC garbage contract

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, MRC Pontiac

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

The MRC Pontiac and representatives of the company FilloGreen met two weeks ago to officially sign a new household waste collection contract for all MRC municipalities.

The contract, which was awarded to the company at last month’s MRC Pontiac council meeting, will begin on Aug. 19 and will last for three years.

FilloGreen, which operates a site at the Pontiac Industrial Park in Litchfield, “focuses on sorting, processing, recycling and enhancing dry construction, renovation and demolition (CRD) materials,” according to its website.

The company won the contract over the incumbent McGrimmon Cartage, located just outside Shawville, which was the only other bidder.

Nina Digioacchino, an environmental coordinator at the MRC who works on waste management, said FilloGreen won the bid by accruing the most points on an evaluation chart with scoring categories including experience, knowledge of the territory, as well as cost.

“They had the best overall score between the two proposals that we received,” she said.

She said the MRC is still working out details, but it wants garbage collection to look the same for Pontiac residents when the contract switches over.

“The goal is to have everything as-is,” she said, adding that collection days should remain the same.

Under the new contract, certain municipalities that currently collect their own waste and bring it to the McGrimmon transfer site will now transport loads to FilloGreen’s transfer site in Litchfield.

Shawville mayor Bill McCleary said the town has spent $130,000 on a compactor truck for this purpose.

“We’ll be able to put the whole town’s garbage in the compactor truck in one shot, truck it to Litchfield, and dump it there,” he said, adding that the town used to take its garbage to McGrimmon in a truck, a task that took four or five trips to complete.

He said this new arrangement could be financially beneficial for his town, as FilloGreen is offering a 20 per cent discount for municipalities who truck their own waste to the Litchfield site.

“We feel there will be a cost savings,” he said.

FilloGreen has previously pitched its Litchfield site as a potential landfill location for the Pontiac’s household waste, promoting this idea through ads in various local media outlets.

In an ad campaign from November, the company touted this option as one that would save money the MRC spends to transport the county’s garbage to the landfill in Lachute.

The ad also said a Litchfield landfill would create jobs and support the local economy.

THE EQUITY requested an interview with FilloGreen several times to better understand the company’s intentions for its Litchfield site, but no interview was granted before the publication deadline.

“We feel there will be a cost savings,” he said.

FilloGreen has previously pitched its Litchfield site as a potential landfill location for the Pontiac’s household waste, promoting this idea through ads in various local media.

In an ad campaign from November, the company touted this option as one that would save money the MRC spends to transport the county’s garbage to the landfill in Lachute.

The ad also said a Litchfield landfill would create jobs and support the local economy.

THE EQUITY requested an interview with FilloGreen several times to better understand the company’s intentions for its Litchfield site, but no interview was granted before the publication deadline.

The company has not received an approval from Quebec’s environment ministry to operate a household waste landfill at this site.

MRC Pontiac’s director general Kim Lesage said the MRC was aware of the company’s ambition to open such a landfill in Litchfield, but did not consider it when making a final decision about the waste collection contract because the company doesn’t have the necessary approvals.

“We are aware that is an idea that they have, but it is completely separate from this contract for transferring the garbage to Lachute,” Lesage said.

The agreement between FilloGreen and the MRC stipulates the company will continue to transport the MRC Pontiac’s household waste to the Lachute facility, like McGrimmon is currently doing.

But according to section 5.3.2 of the call for tenders released by the MRC, the disposal facility can change “if another facility offers a better price for transportation and disposal than the one currently agreed upon.”

Any new facility would have to be approved by the MRC and would have to meet several criteria, including “no negative implications, no negative monetary consequence and no negative impact of any nature for the MRC or its constituent municipalities.”

THE EQUITY asked Digioacchino if the MRC would be open to a household waste landfill opening on the Litchfield site if it received an approval.

“I’m not going to speculate on that at this point in time,” she said. “Right now everything is going to Lachute and it’s staying with Lachute.”

Digioacchino said she is confident Lachute will remain the disposal facility for the duration of the contract.

“As far as we are concerned, it could take a very long time for the [government] to approve a facility.”

“It will be Lachute until the end of the game because you can’t just flip it around and get a certificate of authorization . . . It’s a very long process.”

After the three-year contract is up, the MRC Council of Mayors will have the option to extend the contract for another two years.

FilloGreen wins MRC garbage contract Read More »

Union confirms imaging techs still plan to leave Pontiac Hospital

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / CISSSO, LJI reporter, shawville, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

The union representing medical imaging technicians in the Outaouais has said five of the six full-time technicians currently serving the Pontiac have been offered higher-paying positions elsewhere and plan to leave their current jobs in the Pontiac by Sept. 9.

These technicians applied for positions in Hull, Gatineau and Papineau hospitals when, this spring, the Quebec government offered $22,000 bonuses to positions in those hospitals in an attempt to keep technicians employed there from moving to higher-paying jobs in Ontario.

After the technicians’ union (APTS), local politicians and healthcare advocacy groups all sounded the alarm that these bonus incentives would only draw technicians away from hospitals in Maniwaki, Wakefield and Pontiac to higher paying positions closer to Ottawa, the government offered $18,000 bonuses to technicians in those three rural hospitals.

Technicians in Wakefield and Pontiac were the last to get these bonuses, and the union is now saying they may have come too late.
Christine Prégent, Outaouais representative for APTS, said the government needs to offer equal bonuses across the region, or technicians will follow through on their plans to leave the Pontiac.

“One is going to Papineau, one to Gatineau, and the other three to Hull,” Prégent said in French, noting that for some, even the temporary $22,000 bonuses are not incentive enough to stay in Quebec.

“There are two in these five who are in the process of applying to jobs in Ontario as well, and could in fact quit CISSSO altogether.”

She said on Thursday members of the union met with the province’s Deputy Minister of Health Richard Deschamps for the better part of an hour and reiterated the same concerns they have been highlighting for months – that offering lesser bonus amounts to rural hospitals will lead to an exodus of technicians from those hospitals.

“For us it’s necessary the government finds a solution to keep the technicians in place,” she said.

Prégent emphasized that not only have the bonuses offered to Pontiac staff failed to retain them, but the $4,000 discrepancy will make it difficult for the hospital to recruit new technicians to the five soon-to-be-vacant positions.

By the APTS’s numbers, there are currently eight vacant positions at the Gatineau hospital, two of which will be filled by Sept. 9, and 14 empty jobs at the Hull hospital, four of which will also be filled by Sept. 9. In Papineau, there are 5 vacant positions, one of which will also be filled in September.

This leaves 20 empty positions that come with a $22,000 bonus that will still need to be filled after Pontiac loses five of its technicians.

“There are still job openings in Hull and Gatineau and Papineau,” Prégent said. “So why would I go give my CV to Wakefield, Shawville or Maniwaki, if I can go get a job in Hull and get a higher bonus?”

Pontiac MNA André Fortin said while equalizing the bonuses is a necessary immediate fix, it will do nothing to address the root cause of the staffing crisis across the Outaouais healthcare sector.

“They have to come to an understanding that if you want to keep healthcare workers from the Outaouais in Quebec, you have to pay them a similar amount to what Ontario pays them now,” he said.

THE EQUITY reached out to CISSSO to learn what the regional healthcare network is doing to prepare for the scenario where Pontiac loses these five technicians in just over a month.

“With regard to the situation of technologists, we are still in solution mode to address possible movements of technologists in partnership with ministerial authorities via the committee responsible for monitoring the implementation of bonuses,” a spokesperson for the network wrote in an email.

“The CISSS de l’Outaouais is addressing this situation as a matter of priority in order to provide care and services to the entire region’s population.”
Fortin said he is in regular contact with Quebec’s treasury board president Sonia LeBel to urge immediate equalization of bonuses.

“In my mind, a month is not the leeway the government has here. By a month from now, these workers will have rearranged their lives and schedules around a new job in a city, so the timeline for the government to change its decision [ . . . ] is actually much shorter than that,” Fortin said.

“You cannot go ahead with the basic services usually offered in a hospital with a single imagery tech, so if it comes to bear, this would cripple the functioning of our rural hospitals in the Pontiac and across the Outaouais.”

Union confirms imaging techs still plan to leave Pontiac Hospital Read More »

Touring bus to offer Pontiac’s unhoused a place to shower, get help

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, Pontiac

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

A new social services bus is teaming up with a local Pontiac organization to offer essential services to people experiencing homelessness in the area.
The new “Réhabus” bus started roaming the streets last week with plans to travel across the Outaouais over the coming months, making stops in a handful of the region’s urban and rural communities.
In the Pontiac, the team offering the bus service will work with AutonHomme Pontiac, a non-profit in Campbell’s Bay that provides assistance to residents experiencing homelessness and other issues.
The bus is equipped with showers and washing machine and dryer, amenities people will be able to use for the duration of time the bus is parked in their community.
Jeffrey Lévesque, who works for Réhabex, the Gatineau-based social rehabilitation agency that owns and operates the bus, said the organization bought it to help people in situations of need.
“We bought it to help people who are living in homelessness or even just precarious situations.”
Lévesque said the bus also has desk spaces where counselors will be available to give people a hand finding a job, or even finding housing.
Pierre-Alain Jones, the director of AutonHomme, said this is where his organization comes in.
“We will help people find a place to stay,” he told THE EQUITY in French.
“We offer a shelter in Campbell’s Bay, we rent rooms at the motel in Shawville [ . . . ] and on occasion we rent rooms at a motel in Mansfield.”
In November, people living in AutonHomme temporary residences at the the Shawville were evicted due to a flea infestation.

Jones said that problem has been fixed, and that they are able to offer rooms to their clients in that motel once again.
“We have people right now on the territory who are homeless
[ . . . ] another service like this is going to help for sure,” Jones said, noting the Pontiac can be forgotten when it comes to social service delivery, so it’s nice to have a service from Gatineau reach out and provide help to the people of this region.
Lévesque said his organization’s goal is to help as many people as it can across the Outaouais.
When the idea for the bus was hatched, homeless people at the Robert-Guertin encampment in Gatineau weren’t getting the basic services they needed and deserved.
“The director, Patrick Pilon, found it unacceptable that there was no short-term solution for these people,” he told THE EQUITY in French.
“We realized there were many people who were not able to get to where the services were being offered, so with the Réhabus we said we could travel to them to give them an opportunity to use those services.”
Jones said AutonHomme is still in talks with Réhabex to figure out when, and how often, the bus will come to the Pontiac.
He said they hope the bus can park out front of their building on rue Front in Campbell’s Bay, or in the parking lot across the street.

Touring bus to offer Pontiac’s unhoused a place to shower, get help Read More »

Mansfield horse owner urges action on vet shortage

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter, Mansfield

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Little Haven Farm in Mansfield is indeed a little haven to a wide range of animals, including alpacas, llamas, guinea hens, goats, chickens, and mini sheep, as well as miniature horses and donkeys, and regular-sized donkeys.
But Garrett Vekeryasz, one of the farm’s owners, says the lack of equestrian veterinarians in the region is making it difficult for him to provide his horses and donkeys with the care they need, and this month he organized a meeting with Pontiac MNA André Fortin to try and find some solutions.
Vekeryasz explained six of his animals – three miniature horses and three donkeys – don’t have access to veterinary care and that he can’t afford the significant costs of individually transporting these animals to see a veterinarian in Ontario.
“We often get calls and requests for adoption and rescues and things like this from varying situations, and we usually turn them away because we have no access to a vet,” Vekeryasz said.
“This past fall, we took a chance, and we rescued a horse, and because we weren’t able to access any vet care, she died within two months of us having her.”
Vekeryasz, like many horse owners in the Pontiac, is frustrated with what has remained a fairly dire shortage of equestrian vets in the region.
He purchased the farm with his partner back in 2019, and began hosting animals in 2020.
“We went into acquiring our animals and getting our animals with the expectation that there was a vet here, and then because of legalities and politics the vets left,” said Vekeryasz, also a teacher at l’École secondaire Sieur de Coulonge. “It’s been very stressful.”
Carole Savard is the secretary for the Pontiac Equestrian Association and owns a horse in Quyon.
“We’ve had a shortage for years in the Pontiac. And north of here, it’s worse,” she wrote to THE EQUITY .
Savard explained the equestrian community was left with no equine veterinary care in the region when Dr. Andrea Kelly passed away in the summer of 2022.
Dr. Kelly was a Kemptville-based veterinarian who was also licensed to practice in Quebec. She owned the Ottawa Valley Large Animal Clinic and served close to 600 clients in the Pontiac and Ottawa surrounding area.
Around the same time, Dr. Melissa Jowett, a part-time vet also serving the Pontiac area, lost her license to practice in Quebec because she was unable to pass a provincial French language test.
A petition circulated at the time to reinstate the license collected more than 3,000 signatures within its first week. It now has more than 13,000 signatures.
After the loss of the two last veterinarians in the region, the Pontiac Equestrian Association called on Dr. Yves Bouvier, an equine veterinarian from L’Ange-Gardien, for help.
According to Savard, Dr. Bouvier was meant to retire four years ago, but returned in 2023 to provide vaccinations for former clients through events organized by the association.
Savard explained that since then, the association has organized group vaccination events with the help of vets from Navan.
But Vekeryasz said his animals haven’t been able to benefit from the services such as these, organized by the Pontiac Equestrian Association, as most Ontario veterinarians only serve the east side of the Pontiac close to Aylmer and Quyon.
He also noted he believes the temporary licenses which are currently allowing Navan vets to practice in the Pontiac are set to expire next year.
It’s for this reason Vekeryasz is hoping virtual vet meetings will become available in the future, something he discussed in his meeting with Fortin, who is also the official opposition’s critic for agriculture.
Vekeryasz explained that through online vet services, veterinarians could diagnose the animal over a Zoom call. Although Vekeryasz admitted the solution would not solve all problems, he explained having access to a veterinarian, even through Zoom, would bring him peace of mind.
“It’s just having that reassurance that if there is an emergency, I have someone that I can contact, and they’re going to be there, they’re going to maybe know the profile of my animal already, to be able to guide me a little bit better,” Vekeryasz said.
Fortin has recognized the problem and stressed the need for government action. In an email to THE EQUITY written in French, Fortin explained the lack of veterinarians, especially for farm animals, is a real problem for the region, and leaves farmers to face difficult situations and impossible decisions.
He said he has been pushing for measures to attract more vets to rural areas and make the profession more appealing to veterinary students, and plans to propose several solutions when the Quebec National Assembly discusses a new animal welfare bill in the fall.
“Upon the return to the Chamber in September, the deputies will study a bill on animal welfare,” Fortin wrote in French. “As the spokesperson for the Quebec Liberal Party on agriculture, I will take the opportunity to propose various solutions to the minister related to the shortage of veterinarians, including measures to improve access that are already in effect in other province.”
The animal welfare bill, which came into effect in February this year, establishes new standards of care for domestic animals in Quebec and affords them rights laid out by the National Farm Animal Care Council.
Vekeryasz said he hopes the discussion of this bill in the National Assembly in the fall will offer a new opportunity to hold the province accountable to ensure farmers in every region have access to the veterinary care they need.
“Hopefully we can write into that bill that, in some fashion, that the government must provide every region access to veterinary care, either through virtual or physical means,” he said. “That’s going to be one of my main pushes for that bill.”

Mansfield horse owner urges action on vet shortage Read More »

Jardin éducatif pilot project hires youth to work on their mental health

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / LJI reporter, Pontiac, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Ethan Paulin is a huge fan of Taylor Swift. At 14 years old, he loves all music, but Taylor Swift, at this moment, is his everything.
“I’ve liked her for most of my life, but only became a big fan in 2022,” Paulin explained. “Her songs are really good, and a lot of them are really poetic. And I just also love her voice.”
He loves her so much, in fact, that he’s working a full-time summer job at the Jardin éducatif du Pontiac to save the money he needs to buy a ticket to the last show on her Eras tour, scheduled for Vancouver this December.
Paulin loves to sing, and write songs, often sad songs.
“I find it’s a fun way to get sadness out. I wake up in the middle of the night and I have an idea, and I just write.”
But it’s not often he shares his songs in public. He said his mental health sometimes prevents him from sharing his creations, and pursuing his passion for singing.
“It’s not good, but I’m getting better at controlling it,” he said. “It’s not going away, that’s for sure. But I can help myself control it.”
Part of this work overcoming his mental health challenges involves intentionally putting himself in situations that make him uncomfortable.
This spring Paulin played a central role in Pontiac High School’s rendition of In the Heights, and even performed a solo on stage. He also took a job at Quyon’s Clarendon Café on weekends, which forces him to interact with people he doesn’t know.
But the latest in these personal challenges is signing up to spend five days a week, all summer long, learning to grow vegetables with a group of teenagers he has never met.
Weeding? “It’s horrible,” he says. Socializing with strangers? He’s not a fan of that either. But he’s warming up to both.
This summer he is one of 23 Pontiac youth who have decided to tackle their mental health challenges head on through Jardin éducatif’s first youth summer job program.
Jardin éducatif du Pontiac is a non-profit organization in Campbell’s Bay that runs vegetable farming programs for at-risk youth as a way to teach them critical life skills.
For many years it ran summer camps for youth that had been referred to the organization by social service workers.
“This year we did it a bit different. We decided to give minimum wage to all youth that come,” explained Martin Riopel, the organization’s director general. “Why we have decided to try this pilot project is because we have seen that a lot of the youth that have been referred by social services, they don’t want to be here.”
Hiring the youth as summer employees, rather than simply accepting them on the basis of referral, offered new possibilities for engaging youth in the programming.
“The idea behind the kids applying is to put the responsibility in the hands of the youth,” Riopel said. “We wanted the youth to try the process of getting a job.”
About half of the youth hired this year were still referred by a social worker, but the difference is that in order to be accepted into the program, they had to express their desire to participate.
“They need to have a personal goal, so something they can work on individually, something that could help them as a human,” explained Mélissa Langevin, head gardener and youth worker with the organization. “So that was the first thing we were asking for [when hiring], because if the goal of being here was just money, well then that’s not a good fit for us.”
In this pilot year of the summer job program, Jardin éducatif received 50 applications from youth across the Pontiac. After interviewing every single applicant, the team hired 23 youth, seven more than they had originally planned for.
“Still it was really hard, because if we could we would hire them all,” Langevin said.
The youth spend four days a week in the garden, doing everything from planting and weeding to, starting this week, harvesting the produce they’ve grown to sell at market stalls.
On Tuesdays, they can be found in Fort Coulonge at the corner of rue Baume and rue Principale, on Thursdays outside the CHSLD at the Shawville hospital, and both days at the kiosk at the garden in Campbell’s Bay.
Each of the youth chosen for the program have identified something personal they are hoping to work on over the course of their employment. For some, it’s social anxiety. For others, it’s an eating disorder, or self-harm.
Over the course of the summer job, they will participate in a wide variety of programming designed to support them and help them achieve these personal goals.
This includes skills-building workshops from service providers across the Pontiac, including cooking workshops that teach them to transform the vegetables they are growing into full meals, as well as workshops that offer guidance on everything from building healthy relationships to budgeting to addictions prevention.
On top of all this, Jardin éducatif youth workers meet one-on-one with each youth consistently throughout the summer to check in on how they’re doing, both in the program and at home.
“We have a lot of kids having different kinds of issues that they need to work on,” Langevin said.
Last Wednesday morning, before the heavy rains began, the young gardeners were out in the field, sitting in the dirt, weeding the beds of vegetables.
Fifteen-year-old Campbell’s Bay resident Cameron Crawford had his ear phones in as he plucked weeds from a patch of cucumbers.
“It’s not too hard, it’s not too easy, it’s kind of perfect for what I was looking for,” he said. “Normally we do a lot of weeding throughout the week. Sometimes I help cut the grass, and whipper snip and all that.”
Crawford, who has been working on a dairy farm for three years, said he applied for the job because he wanted to improve on his work ethic.
“I feel I’m getting more used to getting up and getting to work at the time that I’m supposed to,” he said. “And I’m more active during the day rather than sitting at a desk. It’s a lot better.”
A few rows away, Teagan Dutson and Kyanna Beauchamp were working together to tackle the weeds in another bed.
Both Dutson and Beauchamp grew up in Quyon, but Dutson attended the English elementary school, while Beauchamp attended the French one, and so the two never crossed paths.
They’ve found, however, that they have a lot in common when it comes to their respective mental health challenges.
“Here, you get to talk to people, and the person I talk to, she really understands me and what I’m going through,” Dutson said. “It’s really calming.”
“It’s really calming and people here don’t judge,” Beauchamp agreed. “My therapist at school told me to apply here because it would help me, and it really does help.”
Beauchamp said a big thing she thinks she’ll take away from her time at Jardin éducatif is the experience of getting support after asking for it.
“I asked for help and I got it. I’m not alone in this,” she said. “I was always scared to ask for help. I thought I would get rejected or laughed at. So I won’t be scared another time if I need to.”
Once it started to rain, the group migrated from the garden to the covered picnic tables. Alex Belair, Kaydan Lévesque and his brother Rylan gathered around some snacks at one table.
Like Paulin, both Belair and Lévesque applied for the job with the ambition to work on their social skills.
“I wanted to get better at talking to people, while also getting my hands dirty and getting out of the house,” Belair said.
No matter what the youth want to work on, the staff at the garden are there to help them, even when they might not realize they need it.
Eden Beimers is one of these staff members.
“When I see a kid a little bit off, oftentimes I’ll pull them away and have a chat. Because sometimes that’s what they want, but they don’t know how to ask for it. As a kid, I didn’t know how to ask to talk to somebody.”
She said, laughing, that the youth have often accused her of being too nosey. But she makes it clear they can tell her they don’t want to talk if they’re not interested. This, she finds, rarely happens.
“I always wanted to become the person I needed when I was a kid,” Beimers said. “I needed somebody who was easy to talk to and understood I wasn’t going to be good one hundred per cent of the time, and understood that when I do screw up, it doesn’t define who I am.”
Now 22, she’s found a job that allows her to be the support for others that she needed as a teenager.
“There are a lot of things that some people think are taboo to talk about, but the more I’m in this position, the more I’m realizing how many kids confide the same thing in me, and how many people are similar.”
The funding used to finance this pilot project is not guaranteed to be renewed in years to come, but the Jardin éducatif team is determined to find ways to continue to motivate youth to work at the garden.
“It’s the beginning of something because we would like to have a full program all year long with gardening, cooking, and selling the veggies,” Langevin said, explaining that the vision is that this could be run through the schools, and that youth could get credit for it.
“It will probably be a smaller group in the next years, but we want to try to continue this kind of thing, because we think it could be a good program for the kids who really don’t like school.”

Jardin éducatif pilot project hires youth to work on their mental health Read More »

Heavy rains wash out roads in Luskville

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, Luskville

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

Two roads in Luskville were washed out as a result of Monday afternoon’s thunderstorm, causing disruptions to local residents.
One wash-out occurred on rue Thérien, just north of Highway 148; the other on chemin Parker, on the south side of the 148 almost directly across the road.
Mario Allen, director general of the Municipality of Pontiac, said the water level in the stream flowing underneath rue Thérien got too high, overwhelming the culvert that runs underneath and taking out the road completely.
“The culvert wouldn’t take it, and now the road is gone.” he said.
Allen said this isn’t the first time this road has been washed out, noting that in 2017 a heavy rainfall took out parts of Highway 148 and some of its adjoining roads, including rue Thérien.
He said the stream’s water level normally runs pretty high in the spring months due to runoff from the mountains, but the level is not normally so high so late in the season.
Workers from the municipality responded to the scene on Tuesday, creating large sand hills to prevent people from trying to travel on the road.
Residents of rue Thérien ordinarily don’t have an alternative exit, but the municipality created a makeshift detour onto the property of Nugent Construction so that residents could enter and leave.
“Council met those people last Friday and they are all aware of the situation,” Allen said.
He noted the municipality already had plans for an eventual detour through Nugent Construction’s property because the culvert had already been slated for work.
“We were expecting to do the work probably this fall to change the culvert, and in order to change the culvert, well, people will need a detour.”

He said they were able to provide an alternative solution for residents of rue Thérien much faster thanks to these already-existing detour plans.
He said the municipality needs to contact the provincial environment ministry before any work can be done to repair the culvert and the road.
“Approval must be obtained from the Quebec government first,” he said, adding at that point they “will go for tenders and then will proceed.”
He said he is not sure how long the process will take, but said it could be until the fall before they are able to get approvals for the work.
The other wash-out happened on chemin Parker, on the opposite side of Highway 148 from rue Thérien.
“When the water went over the road it created erosion, and the next morning we went in and fixed the erosion,” Allen said.
No detour was needed because the residents of the four houses on Parker were able to use the chemin Mckibbon to get in and out.
Municipal workers fixed the road, and people were able to drive on it by Wednesday morning.
Road wash-outs have been a problem this year not only in Luskville, but in the MRC Pontiac.
Heavy rains this spring and summer have caused seven wash-outs on a single road, Jim’s Lake Rd, which runs from Mansfield all the way up to Jim Lake.
MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller said these washouts are impacting residents as well as some businesses, including Bryson Lake Lodge, some of whose cottages are currently inaccessible due to the washouts.
She said the MRC is working toward finding solutions for these washouts, which are located far apart from each other and will require separate solutions.
For the moment, she says the alternative routes that exist are either costly or cumbersome.
“It’s possible for them to take some of these people by water, but it’s at a cost to them.”
“There are some other roads that can be used in the meantime, but they are very rough and
[ . . . ] not well-maintained. They are more suited for ATVs.”
Toller will be in talks with various government entities as she tries to secure funding for these projects.
“Sometimes things occur that are unexpected and are climate-related. We will do everything possible to try to remedy the situation.”

Heavy rains wash out roads in Luskville Read More »

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

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / Campbell's Bay, KC Jordan, LJI reporter

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

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

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

MRC Pontiac to centralize recycling collection

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / August 6, 2024 / Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter, MRC Pontiac

Guillaume LaFlamme, LJI Reporter

The MRC Pontiac is putting in place a new recycling plan in an effort to streamline the process and make collection across the county more efficient. The initiative has come from the Quebec Government, which in 2022 mandated not-for-profit Éco Entreprises Québec (EEQ) to modernize curbside recycling across the province. Through an agreement with EEQ, the MRC aims to centralize recycling contracts and processes for all municipalities within the MRC. THE EQUITY spoke with Kari Richardson, environmental coordinator for the MRC, to gain a deeper understanding of this plan and its benefits. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What is the MRC’s new plan for recycling?
A: It’s going to be a way to centralize recycling. Right now, our local municipalities are in charge of finding their own recycling contracts. They sign a one-year contract or three-year contract, or however it works out with the company that they’re working with, to either come and pick up their recycling at their municipal site, or do door-to-door collection, or however they deem feasible for their municipality. Depending who the municipality is signed with, it could go to various recycling facilities. What’s going to happen now is the MRC is going to go to tender for the whole of the MRC for all of the municipalities, and then all of our recycling is going to go to the same place, which is Tricentris in Gatineau. So now it’s all going to go to the same facility. That’s why the MRC is doing the one call for tender for all the municipalities and it’ll be the same cost as well for all the municipalities.

Q: How will the recycling be collected?
A: Most of our municipalities who do this door-to-door are doing it in-house, so it’s their municipal workers that do it. […] What happens is the municipalities are going to get refunded for anything related to recycling costs. So their door-to-door collection, their activity fees for the tonnage, that will all get reimbursed. So it’s just going to funnel through the MRC. […] They’ll be able to maybe have a more collective situation where [recycling] can be collected somewhere first. We don’t know how that’s going to look. It depends on who’s going to bid, but it could be that there’s another transfer station that collects and then it’s transported.

Q: What are the benefits of centralizing recycling collection?
A: Hopefully there’ll be a reduction in transportation costs and emissions. Another benefit is there’s going to be more things that are reimbursed, like municipalities are going to be paid for all of their recycling processes. They used to just get a rebate for the tonnage that they eliminated, but now, like I said, any of their costs related to recycling are going to be compensated [by EEQ]. So the cost of bins, the cost of the door-to-door collection by their workers, all of the things related to recycling are going to be reimbursed.

Q: How long has the MRC been planning for regional level recycling?
A: We actually had to sign a contract with EEQ for June. And now the next thing we’re doing is trying to put together this tender so we can get that out. What happens is there’s a new regulation. It’s a modernization of the collective regime that came into effect, and then with that, EEQ was the mandated body to oversee that. I think they gave some leeway for municipalities that had longer-term recycling contracts. But then we also informed municipalities that those who had contracts running out, we said “make sure the next contract that you signed is going to be finished by Dec. 2024,” because then we’re going to be in the position where our new collective contract will be starting in January 2025.

MRC Pontiac to centralize recycling collection Read More »

Cushman Memorial holds first service of the summer

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter, Norway Bay

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Cottagers from the Norway Bay community packed into the Cushman Memorial Hall on Sunday evening for its first service of the summer.
For over one hundred years, the community has gathered at the hall from the first Sunday in July to the last Sunday in August, making these services a central part of their summer traditions.
Nancy York, the chair of the board of trustees for Cushman Memorial Hall, emphasized the importance of these services to the community.
“It’s part of the summer spirit of Norway Bay,” York said.
Tom Healey, a former resident of Norway Bay and musician, has been involved for nearly a quarter of the century this tradition has been happening.
“We were asked a while back to add some music to the service,” Healey said.
Over the years, Healey and his group, Thursday Morning, have performed bluegrass, gospel, and other music at each year’s opening service. Even though he no longer lives in the community, Healey returns every summer, driven by his love for music and the sense of belonging Norway Bay offers.
“It’s like coming home for a few hours,” he said.
According to Healey, the joy of playing and seeing the crowd engage with the music is its own reward, making it one of the easiest and most fulfilling gigs for the group.
“Gospel music is simple to play, and when people sing it, it energizes you on stage,” he shared.
Healey explained that the band has evolved over the years. In 2013, its banjo player passed away, and since then, Healey has stepped into the role when needed. But on Sunday evening, the group was joined by guest banjo player and THE EQUITY reporter, K.C. Jordan for the closing song, Sin and Redemption.
York said the non-denominational church services play a crucial role in bringing the community together.
The land for the hall was donated over a hundred years ago with the condition that it be used only for church purposes, showing the importance of faith in the community’s history.
Each service is a mix of hymns, sermons, with significant contributions from the congregation.
“There’s a short sermon and hymns, most of it is based around hymns and the congregation calls out the hymn numbers,” York said.
According to York, the summer services at Cushman Memorial Hall are more than just religious gatherings; they are a celebration of community and a century-long tradition.

Cushman Memorial holds first service of the summer Read More »

Stop Nuclear Waste group rallies support in Shawville

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / LJI reporter, shawville, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Members of Kebaowek First Nation and its environmental assessment team set up shop in the Pontiac Archives on Wednesday to raise awareness about their concerns with the plans to build a nuclear waste disposal facility at the Chalk River nuclear research station, a kilometre from the Ottawa River.
The group was made up of Kebaowek’s waterkeeper Verna Polson, land assistant Mary-Lou Chevrier, and Rosanne Van Schie, a forest conservation expert who has been working with the First Nation to do environmental assessments on the site of the future waste facility.
Kebaowek is 200 kilometres upstream of Chalk River, near Témiscamingue, Que. The First Nation has been leading efforts to challenge plans from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), the manager of the Chalk River nuclear site, to build what it calls a near surface disposal facility for up to 1,000,000 cubic metres of what CNL says is low-level radioactive waste.
This spring the group from Kebaowek visited communities up and down the Ottawa Valley, meeting with residents and sharing the results of months of environmental impact research they have done – research that shows the waste facility could harm several species at risk that live on or next to the site.
“I’m hoping we can all come together. There’s strength in numbers, and that we can all learn and be on the same page and stop the NSDF [near surface disposal facility],” Chevrier said.
“It’s important we all get on board and voice our opinion now in case anything bad happens.”
The stop in Shawville was one of the last before Kebaowek heads to Ottawa this week for a federal court hearing where it will be challenging the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s (CNSC) January decision to grant CNL the license to build the facility.
In February, Kebaowek filed for judicial review of CNSC’s decision on the grounds that the regulator did not adequately consider the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and that free, prior and informed consent was not obtained from most of the 11 Algonquin First Nations with unceded claims to the territory.
Only one community, the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation, consented to the nuclear waste facility going ahead, signing a long-term relationship agreement with CNL in June 2023.
Article 29.2 of the declaration says, “States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.”
This article is critical to the case Kebaowek plans to bring forward this week at the administrative tribunal for its court challenge, scheduled for July 10 and 11.
“The argument is CNSC knew full well of this legislative piece but administratively just didn’t address it,” Van Schie explained to those gathered at the archives on Wednesday morning.
The commission’s record of decision assures the disposal facility “is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects,” and explains that because UNDRIP is not yet law, the commission is not empowered to determine how to implement it and must instead be guided by current consultation law.
But Van Schie said Kebaowek believes that because UNDRIP is supported by law, by way of the United Nations Declaration Act, and because the Canadian government has committed itself to the principles of UNDRIP, the nuclear safety regulator should be held accountable to this declaration.
Van Schie added that beyond concerns around absence of consent for the facility, the First Nation will also be making the case that proper forest management plans were not completed by the regulator.
“When we got on the ground we quickly determined there were a number of gaps they didn’t address, including the use of the site by moose and deer, and doing a count of the animals didn’t happen either,” Van Schie said.
“The objective is to find gaps in the administration of the environmental assessment.”
Several dozen people met with the team from Kebaowek at the archives on Wednesday, among them Warden Jane Toller who expressed the MRC’s ongoing opposition to the nuclear waste facility.
Shawville residents Melissa Smith and Hayley Pilon, both members of Kebaowek First Nation, spent several hours in the morning listening to the information the team from Kebaowek was sharing.
“It is a major issue and I don’t think it’s very well publicized,” Smith said. “I live in Shawville and I didn’t even know until 9:30 this morning that there was a meeting coming here.”
Pilon, a massage therapy student at Algonquin College, took the day off school to attend the event because she is concerned what impacts the nuclear waste facility might have on the health of the Ottawa River.
“I would love to know what I can do, what the next steps are, what we can do as a small community to help support the cancellation of the CNL nuclear dump,” she said.
“I was part of the meetings to do with the incineration they wanted to do in the Pontiac. It kind of just seems like that just got finished, and now this is starting up. It’s just one thing after the other.”

Stop Nuclear Waste group rallies support in Shawville Read More »

MRC Pontiac launches new agritourism route highlighting local producers

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, MRC Pontiac

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac region now has its own agritourism route – a network of agricultural producers and restaurants spanning from Bristol to Sheenboro which is intended to put the Pontiac on the map as a food destination.
The new tourism effort, called the Land & Flavours Route, was announced by the MRC Pontiac on June 26. A map and details of the route’s 22 stops can be found on the MRC’s Destination Pontiac website.
The route is the latest in a series of similar routes developed by the MRC to market various aspects of the region to potential visitors.
Already featured on the MRC’s tourism website are a poutine route, a wine route, and a “vanlife” route.
In addition to being advertised on the website, the MRC has advertised the new route through radio ads, at local markets, and at various events across the Ottawa Valley and in Montreal.
Stéphanie Hébert-Potter, economic development agent with the MRC, said the goal of the route is to showcase the variety of agricultural products the region has to offer.
“We’re hoping that visitors will have an opportunity to explore all the local flavours that we have, whether it’s freshly harvested fruits and vegetables to [ . . . ] local beer, nice wineries.”
She said the route is also meant to help locals discover the hidden gems in their backyard that they don’t necessarily know about.
“We have a vast territory, so it’s not always easy for everyone to know from one end to the other what’s available.”
She added that the Pontiac is a strongly-rooted agricultural community.
“They’re the backbone of our area,” she said of the region’s producers.
“It’s important to highlight the work that they do, but also the passion they have in harvesting and creating their products.”
Greg Graham, one of the owners of Coronation Hall Cider Mills in Bristol, said he hopes the new route will bring in customers who are discovering the region for the first time.
“It’s very difficult and expensive to get signage in Quebec,” he said. “It’s important that people discover how to see us and all the things that aren’t on the highway.”
Graham is happy to have the exposure that comes with the new route, and hopes that it will help visitors plan extended trips to the region.
A good portion of his customers come from across the river in Ontario or from the capital region, and Graham said people are more likely to make the trip if they can plan to visit other local producers.
“If people have two or three destinations in mind, they’re far more likely to drive up here to see us,” he said.
David Gillespie, a farmer on Allumette Island and an agritourism expert, said this route is a marked increase over previous efforts at an agritourism route in the region.
“There used to be only 10 producers,” he said, noting the doubling of this number represents progress for the region’s agritourism industry.
“Ten years ago this wouldn’t have happened. There were more traditional farms back then,” he said, noting that a younger crop of farmers in the area has pushed for agritourism in the region.
He said there are still many producers in the Pontiac who are not part of the route but could stand to gain from it.
Producers who are featured on routes like these need to meet certain standards.
In an email to THE EQUITY, Hébert-Potter said “to support and encourage smaller producers, we’ve set more flexible requirements compared to other routes.”
“Producers should have consistent operating hours, provide parking spaces, and have either a storefront or farm-based activities.”
In addition to tourists, Hébert-Potter said the MRC hopes there will be more buy-in from people who want to spend time and money in the Pontiac, and hopefully develop here as well.

MRC Pontiac launches new agritourism route highlighting local producers Read More »

Mansfield’s annual party expands for Canada Day, 175th anniversary

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, Mansfield

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

The community of Mansfield rallied in the rain over the weekend for its annual Mansfield en fête festival, which this year was also used as an opportunity to celebrate Canada Day as well as the town’s 175th anniversary.
The festival, hosted at the town’s Amyotte Park, offered a canteen and bar, live dance and music performances, and a baseball tournament which, according to Mansfield en fête president Martin Leguerrier, went ahead despite the rain.
“They never stopped,” Leguerrier said. “They ran in the mud, it was fun to watch.”
Marc-Antoine Côté was hanging out with his friends along the first-base fence watching the tournament unfold. His team was done playing for the day, so he was enjoying a few beers.
He said he enjoys coming out to Mansfield en fête every year because he likes seeing his friends and family.
“I come out here and hang out with the boys,” he said, right before rattling off a list of a dozen or so people on the field who he knew personally.
This year’s festival coincided with two other important dates: the Canada Day long weekend, as well as the ongoing festivities for Mansfield and Pontefract’s 175th anniversary.
Leguerrier said the festival offered more activities this year because all these celebrations converged on a single weekend.
“We’re offering an additional day this year,” he said, noting that they ran three full days of activities this year instead of the usual two.
Children’s activities were provided by Le Patro, and kids could choose between archery, giant building blocks, and a mini-putt course, among others.
Music, as always, played a big part in the festivities. A diverse lineup of musicians rocked the Sylvain Bégin stage throughout the weekend, including Ottawa Valley country icons Louis Schreyer and Gail Gavan.
Leguerrier said they had a lot of success last year bringing in local artists, and they wanted to do the same again this year.
“People in the Pontiac want to support local artists,” he said.
On Saturday night, a huge crowd gathered to watch a performance from the Corriveau School of Dance, which included dance numbers by professionals Marie-Josée Corriveau and Jason Morel.
The crowd let out whoops and cheers as various dancers, most of them teenagers, lifted their partners into the air, spun them around, and gracefully placed them back onto the ground, never breaking stride.
When they were done, the dozen or so dancers held hands and bowed as the crowd applauded the impressive performance.
Later on Saturday night, Leguerrier himself got up on stage to perform a DJ set, exactly as he has done for over 20 years.
This year was his first as president of the committee, and he was pleased with how the event turned out.
“People are happy, families are happy, dogs are happy,” he said.
Leguerrier said he wanted to make sure everyone was having a good time, but also that they were being safe.
He said volunteers were encouraging people to eat, especially if they have been drinking.
Cadets from the Sûreté du Québec were also there making sure everyone was having fun in a safe and responsible way.
Leguerrier was pleased to report that, as of Saturday night, there hadn’t been any fights, noting that violence can break out when people have been drinking.
The festivities concluded on Sunday night with the traditional fireworks display, which, Leguerrier says, is one of the weekend’s biggest crowd-pleasers.

Mansfield’s annual party expands for Canada Day, 175th anniversary Read More »

Litchfield may become home to salmon farm

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / Litchfield, LJI reporter, Pontiac, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac may become home to Canada’s largest land-based Atlantic salmon farm in the next five years, if its proponent is granted the permits it needs to run the facilities.
Outaouais-based business Samonix is hoping to build the fish farm at the Pontiac Industrial Park in Litchfield, the former site of the Smurfit Stone mill.
Samonix’s president is Mathieu Farley, also co-owner and president of Chelsea home building company Exo Construction.
Rémi Bertrand, former director general for MRC Pontiac, joined the company as senior director of business development in the fall of 2023.
Bertrand explained the farm will produce 12,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon a year, with an average fish size of 5 kg.
“We’re doing everything 100 per cent inside buildings, which there is nobody in Canada who does it now,” Bertrand said.
The farm will raise the fish entirely indoors, in large pools of treated water that is drawn from the Ottawa River.
“The salmon is the holy grail of raising fish. It’s the fish that’s the most vulnerable to its environment, so a dramatic change in temperature will affect its life cycle, and a variation in any of its environment could alter its life cycle,” Bertrand said, explaining that an indoor facility that uses treated water allows for total control of the environment.
“There’s no pathogens, nothing that can come in or out of our building without us knowing. This basically allows us to raise salmon that will be vaccine free, with no treatment or medications that will ever be given to the salmon.”
Bertrand explained that a small water plant will sterilize and neutralize the water from the Ottawa River before it is used to fill the pools.
The facility will then use a method called the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) which treats and recirculates 99 per cent of the water used to hold the fish.
In an article published in the Journal of Cleaner Production in May 2021 [link for web: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652621008246], lead author and research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada Nesar Ahmed suggests RAS farming as an option for increasing the environmental sustainability and climate resilience of Canada’s fisheries.

“RAS are eco-friendly, water efficient, highly productive intensive farming system, which are not associated with adverse environmental impacts, such as habitat destruction, water pollution and eutrophication, biotic depletion, ecological effects on biodiversity due to captive fish and exotic species escape, disease outbreaks, and parasite transmission,” Ahmed wrote.
Bertrand said of the remaining one per cent of wastewater that cannot be recirculated, the solids, largely fish feces, will be removed and treated through a process called biomethanization.
The leftover liquid will be processed by a wastewater treatment plant, and then discharged into the Ottawa River as per the parameters set by the Ministry of Environment.
“It’s just like a municipal wastewater treatment plant would do,” Bertrand noted.
He said he saw many projects cross his desk during his time as director general for the MRC, but that many of them were missing critical components needed to succeed in the region.
“I spent a good portion of my career working for the Pontiac, trying to get something going, and this checks a lot of my boxes.”
‘Room to grow’
Samonix bought 85 acres of the Pontiac Industrial Park in 2022, and another 100 acres this year. Bertrand said the main facility will occupy about 14 acres, and the remaining land will be used for auxiliary buildings, parking, and to guarantee the business has room to grow.
“The [land] will allow us the capacity to double the production down the road,” Bertrand said. “But we’ve also been getting a lot of interest from auxiliary businesses that would potentially want to relocate closer to our production.”
He said a Quebec company that transforms salmon imported from Norway and Chile into fish cuts for poke bowls, smoked salmon, and portioned salmon for the restaurants or grocery stores has expressed interest in relocating to the Pontiac to be closer to the proposed fish farm.
Bertrand also noted that as the business grows, it will consume enough fish feed that it could open its own fish feed plant on site, which the 185 acres will allow for.
He said the location of the site within a day’s travel of markets in major urban centres like Toronto, Montreal, New York and Boston means the farm is strategically placed for growth.
“Just to give you a perspective, the market we’ll be selling into is a market of about 280,000 tonnes of salmon a year, and we’ll be producing about 12,000 tonnes,” Bertrand said. “So there’s room to grow.”
A first in Canada
According to Bertrand, there is no other indoor land-based salmon farm in Canada of the size Samonix plans to be.
In fact, a study conducted by economic analytics firm Counterpoint Consulting for the government of British Columbia found there’s no Atlantic salmon RAS farm in steady-state operation in the world that produces more than 3,000 tonnes per year.
As Bertrand sees it, this presents his team with a critical advantage in a moment of opportunity.
In June the federal government set 2029 as the deadline by which open net-pen salmon farming operations in B.C. must shift to land-based methods.
While there is concern this five-year window will be insufficient for transitioning an entire industry, Bertrand figures the sudden need for expertise in the field could position Samonix, which began initial business plans in 2018, as a leader in the land-based farming method.
“By the time we’re built and operational, and we’ve basically developed the expertise, we will own the knowledge and the expertise to export it to B.C.,” Bertrand said.
“We’re early enough in the game to position ourselves [as leaders] in Northeast America, but we’re late enough in the game to be able to rely on proven technology that’s been tried elsewhere, where they made mistakes and corrected it.”
Bertrand said while Samonix’s proposed scale is unprecedented, the technology is not without evidence of success.
He pointed to a fish plant in Japan called Proximar Seafood that uses technology from the same provider as Samonix. It is smaller – producing about 5,000 tonnes of salmon a year – but is on track to complete its first fish harvest in August.
A few hoops yet to jump
Bertrand said there are two major approvals the company needs before it can put shovels in the ground.
The first is the granting of a 12 MW electrical hookup from Hydro-Québec, the application for which was submitted in March.
At last month’s MRC Pontiac Council of Mayors meeting, Samonix received a letter from council supporting this application.
“The second [approval] is to get our certificate of authorization from the [Quebec] Ministry of Environment. From our perspective, it’s not a matter of if we’ll get it, it’s when we’ll get it,” Bertrand said.
“We’re asking specialists to give a permit in a sector of activity they haven’t necessarily had the opportunity to build some knowledge around yet, because it’s such an innovation for Quebec. So it takes time.”
Bertrand said the company has already conducted several environmental impact studies, and will continue to do so this summer.
“We’re conducting a study on mussels, and have already done studies on fauna and flora. The Ministry of Environment even asked us to do a test on the most vulnerable species of the Ottawa River which is a plankton – a microscopic living form that can be utilized as feed for various species.”
He said Samonix is putting in the technological equipment required to treat its wastewater to meet the criteria of the ministry, so he expects environmental certification to be a “non-issue.”
“If everything goes as planned, by the end of 2025 we should have all of that in place, the final engineering completed, and hopefully be breaking ground in 2026.”

Litchfield may become home to salmon farm Read More »

Second annual Pontiac Country Festival hits Quyon fairgrounds

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, Pontiac, Quyon

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

Hundreds of people descended on Quyon to attend the second annual Pontiac Country Festival over the weekend and celebrate all things country.
There were various equestrian events including a horse pull and an obstacle course, an artisan market, a car and truck show, and a full slate of musicians playing country and bluegrass tunes throughout the weekend.
Jacques Prud’Homme, groundskeeper of the Quyon municipal park and attendee of the festival, enjoyed the great musical acts throughout the weekend.
“It’s been great music. We had Gail Gavan, Nancy Denault, and the tent has been full.”
The weather was wet, but music fans were able to stay dry in the tents where the concerts were being played.
Some festival attendees brought their own tents and RVs and set up in Quyon’s municipal park, where they could stay the entire weekend for only $10.
This year, the festival fell on the Canada Day long weekend, and the organizers collaborated with the Quyon Community Association to offer a Canada Day parade and fireworks.
Pontiac Equestrian Association president Andrea Goffart organized an equestrian versatility challenge that happened Sunday morning, a first for the festival.
“It was the idea of Shannon Townsend from Hendricktown Farm in Aylmer,” Goffart said. “She was the judge and the mastermind of bringing this particular race.”
The event featured 12 obstacles, each of which had to be completed in 30 seconds.
Goffart said this versatility challenge event is more common in the United States, but she wanted to bring it to the Pontiac to allow for equal participation from riders of all styles.
“That’s why we ran that – so it could be more inclusive from all the people involved in equestrian activities in the area,” she said.
Goffart said the event drew participants from across the Outaouais and Eastern Ontario, and she hopes to bring the competition back as a staple of future Country Fests.
According to the festival’s Facebook page, organizers received contributions from the MRC des Collines-de-l‘Outaouais and Pontiac MNA André Fortin to fund the festival’s offerings.
This is the festival’s second year under this name. Previously, the Quyon JamFest was held around this time of year, but the organizing committee disbanded in 2023, after 20 years.

Second annual Pontiac Country Festival hits Quyon fairgrounds Read More »

Shawville blood drive makes donating more doable

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, shawville

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac Agricultural Society held its first-ever blood drive on Thursday afternoon in the Agricultural Hall at the Shawville fairgrounds.
The event was hosted in conjunction with Héma-Québec, the non-profit responsible for recruiting blood donors and managing blood donations in the province.
Volunteers helped to guide new donors through the process, which included a questionnaire, the blood donation itself, and a revitalizing snack.
Kayla McCann, a director with the society and the visionary behind the drive, said she wanted to bring blood donation to Shawville because up until now, people have had to go to Gatineau or Ontario if they wanted to give.
McCann contacted Héma-Québec a few months ago to get the ball rolling, and on Thursday was proud to see that all 70 appointments were booked, with even more people showing up as walk-ins.
“We have a lot of first-time donors,” she said, visibly excited that her vision was becoming a reality. “This is a big day.”
First-time donors were given stickers and pins with a big red heart and a number one, and were congratulated by the Héma-Québec staff for their contribution.
The blood drive was a family affair for the McCanns. Kayla’s father Tom was donating for the 32nd time and was also there as a volunteer, making sure donors each got a post-donation juice box and salty snack.
Mavis Hanna, the agricultural society’s general manager, said the fact that the drive is happening in the town of Shawville makes donating blood more accessible for those with mobility issues.
“People don’t have to drive out of our community to support it,” she said.
Nicolas Piednoel, the collections organizer for Héma-Québec in the Laurentides and Outaouais regions, said many people in the health system need blood donations for medical treatment.
“The needs of the hospitals are huge,” he told THE EQUITY in French at Thursday’s blood drive. “Every day Quebecers need 1,000 blood donations.”
According to Héma-Québec, the organization hosts over 2,000 mobile blood drives every year.
Piednoel said anyone who missed last week’s blood drive but who still wants to donate blood will have another opportunity this fall.
He said Héma-Québec was so impressed with the interest in Shawville that it is already planning to come back.

Shawville blood drive makes donating more doable Read More »

CISSSO forms new local healthcare committee

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / LJI reporter, Outaouais, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Outaouais’ healthcare provider (CISSSO) has formalized a collaboration agreement with a group of healthcare workers and community partners in the Pontiac to ensure greater local input on matters that affect residents of the region and improve accessibility, continuity and quality of services across the territory.
The group, which CISSSO refers to as a territorial committee, consists of 22 members, including CISSSO’s Pontiac director Nicole Boucher-Larivière.
Available members met at the CLSC in Shawville on Thursday morning to sign the final mandate agreement.
“The idea is that people [on this committee] will have responsibility to make sure we answer to the community and stay accountable to the population,” Boucher-Larivière said, noting the group has been meeting for about a year to determine its mandate.
She explained the committee will be critical in identifying healthcare priorities for the region, brainstorming strategies for developing those priorities, and sharing input on how limited resources should be allocated.
“There have been multiple evolutions of health and social services law so now we’re going back towards proximity,” Boucher-Larivière noted. “It took a certain time but this is the first step we’re taking towards trying to bring that back.”
The Pontiac region is the first in the Outaouais to sign such an agreement with the CISSS de l’Outaouais since services were centralized in 2015.
Josey Bouchard, founding member of local healthcare advocacy group Pontiac Voice, is one of the members of the new territorial committee.
“It’s basically consulting and sharing a little bit of what’s happening here, and if things aren’t working well, to advise on what they can do to try and make it better,” Boucher said, describing what she understands her role on the committee to be.
“I think it’s nice that at least they have our opinion of what’s happening. And hopefully it helps put a little more pressure on whoever is making the decisions.”
But, Bouchard said, she does not expect the collection of community leaders will have any real decision making power.
“As far as power, that I know of, we have none. It’s more of a consulting role.”
“We’re sort of a moral support – it sort of gives [Nicole] a bit more credit as to what she’s bringing forth to the higher ups.”

The committee’s other 21 members are CISSSO board of directors member Rémi Bertrand, Dr. Serge Boucher, Dr. John Wooton, MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller, MRC Pontiac director general Kim Lesage, Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose, Pontiac user committee president Jennifer Larose, healthcare advocate Josey Bouchard, Chamber of Commerce president Sébastien Bonnerot, SADC general director Rhonda Perry, seniors’ representative Richard Gratton, Dr. Isabelle Gagnon, Lisa Falasconi from the English school board, Denis Rossignol from the French school service centre, pharmacist Marc Aufranc, Michel Vallières from the Table de développement social du Pontiac, Shelley Heaphy from the Connexions Resource Centre, Bouffe Pontiac director Kim Laroche, Sara-Lynn McCann from Quyon’s Maison de la famille, Karim El Kerch from Carrefour jeunesse-emploi du Pontiac, and Joanne Dubois from CISSSO.
The group plans to meet four times a year.

CISSSO forms new local healthcare committee Read More »

Alleyn and Cawood DG answers key questions about property valuation

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / Alleyn and Cawood, LJI reporter, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

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

Alleyn and Cawood DG answers key questions about property valuation Read More »

Four Pontiac hospital techs apply for Gatineau jobs

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / LJI reporter, Pontiac, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

News follows exclusion of staff at Pontiac, Wakefield hospitals from Outaouais bonuses

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Four of the six full-time medical imaging technicians working in the Pontiac have applied to better paying jobs in Gatineau, while a fifth has possibly applied to a position in Ontario, a spokesperson for Outaouais’ healthcare network (CISSSO) confirmed in an email to THE EQUITY on Monday afternoon.
The news of these potential departures comes less than a week after the Quebec government extended bonuses and temporarily higher salaries to medical imaging staff in Maniwaki and Papineau hospitals, but not to those in Shawville and Wakefield hospitals, or the CLSC in Saint-André-Avellin.
The temporary financial incentives were first offered only to technicians at Hull and Gatineau hospitals in an effort to entice them to stay in their jobs rather than take higher paying positions in Ontario, but the technicians left anyway.
Meanwhile, elected officials in Outaouais’ rural communities expressed concern this policy would cause an exodus of technicians to the region’s urban hospitals where the pay was better, so the CAQ government extended these financial incentives to only two of four rural hospitals.
The decision sparked outrage in the Pontiac when it was announced last week. Politicians and healthcare workers warned the second exclusion would only intensify the competition the Pontiac Hospital faces when it comes to retaining staff.
At a press conference outside the Pontiac Hospital on Thursday, Pontiac MNA André Fortin echoed this fear.
“They’re in the process of repeating exactly the same mistake they made last month,” Fortin, also health critic for the official opposition, told reporters in French, accusing the CAQ government of failing to recognize the particular needs of the Pontiac region.
He noted one of Pontiac’s technicians lives in Aylmer, while another lives in Chapeau, and that they now both have higher paying positions much closer to their homes.
“It’s almost like they want to lose workers, and then react, and then justify the increase,” Fortin said. “They’re doing things backwards. It would be so much easier to fix it now, before people take the hard decision to leave.”
Fortin said extending the financial incentives to workers at the Pontiac Hospital would cost about $150,000.
“To a government, that’s nothing.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s only taken three days and this is already the movement, as expected,” MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller told THE EQUITY Monday evening.
“I think that when people are not treated fairly [ . . . ] there’s no good reason why they should have to feel loyal any longer. We need to have the bonuses given before anybody leaves, because once they leave, we’re not going to be able to get them back.”
The Pontiac region shares six full-time imaging technicians between the Pontiac Hospital and the CLSC in Fort Coulonge, and two retired technicians help out part-time. Together, they are responsible for x-rays, ultrasounds, and other forms of medical imaging critical to most healthcare treatment.
If the five technicians succeed in their applications, the Pontiac region would be left with a single full-time staff member.
Toller and the region’s other wardens had two meetings with Minister of Health Christian Dubé in the week prior to the expansion of the bonuses and following both of them, she said she was assured by the minister that bonuses would be extended to all of the Outaouais.
She called last week’s agreement a “slap in the face.”
“Because we have loyal employees [ . . . ] I think at the last minute [the goverment] decided, ‘Oh, it’s not as much of a crisis,’ and their solution is they’re going to monitor the situation,” Toller said. “Well, this is unacceptable. We are not going to stand here and watch a crisis result.”
This Monday, the Outaouais’ four wardens and the newly elected mayor of Gatineau published an open letter demanding the Quebec government “offer fair and equitable bonuses to all medical imaging technologists in the Outaouais region.”
Toller said the MRC will also move a resolution to the same effect at its monthly Council of Mayors meeting this Wednesday, June 19.
THE EQUITY asked the health ministry for clarity on why the bonuses were extended to some hospitals and not others, but did not receive a response before publication deadline.
However, in a recent article from Le Droit, Minister responsible for the Outaouais, Mathieu Lacombe, suggested the exclusion had something to do with a hospital’s distance from Ottawa.

“The further away we are from Ottawa, the less temptation there is for employees,” he said in French. “Consequently, in Hull, Gatineau and Buckingham, we had to have a bonus that reached a maximum level.”
A ‘temporary’ and ‘incomplete’ fix
Under the new, two-year agreement announced last week, technicians at the Papineau Hospital will receive a $22,000 bonus and those in Maniwaki will receive an $18,000 bonus.
All technicians at those hospitals will also receive a 10 per cent salary increase for the summer period, granted staff commit to working an additional 2.5 hours every week.
Guylaine Laroche is the Outaouais president of l’Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS), the union representing imaging technicians in the region.
“The agreement we have now is a step in the right direction but it is clearly not sufficient,” she said in French.
She warned of the significant risk that technicians who weren’t offered bonuses move to hospitals where the bonuses are in place.
But she also said the temporary measures are insufficient in addressing the larger staffing shortage that has been plaguing the Outaouais’ healthcare network for years, both because they are temporary, and don’t include all radiology workers in the region.
Fortin also took issue with the premise of offering a bonus as a solution to the network-wide staffing shortages.
“It’s temporary, it’s incomplete, it’s not a measure that is efficient. What we need are salaries that are on par with Ontario,” he said.
Statistics provided by CISSSO show that the number of radiology technicians employed by the healthcare organization dropped from 122 in 2019 to 102 in 2024. Over the same time period, the number of nurses working for CISSSO dropped from 1984 to 1827 across the organization.
“This has been happening for a decade now, but now, we need to stop that,” said Jean Pigeon, spokesperson for recently formed healthcare advocacy group SOS Outaouais, at a second press conference at the Pontiac Hospital on Friday morning.
“We need to have permanent measures. We need to stop the flow of our healthcare staff that are moving away.”
The press conference, organized by local healthcare advocacy group Pontiac Voice, was attended by several leaders from Pontiac’s health network, including Pontiac Voice representative Josey Bouchard, Jennifer Larose, president of the CISSSO user committee and Anne Amyotte, president of the CLSC foundation.
Also in attendance was Sophie Pieshke, a radiologist currently on maternity leave. She worked at the Pontiac Hospital 10 years ago, and built her home in Shawville with the hope of returning to work at the hospital once her leave is up.
But on Friday she said she may have to reconsider.
“As much as my heart is at this hospital, my profession is medical imaging technician. I love my work, but with these working conditions, I have to ask myself what I’m going to do. Do I return to this hospital, or do I want to go somewhere else,” Pieshke said in French.

Four Pontiac hospital techs apply for Gatineau jobs Read More »

Bryson swings into summer

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / Bryson, Glen Hartle, LJI reporter

Glen Hartle, LJI Reporter

The Bryson Recreation Association hosted a one-day baseball tournament and fun day at the town’s Lions Park on Saturday for Father’s Day weekend.
Heralded as Swingin’ Into Summer, eight teams from Bryson, Calumet Island, Campbell’s Bay, Fort Coulonge, Otter Lake and Shawville signed up for the tournament and brought lively spirit to the pitch.
The teams were divided into two divisions with Bryson-based The Bombers winning division A at the end of the day and the Rivermen team from Campbell’s Bay, made up mostly of members of the Larivière family, taking division B. A final game was contested between these two teams, with The Bombers taking the overall championship.
In an effort to create an event that was fun for everyone, the RA also hosted a Little Rascals Market with young entrepreneurs staffing tables with various goodies for sale. The event also included an art station with supplies where participants could be generally creative or craft their own face masks.
Food and refreshments stands were at the ready, and bouncy houses and yard-sized games rounded out full use of the Lions Club park and grounds.
The Bryson RA, an association already known for bringing community together, hit their own home run with the long-standing and well-attended annual Father’s Day event.
“The Bryson RA would like to thank all of the wonderful supporters we have that come to play ball, enjoy our barbecue and come to our events,” said RA president Julie Ryan, beaming with pride. “We appreciate the support so much.”
Noting the event was once again made possible thanks to volunteers, Ryan added, “We would like to thank our amazing RA members and the many family and friends that help out. They work the canteen and barbecue with us and we could not do it without them.”

Bryson swings into summer Read More »

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

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / July 12, 2024 / Campbell's Bay, Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

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

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

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

Fort Coulonge fills the streets

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / June 14, 2024 / Fort Coulonge, Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Families from all over the Pontiac were invited to downtown Fort Coulonge on Saturday for the town’s annual street festival – Village en fête.
The event, organized by Fort Coulonge, is a celebration of the start of the festival season for the region.
The town’s Bryson Street was filled with all sorts of attractions, including a touch-a-truck, inflatable obstacle courses, pizza, face-painting and even helicopter tours over the Fort Coulonge area.
“It’s a community celebration every year around this time. Normally, it’s Father’s Day weekend, but we had pushed it up for this weekend,” said Claudee Galipeau, who has been organizing the event for the last seven years.
“We always say the initial Village en fête event is sort of a ‘summer’s here and we’re kicking it off.’”
Galipeau explained that the event is both a chance for the local community to enjoy their afternoon, and also an opportunity to bring business to the downtown core of Fort Coulonge.
“The original mandate was that it would help the businesses within the downtown core,” Galipeau said. “And then it just cauliflowered into this big town celebration.”
The helicopter tours, provided by a Montreal-based helicopter school and tour agency, were one of the biggest attractions at the festival.
“The view is beautiful, I’m doing it again tonight,” said Fort Coulonge mayor Christine Francoeur. “It’s going to be my second time. Every time I come I bring my grandchildren with me.”
Francoeur explained the spring festival has been around for more than a decade, and serves as a thank you to the community for supporting local businesses, as well as a chance to expose the local community to some of the many amenities the Pontiac has to offer.
“I think the parents appreciate it because they can have so many activities and they’re free,” Francoeur said. “It’s a bit of a rainy day [ . . . ] But we can’t control the weather. But still, people are still showing up with their umbrellas.”

Fort Coulonge fills the streets Read More »

Bryson cleans house

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / June 14, 2024 / Bryson, Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

The town of Bryson held its annual community yard sale event on Saturday, organized by the town’s municipality.
Throughout the town, tables could be seen spread across driveways and front lawns as community members attempted to get rid of unwanted items that may have surfaced during spring cleaning, in exchange for a few dollars.
Lynette Harris was one of the people participating in the yard sale. She is trying to downsize and was getting rid of some of her grandchildren’s toys and books, her husband’s golf balls, paintings and a collection of aloe vera plants she had accumulated.
“It’s not just necessarily my stuff. It’s my children’s stuff and my grandchildren’s stuff,” Harris said. “My daughter lives in the city, and she can’t have a yard sale in her apartment building, so she gives me her stuff to sell.”
Another vendor, Sylvain LaSalle, travelled from Gatineau to his parents’ home in Bryson to help them sell some of the belongings they no longer needed in their old age. This was his third year using the yard sale to help his parents declutter.
“There’s things that I said would never sell, but they did,” LaSalle said, surprised.
The event also featured free trees being handed out at the Bryson Municipal Hall. Joanne Ralston, council member for Bryson, was handing out yellow birch and sugar maple saplings in celebration of tree and forest day, as well as informational pamphlets on a variety of topics related to the environment.
“We’re putting out information regarding recycling, composting, waste management, and turtles here,” Ralston said. “We all know that environmental issues are even more in the media right now.”

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Website, social media development main focus for Pontiac Tourism in 2023

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / June 14, 2024 / LJI reporter, Pontiac, Sophie Dickson

Sophie Kuiper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Mansfield’s outdoor adventure basecamp, Aventure Hélianthe, was temporarily transformed into a board room on Thursday evening for non-profit association Pontiac Tourism’s annual general meeting.
About a dozen board members, local politicians, and interested residents gathered at the business’s outdoor bar for a 20-minute presentation of the group’s work over the last year.
The non-profit has as its mandate to promote and stimulate tourism in the Pontiac with the vision that the region becomes a “major tourist destination in regard to outdoor adventure, leisure and culture,” its annual report reads.
The association had $35,201.06 in revenue in 2023, $14,206.95 of which came from the SADC, and another $11,050.00 of which came from the MRC Pontiac by way of its FRR2 funding stream and its budget for partnerships and publicity.
The association’s total general costs for the year were $14,717.95, leaving $24,032.39 in the group‘s bank account as of Dec. 31 2023.
Emma Judd is secretary and board member with the tourism association.
She explained most of the association’s efforts went into setting itself up to take advantage of the $10,000 of free advertising that Google makes available for non-profits.
“For years we’ve been trying to tap into that but you need to have [a functioning website] set up to get that money and make it worthwhile,” Judd said, explaining that the association has been developing its Explore Pontiac website (explorepontiac.ca) so that it can begin to benefit from Google’s offer.
“We’re trying to get the most out of what people are searching for,” Judd said. “It’s all about finding the people who are looking for experiences an hour, two hours, three hours away, and trying to bring those people here.”
Judd said last year was the first the association began using the Google money.
“We are nowhere near the $10,000 that you can access,” Judd said. “We’re not spending that much on advertising, it’s just we don’t have enough content yet to put forward.”
The association’s 2023-2024 costs also included creating a promotional video and paying influencers to generate social media content about the Pontiac.
Judd said last year’s $24,000 surplus will be used getting promotional videos and reels on social media, and building the rest of the website.
An election was held at the meeting for three of the board’s nine seats. Jessica Forgues from the Pontiac Chamber of Commerce and Nancy Lemay from Chalets Prunella both stepped down from their seats, leaving them vacant.
Guillaume Lavoie-Harvey of Aventure Hélianthe was nominated by Mansfield mayor Sandra Armstrong for seat seven, which was previously vacant.
The board’s other members are Robin Judd of Starborn farms, Denis Lebrun of Domaine du Lac Bryson, Emma Judd of Circa B&B, Adam Thompson of Pine Lodge, Dennis Blaedow of Esprit Rafting and Jodi Thompson of Pine Lodge.

Website, social media development main focus for Pontiac Tourism in 2023 Read More »

Former Norway Bay cottager to compete in Paris Olympics

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / June 14, 2024 / KC Jordan, LJI reporter, Norway Bay

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

Julie Brousseau spent her childhood summers on the shores of the Ottawa River, learning how to swim.
Her family had a cottage in Norway Bay, a community with a deep connection to the water. She couldn’t get enough of it — when she wasn’t taking lessons, she was swimming with her friends and cousins.
It was also where Julie got her first taste of competition. She participated in the annual Regatta, a community summer staple that involves an array of athletics contests, including swimming.
In her early teens, Julie’s family stopped summering at the cottage. But the call of the water stayed with her.
She started training competitively in Ottawa, making waves as one of Canada’s best young swimming prospects.
She won 11 medals at the 2022 Canada Games, and added three more at last year’s Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
Then, in May, Julie achieved something she never thought possible.
She became an Olympian.
Her performance at the Canadian swimming trials qualified her for this summer’s Paris Olympics. She will compete in the 4x200m freestyle, a team event where each swimmer completes four lengths of the pool.
With her qualification, Julie joins a long line of decorated Canadian swimmers. Walking alongside her at the July 26 opening ceremonies will be Penny Oleksiak, Canada’s all-time leading Olympic medalist, and Summer McIntosh, the current world record-holder in the 400-metre individual medley.
Julie is excited at the opportunity to compete alongside these women.
“I remember watching the past two Olympics and seeing Penny and all of them swimming there,” she said. “So it’s crazy that now I’ll get to be on a team with them.”
Preparations for the Games have been intense. Julie said she’s in the pool nine times a week.
“I’m pretty much always at the Sportsplex, swimming and lifting weights.”
When she’s not swimming, Julie is a student at Nepean High School, where she’s hitting the books trying to wrap up her Grade 12 year.
“Sometimes I have to miss two weeks of school at a time,” she said.
At the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, Canada narrowly missed out on a medal in Julie’s event, finishing in fourth place. This year, she wants to help her country improve on that result.
In Paris, Julie plans to immerse herself in the Olympic experience — exploring the athletes’ village, meeting people from around the world, and taking in lots of sports.
Naturally, she’ll be watching a lot of swimming. Many of her teammates are medal favourites in this year’s Games, and she’ll be at the pool cheering them on.
But she’s also looking forward to taking in some other sports. As a former competitive basketball player, she still follows the game, and she’s excited to see both Canadian teams on the court.
“Hopefully they can bring home a medal,” she said.
Once the Games come to a close in early August, she and her family are going to the south of France to enjoy some much-needed rest and relaxation.
Then, it’s back to the grind. Julie will start training in preparation for her freshman year at the University of Florida, where she’ll swim for the Gators.

Former Norway Bay cottager to compete in Paris Olympics Read More »

Alleyn and Cawood residents petition for review of property valuation process

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / June 14, 2024 / Alleyn and Cawood, KC Jordan, LJI reporter

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

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

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

Alleyn and Cawood residents petition for review of property valuation process Read More »

PHS Girls are Rugby Champs

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / June 14, 2024 / Glen Hartle, LJI reporter, Pontiac

Girls victorious, boys finish close second

Glen Hartle, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac High School (PHS) rugby pitch was abuzz on Wednesday as the PHS Panthers played host to the regional rugby championships for the RSEQ (Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec). Matching the fever on the field was the large contingent of spectators camped out to take in the excitement.
The first-place teams in the league for girls and boys received direct entry into the finals. The PHS girls team had already secured its spot in the finals, as had one of two Falcon boys teams from Hull’s Philemon Wright High School (PWHS).
Two hotly contested semi-finals determined who their adversaries would be. The Rugby Sevens format was used where teams fielded seven players on a full-sized pitch, leaving lots of space for gameplay. And play there was.
First up were the girls in a game pitting the PWHS Falcons against the D’Arcy McGee High School Gee Gees from Gatineau, where the Gee Gees proved to be the stronger of the two. The size and power advantage of the Gee Gees powered them over and through the Falcons, booking their place in the final against the Panthers.
In the final, the Panthers came out of the gate firing on all cylinders and scored seemingly at will.
Iyla Smith scored within the opening minute of the game on a spectacular individual effort and, while the Gee Gees put up a good fight, they had no answer to the multi-pronged attack of strength and speed they stood against.
Standouts Hannah Twolan and Kira Paulin once again showed their sheer athleticism and determination, leading the team on both ends of the field.
Coach Phil Holmes made clear his pride in the team as he beamed from the sidelines.
“It has been an awesome journey from the first practice in the fall of 2022 with 10 girls who had never touched a rugby ball, to our final where 21 girls finished an undefeated season and won their second championship in as many years,” Holmes told THE EQUITY.
“These girls have worked hard, practicing mornings through the winter, recruiting their friends to join the team, and have built a strong and close-knit group.”
For their part, the PHS Panthers boys team took to the field in their semi-final against the second PWHS Falcon team and it was clear from the opening whistle that they intended to write their own story into the finals.
Where the Falcons brought speed and size, the Panthers fielded more grit and passion and therein found their way to victory. The Panthers had strong ball possession throughout, with Morgan Barr and Bennett Rusenstrom leading the charge in scoring.
In the final, they faced even more speed from the first and top-finishing Falcon team. In a fierce match where desire was palpable on both sides, the Panthers showed no fatigue from their semi-final and pushed hard right to the final seconds of the game, ultimately falling marginally short of victory by a score of 12-10.
Barr and Rusenstrom were once again key, with captain Cade Kuehl on the sidelines thanks to concussion protocol after a hit he had sustained in the semi-final.
Referee Mike Cheung summed up the final well.
“It was a competitive match with both teams showing a lot of heart and intensity on the field – the better team won the day,” Cheung said.
Boys coach Colin Boolsen-Vorster agreed.
“There is a phenomenal difference in skill level from the first game we played relative to the performance tonight.”
“It was unfortunate that Kuehl was injured during the semi-final as it was a challenge to replace him as he is the captain and has a unique skill set critical for the smooth functioning of the team,” Boolsen-Vorster said. “Had he remained fit and healthy, the impact on the scoreboard may well have been profound.”
Whereas the girls team now has two seasons under its belt, the boys mark this season as their first, and their march through to the finals shows that they intend to stay.
“For our first rugby season the groundwork for a boys’ rugby program has very definitely been laid and many of our key players will return next season,” Boolsen-Vorster said. “They’ve come a long way and I’m really proud of them.”
RSEQ sports coordinator Phil St-Martin was on hand for the matches and, in presenting the pennants to the winning teams, complimented the sportsmanship and gamesmanship on display throughout the season. “These pennants are well-deserved,” he lauded.
And the applause from the spectators certainly concurred.

PHS Girls are Rugby Champs Read More »

Dumoine’s Tote Road trail complete

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Dumoine, LJI reporter, MRC Pontiac, Sophie Dickson

Non-profit working to create safe backcountry experience

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Late last August, a group of canoe enthusiasts, some paddling veterans and others total beginners, piled into two dozen canoes and spent the day meandering their way down the Dumoine, MRC Pontiac’s western-most river.
The river traces the border between MRC Pontiac and MRC Temiscamingue, running south from Machin Lake near La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve for 129 kilometres before dumping itself into the Ottawa River, just upstream of Rapides des Joachims.
The group of paddlers made the trip to celebrate the completion of a project that a team of volunteers had been working away at for seven years – the creation of the Tote Road backcountry hiking trail, which had officially opened as an outdoor attraction that August but which has existed in fragments for much, much longer.
For thousands of years, Anishinaabe communities and later, European settlers working the timber trade on the Dumoine River have trodden narrow footpaths up and down its banks.
In 2016, a group of volunteers and longtime lovers of the river set to work clearing these various segments of path, and joining them together where there was no path, to build one long continuous 26 kilometre hiking trail, equipped with trail signs, hand painted outhouse toilets and 22 backcountry camping sites.
The extended network of volunteers is organized under the non-profit group Friends of Dumoine, created by avid outdoorsmen Wally Schaber.
“Our mandate is to promote wilderness conservation and self-propelled recreation in the Dumoine watershed,” Schaber said.
His goal was to create a unified group of people who could advocate for and develop opportunities for non-motorized recreational use of the Dumoine Valley, be it in canoe, as has done for decades, or by foot, as is now possible by way of this trail.
A rich history
Of importance to Schaber in his vision of how the Dumoine be used is that anybody passing through the valley, by foot or canoe or all-terrain vehicle or motorboat, have opportunities to learn about the rich history of the river.
“There’s just an amazing history in the Dumoine Valley – Indigenous history as well as logging history,” Schaber said. “And that history is a real binding factor, no matter how you enjoy the recreation, and at the moment, it seems like everybody loves history.”
While the Tote Road is only open to walkers, too narrow to host four-wheelers, a car can bring you right to its trailhead. Following Chemin Dumoine north out of Rapides des Joachims will bring you to the northern end of the trail at Grand Chute, just after the road crosses the Dumoine River.
At the Grand Chute trailhead, an old log cabin, originally the offices of ZEC Dumoine, is being used by Friends of Dumoine as an unofficial basecamp for volunteers while they’re working on the trail, and for emergency responders needing to rescue somebody in the surrounding wilderness.
But over the years, it has also evolved into a history centre, displaying artifacts found in the Dumoine watershed or in neighbouring Noire, Coulonge and Ottawa rivers.
Axe heads, saws and other remnants of the timber trade have been mounted to the outside of the cabin, while historic maps, photos and other more valuable items can be viewed inside when the cabin is open.
Gord Black, owner of Bristol’s Logs End timber business, has donated many of the items he’s found in the thousands of dives he’s made to the bottoms of the region’s rivers.
He usually goes down to find old timber that’s been preserved underwater since the height of the Ottawa Valley logging industry, that he then retrieves and planes to be used as flooring.
This year he donated a hundred-year-old pointer boat he found years ago at the bottom of the Noire River.
The 10-foot long, flat bottomed boat was used by a cook for the logging camps that would make their way down the Noire during the log drives.
“I’d originally thought I was going to open a museum,” Black said. “But this boat sitting in the back of my warehouse gathering dust is not doing anything for anybody.”
He donated it to Friends of Dumoine because he supports the group’s vision.
“It makes people aware of the history that we have right in our own backyard,” Black said. “This river played an important part in the timber trade. A lot of wood came down that river over the 150 years of logging.”
Schaber, for his part, was thrilled by Black’s donation.
“If a group of canoe students came by, for them to actually see what a pointer boat was and how it worked would be an amazing experience,” Schaber said.
“So that’s the type of thing that gets us in trouble. We say yes, right away, and now I have to find volunteers to [restore it] and money to do it. But opportunity and resources don’t always line up.”
The Friends of Dumoine is not only concerned with the logging history on the river.
The Dumoine watershed remains the traditional, unceded territory of the Wolf Lake First Nation, based at Hunters Point in Kipawa.
The territory is unceded in that no treaty between Canada or Quebec and the Algonquin Nation was ever signed.
A timeline on the Tote Rode website details the history of human use of the Dumoine River. It shows that for more than 5,000 years before the timber trade began in the mid-1800s, Anishinaabe people used the river to hunt, trade, and socialize.
“As the logging went up the river, the ability of the families that lived on the river to hunt and trap just completely disappeared,” Schaber said.
“They had to migrate either north to Kipawa, or south to the Ottawa River to make a new life for themselves. So the majority went north and eventually joined the Wolf Lake Band at Hunter’s Point.”
This year, a group of youth from Wolf Lake First Nation will spend a week camping at Robinson Lake, just south of the Grand Chute cabin.
“It’s very encouraging to have these descendants of the original Dumoine families come and learn canoeing and different things right there on the Dumoine,” Schaber said.
Looking for partners to ‘take it to next level’
Schaber said between the 1200 or so canoeists he figures descend the river every year, and the people who visit the cabin by other means, the cabin has become a hotspot for adventurers who are curious about the people who used the Dumoine River for hundreds and thousands of years before them.
“Everybody tends to stop and ask the same type of questions, and so we get a chance to sort of socialize with all types of users,” Schaber said.
“Our idea would be to find enough budget to hire somebody to act as the host at that cabin and continue the work of researching the history and clearing the trail. That’s the long term goal,” he added.
Eventually, Schaber would like to see the cabin become a place that can be rented out by artist groups, or youth camps or archaeologists or wilderness first aid trainees – anybody, really, who would like to spend some dedicated time on the river and needs more infrastructure than the tent on their back.
But Schaber said to get there, the group of volunteers needs funding support from local and provincial governments.
“It is now the responsibility of the MRCs and the Quebec government to step forward and grab this treasure that we created and do something with it that benefits some businesses in Swisha and people in Pontiac,” Schaber said.
“I’m all for helping and doing everything I can but somebody bigger than us needs to step forward. Our goal is to keep the trail clean and clear, and to promote it and to find bigger partners to help us take it to the next level.”
In the meantime, the non-profit is doing what it can to increase safety in the watershed, most of which is very difficult to reach by vehicle.
Schaber attended the MRC Pontiac’s Apr. 10 plenary meeting of the mayors to request funding to help the Friends of Dumoine purchase emergency rescue equipment.
The MRCs director general Kim Lesage confirmed Schaber made a presentation on a search and rescue plan for the Dumoine Valley and requested funding to support his efforts.
She said this request would be brought to the next plenary meeting for a discussion between the mayors.
Julien Gagnon, public safety coordinator with the MRC, said the MRC is in very early stages of looking into whether a team of search and rescue volunteers from the Ontario side could be contracted to provide first aid and rescue services to the lower Dumoine River area.
This would improve response time to accidents on the river because as it is, the MRC’s fire departments in Mansfield and Otter Lake are the only two able to respond to emergency calls in the county’s backcountry areas.
“We definitely need some form of intervening on the west end, we just don’t have a population there, other than Rapides des Joachims, which doesn’t even have a fire department,” Gagnon said.
This summer, Friends of Dumoine is also working to formalize itself, which will help protect it from liability in the event of accidents on the river. It will host its first annual general meeting in December, where members of the group will elect its first board of directors.
Ahead of this, Schaber is encouraging anybody interested in the project to become a member of the group, and support its efforts to put the Dumoine on the map for nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts who don’t yet know about it.

Dumoine’s Tote Road trail complete Read More »

CISSSO plans could see summer closure of OR

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / LJI reporter, Outaouais, Sophie Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Outaouais’s healthcare network, the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais (CISSSO), has prepared contingency plans to deal with anticipated staffing shortages over the summer that may, in the worst case scenario, see the region’s rural operating rooms shut down, with services moved to Hull and Gatineau hospitals, Le Droit reported last week.
The contingency plans, a copy of which was obtained by Le Droit but which has not yet been seen by THE EQUITY, detail a few different scenarios for the period of June 17 to Sept. 8, to deal with repercussions of greater staffing shortages that may arise when currently employed healthcare workers take their vacations.
These plans map out how CISSSO will reorganize personnel in rural and urban hospitals across its network, which even without the added pressure from summer vacations, is already understaffed.
According to Le Droit, one series of plans addresses various scenarios of shortages in the health network’s imaging sector, and the other series of plans deals with shortages in the network’s operating services.
In the worst case scenario, the Gatineau hospital would offer only limited emergency services, as well as mental health services and long-term care beds, and its entire radiology department could close completely, forcing the relocation of essential services including childbirth, intensive care and pediatrics, to the Hull hospital.
Also in this worst case scenario, the Hull hospital alone would take on the bulk of operations for the 400,000 people in the Outaouais, with operating rooms in Pontiac, Maniwaki and Papineau hospitals shutting down so that staff could be relocated to work in the operating room in the Hull Hospital.
THE EQUITY requested an interview with CISSSO president and CEO Marc Bilodeau on Thursday last week, and has been scheduled to speak with him this Wednesday.
Pontiac officials speak out
Last week provincial and federal elected officials for the Pontiac added their voices to the growing cries for immediate assistance in the Outaouais.
Pontiac MP Sophie Chatel wrote a letter to Quebec’s Minister of Health Christian Dubé and to Minister of Culture and Communication, Mathieu Lacombe, expressing her concerns surrounding the state of health care in the region.
“It is imperative that the Quebec government take urgent measures to prevent a breakdown in healthcare services in our region,” Chatel wrote, in French. “Although health comes under provincial jurisdiction, I would nevertheless like to express the urgency of the situation in the Outaouais.”
Her letter went on to cite several statistics that highlight the urgency of resolving the healthcare staffing shortage across the Outaouais region.
One set of statistics showed that in 2021, lung cancer patients in the region had the lowest survival rate in the province, in large part due to delays in requests for CT scans. She said the situation worsened when magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was discontinued at the Gatineau hospital due to a shortage of technologists.
Chatel pointed to the region’s proximity to Ontario as the leading cause of the staffing shortage, and said while the bonuses offered by the Quebec government to staff in Hull and Gatineau hospitals is appreciated, this initiative needs to be extended to staff in rural hospitals.
“This measure must apply to healthcare staff in hospitals in rural regions of the Outaouais, such as Maniwaki, Buckingham, and Shawville, which are already weakened by the trend towards urbanization and over-specialisation in healthcare in Quebec and Canada,” the letter said.
Pontiac MNA and health critic for the official opposition André Fortin also continued to push for immediate solutions to address the growing crisis in the Outaouais.
“This is not a contingency plan. This is an announced catastrophe. What is the premier going to do about this?” Fortin asked in a question directed to Premier François Legault on May 22, regarding CISSSO’s contingency plans.
Minister of Health Christian Dubé responded to the question, explaining that the ministry asks every healthcare network across the province to come up with contingency plans going into the summer for best and worst-case scenarios.
Minister Dubé said his government is aware of the challenges posed by the competition with Ontario, and will do what it can to improve the situation, without providing specific details as to what immediate measures it would take.
Also last week, Fortin requested the province’s health and social services commission visit the Outaouais so they can see for themselves the urgency with which immediate and greater support from the province is needed.

CISSSO plans could see summer closure of OR Read More »

Pontiac Pride finding its groove with Chapeau bowling party

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / K.C. Jordan, LJI reporter, Pontiac

K.C. Jordan, LJI Reporter

There were strikes and spares aplenty at Pontiac Pride’s first bowling event, hosted Saturday afternoon at Chapeau’s Harrington Community Hall.
Participants, mostly members of the Pontiac Pride group, laughed and joked with each other as they tried their hand at Chapeau’s retro five-pin lanes. The soundtrack to the afternoon was set by member Erica Ouimet, who is known as DJ Erica Energy behind the turntables.
The hall’s bowling alley is a blast from the past. The two edge-grain lanes have been around since 1964, according to bowling employee Yogi Brisard. They feature pink art-deco pinsetter machines and orange, space-age looking ball returners.
Brisard said they are the only bowling lanes in the upper Pontiac, and he is “pretty sure” the closest operational alleys are in Aylmer, near Gatineau.
The bowling event was the third put on by Pontiac Pride this year, after a square dance in February and a drag show earlier this month.
According to Pontiac Pride’s Facebook page, they are a county-wide organization that “aims to grow 2SLGBTQAI+ representation and visibility within our community.” The group is still relatively young, founded in 2022.
Chapeau resident Darlene Pashak started the group. Living close to the Ontario border, Pashak had seen other municipalities in the Ottawa Valley like Pembroke and Renfrew raise Pride flags in the streets, and she wanted to see the same in the Pontiac.
“We wrote letters to the municipalities and said, ‘why don’t you fly the Pride flag?’, and had great success.”
Alongside Ouimet, who uses they/them pronouns, and their partner Mitch Gagnon, Pashak continued that momentum forward. The new organization held the Pontiac’s first-ever Pride festival in 2022, with about 250 people in attendance.
But the second festival didn’t go as smoothly. Ouimet said they had to hire security because they were receiving hate from the community.
Le Patro, the community organization that hosted the festival in its first year, was “facing harassment almost daily for hosting us there,” Ouimet said.
“They were getting threats. There was talk of protests.”
Pashak said attendance at their Pride events has since dropped. Ouimet says many people are scared of coming to events like these, for fear of backlash.
“It’s a pretty difficult environment right now,” they said. “There’s a lot of hate being spewed across the U.S. and Canada, and we’re finding that a lot of the queer community is fearful of being in an open environment.”
Ouimet is part of the events committee, and they say they just want to create inclusive spaces where people can feel safe expressing themselves.
“We simply have events. We invite anybody. We’re happy to have anybody come bowling with us, or check out our festival. But we’re not telling anyone they have to participate.”
Being a smaller Pride community, they take inspiration from communities in Pembroke, Renfrew and Deep River. Ouimet said seeing these groups thrive gives them hope for what Pontiac Pride could become.
“Those are also small rural communities that are fighting the same uphill battles that we are,” they said. “I would like to bring representation for kids who are facing the same things that I did, and as an adult I’m still facing, because of backlash in my community and just wanting a space of our own.”
Saturday’s event at the bowling lanes in Chapeau was just that — a space of their own. Maybe, in part, because nobody seems to know the lanes are there. Ouimet said they chose bowling for the event because the committee had only recently learned about the lanes, and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to help people discover a hidden gem.
Going forward, Pashak wants to expand Pontiac Pride’s offerings. She wants the group to be doing more advocacy, but said first it needs more members to help with outreach.
“The committee is pretty much the same people as it was at the beginning,” she said. “We are always accepting new members.”
She says geography is one of their biggest challenges in pulling together events.
“We’re having our event in Chapeau today, and I’m the only one in the committee in Chapeau. The next closest is Coulonge, and the bulk of our committee members are from Shawville. It’s hard to get the feeling like we’re servicing the whole area.”

Pontiac Pride finding its groove with Chapeau bowling party Read More »

‘Young and young at heart’ at Coronation Hall country dance

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Bristol, LJI reporter, Sophie Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Two-steppers and square dancers, and even a group of line dancers all the way from Chapeau returned Bristol’s Coronation Hall to its former dance hall glory on Saturday evening, filling the venue for a few hours of good old-fashioned boot-stomping, toe-tapping, do-si-do fun.
To the tune of live music from the Dennis Harrington & Heritage Country band, dancers of all ages took turns prancing across the cleared space in front of the stage.
When the young peewee square dancers from the Shawville 4-H Club took the floor, in traditional square dancing outfits and with 11-year-old member Eloise Thompson calling the steps from the stage, the seasoned dancers admired the younger talent from the tables that lined the perimeter of the room.
And when it was the older generation’s turn up on the dance floor again, the 4-H dancers flooded the hall’s front lawn, taking the opportunity to practice their steps, twirl their skirts, and offer themselves as dinner to the teams of mosquitos that had also shown up for the unofficial season launch party of Coronation Hall.
“This hall, that’s what it should be for,” said Norma Graham, mother to the hall’s owner Greg Graham, and the visionary behind the event. “Never mind anything else, it should host country dances.”
Norma said the Grahams had put on a similar dance night to celebrate Coronation Hall’s 15th anniversary last October, which was the first time the Dennis Harrington & Heritage Country band played at the venue.
She said Harrington was keen to do it again, and that she, who loves the enthusiasm and energy that a square dancing event almost guarantees, did not need convincing.
Greg Graham said the dance hall, built in the 1930s, used to host community dances every Friday night.
“All the young, and young at heart, would come here to dance. And they’d dance dances like this. Every little village and town had a dance hall.”
“The era of the dance halls wrapped up in the 1960s,” Greg said, explaining that the introduction of better cars and better roads meant people discarded their loyalties to the dancehall in their own small village once it became more feasible to attend dances in the region’s bigger towns.
This Bristol dance hall shut down in the 1960s, and remained more or less abandoned until the Graham family reopened it in 2008.

“It feels amazing, it’s got real life to it,” Graham said, describing the thrill of seeing his hall vibrate with the energy of the people who seemed so happy to be there.
4-H dancers celebrate
successful season
Fifteen members of the Shawville 4-H Club’s three square dancing teams had a little extra pep in their step on Saturday evening, thanks to confidence gained after wrapping up another competition season.
Gillian MacDougall, one of the club’s two square dancing coaches, said the members had been practicing once a week since February.
In April, those keen on competing showed off their best moves at the Ormstown Square Dance competition and the Vankleek Hill Fiddle and Dance competition, where many members took home prizes.
“But we’re not just doing it to compete, we’re doing it for social skills. Learning how to dance and adapt to other people, that’s also a skill,” MacDougall emphasized.
For two of the club’s younger members, the prizes were indeed a big part of the fun.
“Me and Elly won first place,” Braylie Bullis told THE EQUITY, taking a break from dancing.
“Twice!” Bullis’ dancing partner Elly Ingalls chimed in, smiling. “It felt good to win.”
Bullis and Ingalls won best peewee couple at the Ormstown competition, where the club’s peewee team, made up of members Elly Ingalls, Braylie Bullis, Beth McCann, Rebecca Stephens, James Stephens, Laurel Sally, Reid Thompson and Eleanor Lafromboise, also placed first in its division.
Eloise Thompson, 11, figured she was likely the youngest caller competing in the junior category at the Ormstown competition, and she, in what was her first year calling, won first place in her division.
“It’s a lot more work than I thought it would be, because you have to memorize the call without the paper,” Thompson said. “And there’s a lot of pressure on the caller before you go up on stage.”
After more than a decade of square dancing with the club, twenty-year-old Amy Sheppard decided she would also try her hand at calling this year, and won best junior caller at the Vankleek Hill competition.
“When I’m talking to the older community they talk about how squaredancers used to dance in high school and I’ve always found that so cool,” Sheppard said, describing part of what has inspired her to stick with dancing all of these years.
“I just thought, ‘Yeah let’s keep it alive.’”

‘Young and young at heart’ at Coronation Hall country dance Read More »

MRC launches new round of FRR2 funding

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / LJI reporter, MRC Pontiac, Sophie Dickson

$600,000 available for community projects in 2024

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

The MRC Pontiac is once again accepting applications from municipalities and non-profit organizations wishing to receive provincial funding, distributed by the MRC, for community projects they hope to develop in 2024.
This year the MRC has $600,000 from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s Region and Rurality fund (FRR 2) to give to economic development projects in the region, making this round of funding the largest in the past four.
The funding announcement came on Tuesday afternoon at the Brauwerk Hoffman brewery in Campbell’s Bay, where mayors and representatives from community groups had gathered to celebrate the 23 projects that received funding in 2023.
“It’s the provincial government that gave us the ability to do these FRR grants, and with $600,000 for 2024, I can’t wait to see what projects we’re going to receive,” Pontiac warden Jane Toller said to the small crowd.
Sabrina Ayres is the socio-economic development coordinator for the MRC, responsible for coordinating the funds and grants the MRC’s economic development team is responsible for managing.
She explained it is the Council of Mayors that decides on the MRC’s priorities when it comes to how it distributes this funding.
“In the past we have changed priorities annually, but over the last few years they’ve been the same six priorities,” Ayres explained.
The application guidelines list these priority areas are tourism, culture and heritage, economic growth, agriculture, socio-community, environment, and forestry.
A separate independent committee, made up of Karim El Kerch (CJEP – OBNL representative), Nikki Buechler (citizen representative), Stéphane Labine (regional organization representative), as well as Mayors Christine Francoeur and Doris Ranger, then reviews the applications and makes recommendations to the Council of Mayors on which projects should be funded.
Mayors make the final decision through resolution at their meeting in September.
All applications are due to the MRC by July 11.
The 2023 FRR2 funding went towards buying new audio-visual equipment for the Pontiac Archives, supporting the Bryson RA’s day camp, funding construction the new market building in Chapeau, and buying solar street lamps for Shawville’s Main Street, to name but a handful of the nearly two dozen projects supported by the grant.
Last year another $2 million from stream 4 of the Regions and Rurality fund (FRR 4) was given out to a different batch of community projects.
Ayers explained the 2023 round of funding from this FRR 4 stream was the last for the foreseeable future.

MRC launches new round of FRR2 funding Read More »

Mayors vote to abandon incinerator project

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Charles Dickson, LJI reporter, pontiac county

Charles Dickson, LJI Reporter

A campaign waged for more than a year by Pontiac County warden Jane Toller to win support for her energy-from-waste (EFW) project appears to have come to an end.
In a vote held at the MRC building on Wednesday evening, all 18 of Pontiac county’s mayors supported a motion tabled by Litchfield mayor Colleen Larivière calling for the complete abandonment of the project.
The motion stipulated that all procedures and/or actions by the warden and by the MRC staff be ceased immediately in regards to the energy-from-waste incinerator project, and that no funds from the MRC Pontiac budget, or any type of grant or program money be allocated for any expenses, studies, communications, etc., relating to the project.
The Litchfield motion also provided that MRC’s waste management committee and staff responsible for waste management invest all their efforts into the preparation of a zero-waste policy for MRC Pontiac.
On this last point, Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence proposed a unanimously agreed change to the wording to the effect that the committee and staff focus their efforts “to aspire to zero waste as outlined in the objectives of the 2022-2030 PGMR [residual materials management plan], and to continue working with the three MRCs and the City of Gatineau to find the best regional solution for our residual waste.”
The requirement in the Litchfield motion that the energy-from-waste incinerator project be abandoned completely remained intact in the final resolution when it received unanimous support around the MRC table of mayors.
The move follows the May 6 decision by Litchfield’s municipal council to table a motion at the May 15 meeting of MRC Pontiac’s Council of Mayors to cease all expenditure and work related to the project.
The Litchfield resolution followed the emergence of considerable anti-incinerator sentiment expressed by the public at a series of five presentations on the subject convened by the MRC throughout the Pontiac in March and April, culminating in 16 of the county’s 18 municipal councils passing resolutions opposing the project.
In the public question period prior to the vote at Wednesday’s meeting, Jennifer Quaile, speaking on behalf of a citizens’ advocacy group, Friends of the Pontiac, reported that, as of May 12, the group’s anti-incinerator petition had received 3,255 signatures, of which 73 per cent (2,376) are residents of Pontiac County.
In a radio interview with Warden Toller following the meeting, CHIP FM reporter Caleb Nickerson asked the warden whether, in light of all the opposition to the project, she still considers Pontiac to be a willing host, whether for incineration or other technologies.
“You know, we never really had a chance to test how the whole population feels,” Toller responded.
“We have 14,700 people. Tonight, we heard about the petition. Kim [Lesage, director general of MRC Pontiac] did the math – 73 per cent from the Pontiac, and that was after eight months of getting names – that’s only 16 per cent of the population,” she said.
“I have always felt it’s very important to represent what the majority of people want. The majority, in my mind, is 51 per cent. I don’t know what 51 per cent of people want but, by the time we do find the best solution, I’ll make sure that 51 per cent support it.”

Toller said the resolutions passed by multiple municipal councils in opposition to the incinerator was due to pressure from citizen activists.
“The votes that took place in each municipal council is because they had people right at the meeting, and our mayors and councils have never experienced such political pressure, public pressure.”
Later in the CHIP interview, in response to Nickerson’s question as to why the Deloitte-Ramboll analysis was based on the 400,000-ton figure, which he described as “faulty information,” the warden said that she and Kari Richardson [environmental coordinator at MRC Pontiac] had augmented the number “so that it could be the largest amount of waste, bringing it as a resource, that could create 45 megawatts of electricity, that’s why.”
“It was not Ramboll or Deloitte that started with those numbers. We provided all the numbers to them, we did, based on all the potential partners we could think of. And actually, with Ottawa we were also including the ICI [industrial, commercial and institutional waste], so it wasn’t just the residential waste,” Warden Toller explained. Voir aussi la déclaration de la préfete, page 6.
Other issues
Other issues raised in the public question period included the 370 per cent increase in the valuation of properties in the municipality of Alleyn and Cawood. Angela Giroux from Danford Lake said her municipality is already paying increased shares to the MRC this year based on the evaluations for next year. “This needs to be a collaborative discussion between all the mayors to say ‘we cannot take this increase, because the numbers are ridiculous,’” she said. The warden assured her that the mayor and director general of the municipality are working on this and that she will do whatever she can.
A delegation of former employees of the abattoir in Shawville asked the warden whether the MRC, which has purchased the assets of the business, would hire them back. For more on this, please see the story: MRC buys abattoir assets https://www.theequity.ca/246158-2/

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Quyon’s Barbotte Supper makes a comeback

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter, Quyon

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Quyon locals enjoyed a feast of barbotte and homemade french fries for the first time in 15 years on Thursday evening, celebrating the return of the the Quyon Legion’s Barbotte Supper tradition.
The sold out event, last held in 2009, saw 120 pounds of potatoes and over 130 pounds of barbotte, otherwise known as brown bullhead catfish, seasoned, fried and served to the community.
The Legion hall was bustling with people sitting down to enjoy some freshly fried fish and chips, with dozens of people lined up at the serving table, waiting for the trays of barbotte as they cycled through the back door.
Volunteers were put to work behind the Legion hall, with nine people working non-stop to fry dozens of pounds of fish at a time, while piles of sliced potatoes sat in large blue bins, waiting their turn in the deep fryer.
When the freshly prepared food finally hit the serving table, the team had to scramble to keep the supplies stocked as hungry and nostalgic attendees filled their plates.
Vicky Leach, one of the organizers for the event, said she was happy to see the return of the traditional supper, which has been frequently requested by people from the region over the years
“We’ve had people asking us ‘When are you doing it?’ So this year, we finally decided that we were going to go ahead and put it on,” Leach said.
Leach explained that putting on the event involved a massive team effort from the volunteers, recounting how eight people spent the day prior to the event preparing all the fish and slicing the potatoes..
“They used to get anywhere between 250 to 300 pounds of barbotte for the supper. We don’t quite have that much this year, but this is our first time too,” Leach said.
People attending the event could choose to order the fish and fries for take-out, or dine-in at the Legion hall. Leach believes the event was also a chance to bring new members to the town’s Legion.
Darlene Morris is a member of the Quyon Legion and was one of the people who has been patiently awaiting the return of the town tradition.
Morris’ parents used to own a chip wagon in Quyon and would prepare all of the fish and potatoes to be served at the feast.
“It was through the fishing game club in Quyon [ . . . ] They would get all the barbotte supper arranged and my parents would come in with the chip wagon and cook everything for them,” Morris said.
Morris explained that despite the popularity of the Barbotte Supper, her parents sold the chip wagon in 2009. Combined with the closing of the Quyon fish and game club, the event didn’t make its comeback until last week.
With the initial success of the first Barbotte Supper, the Quyon Legion hopes the event will make a return next year.

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Building potted bouquets for Mother’s Day

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Guillaume Laflamme, LJI reporter, shawville

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Children and their parents gathered at the Shawville Community Lodge on Thursday to build a potted floral arrangement for their mothers and learn about gardening in the process.
The event was organized by The Parents’ Voice and was hosted by Lindsay Hamilton, a longtime gardener and owner of the Homegrown Garden Center in Quyon.
“I wanted them to get a little dirty,” Hamilton said. “Plus, I wanted them to be able to get a little bit creative. Pick out a plant that maybe is of interest to them and have fun picking out the different plants and how they go . . .

together, the different colours that can go together and shapes and textures.”
Hamilton used the activity of potting a flower arrangement as an opportunity to teach the kids about soil and its components, as well as about plant structure, and the role the plant’s roots play in its overall health.
“I try to throw in a lot of education on how to actually build a beautiful planter so that the moms and the dads can take a little bit of knowledge home with them as well,” Hamilton said.
Emily McCann attended the workshop with her daughter, Ruby-Ann Fraser. With the help of Hamilton, Fraser built a potted floral arrangement of black and purple flowers, which she said are her favourite colours.
McCann believes the event was educational for both the kids and the parents.
“I know Lindsay really well, and when I saw that she was doing this for the kids, I thought it was a great opportunity,” McCann said. “She’s so great with kids. It’s amazing how she can explain things to a six-year-old so that it makes sense and makes it fun. She’s really good at what she does.”
Hamilton, whose family owns Mountainview Turf Farm, explained she became passionate about gardening when she was in university studying turfgrass science. On the weekends, she would volunteer at the campus greenhouses, tending to the plants.
After graduating, she returned to the family farm, and began building her gardening business. “I applaud The Parents’ Voice for coming up with it [the workshop]. Truthfully it was completely their idea and their initiative, and I’m just happy to be a part of it and be able to contribute to it,” Hamilton said.
“We thought that with the weather coming around, we would really like to give kids an opportunity to create something fun as a potential gift for Mother’s Day,” said Shelley Heaphy, committee member for The Parents’ Voice.
“We think it’s pretty amazing how she’s developed this side of her business, and we were happy to support it,” Heaphy said.

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Shawville sidewalks get lit

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / LJI reporter, shawville, Sophie Kuijper Dickson

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Illumination of the Main Street sidewalk in Shawville is no longer at the whims of often faulty Hydro Québec street lights.
In April, the municipality installed 12 solar-powered street lamps along the street’s northern sidewalk – seven west of Centre Street, and five east of it.
The new lights are thanks to a collaboration between the municipality and Jill McBane, owner of Main Street’s Boutique Shawville Shooz, who many years ago took it upon herself to raise money for their purchase.
“As a store owner here I have no outside lights. In the winter time when you close up at 4 or 5 p.m. It’s pretty dark out there,” McBane said.
“When you’re in other towns and you see all of these nice attractive lights plus they’re serving a purpose, I’m like, ‘Why can’t Shawville have these?’”
McBane joined forces with the local business group Shop Shawville to organize street markets over the years that doubled as fundraising events for the lights.
When Richard Armitage was elected to Shawville council, McBane did not waste any time getting him on board with her project.
“When I got elected in Nov. 2021, the very next day Jill contacted me and told me that she had a project underway to get sidewalk lamp posts on this side of Main Street,” Councillor Armitage recalled, sitting in an armchair in McBane’s shoe store last week.
“She contacted me about once every two weeks for two years, and we finally got it done,” he laughed.
In total, the solar lamps cost $53,024.93. Shop Shawville raised $3,285 for the project, $40,423 was covered by a Volet 2 grant from MRC Pontiac, and the remaining $9,316.14 was paid for by Shawville.
“Without the help of Richard and Shawville council we’d be still raising money for these lamps,” McBane said.
“If they hadn’t gotten the grant, I was going to start an auction or do something to jump up the process because at $15 a table it would take me forever to raise the money.”
Installation of the lights began at the end of March.
The municipality decided to set the lamps along the business side of the sidewalk and away from the sidewalk’s edge to prevent the posts from being hit by car doors and bumpers, and make snow clearing easier.
Armitage said the municipality learned the perils of installing objects along the street edge of Main Street’s sidewalks when it put in some trees, before he was elected councillor.
This spring, only two trees were left standing, and one of them was dead, so the municipality decided to remove them and plant new trees at Mill Dam Park where they would be protected from the offenses of parking cars and snow removal machinery.
“Most of them got killed by getting hit with bumpers and stuff, and street salt. It’s just not a friendly environment for trees,” Armitage said, noting the hope is that placing the new lamps right along the storefronts will increase their lifespan and make it easier for people to park on Main Street.

HQ street lamps unreliable
It’s not that Shawville’s Main Street has been without street lights all of these years.
The municipality pays $78,000 a year to rent and electrify 220 street lights from Hydro Québec. About 20 of these are along Main Street.
In exchange, Hydro Québec is supposed to maintain the lights.
But Armitage said that many of the lights are currently out of order, and that often when repairs are made, they only last a few days.
“The sidewalk is dark, and we have a lot of issues with hydro street lights not working,” he said.
It’s for this reason that in the winter of 2022, the municipality decided to purchase the streetlights from Hydro Québec and signed an agreement with the corporation to that effect.
The purchase agreement stated that the hydro company had 12 months to repair all street lights, at which point Shawville would buy them for $55,000, about the cost of a year’s rental.
Once Shawville owns the lights, the operating cost would drop to about $25,000 a year.
Armitage said the sale was to be complete by Feb. 2023, but that the municipality still has not been able to purchase the lights.
“Hydro still hasn’t gotten about 50-some lights working. They come and they fix them and they’re out in two days. It’s just an ongoing battle with Hydro,” Armitage said.
“So thank goodness these [solar] lights work.”

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Poker run raises funds for Bryson Grand Calumet fire department

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Bryson, Glen Hartle, LJI reporter

Glen Hartle, LJI Reporter

The Bryson Grand Calumet Fire Department (BGCP) hosted its annual poker run event on Saturday, with just over one hundred all-terrain vehicles venturing out into the warm and sunny day to follow the run’s planned route on Calumet Island and collect all cards needed to complete a poker hand.
“It was so cold last year. I was wearing my bunker suit [the suit used in fighting fires] – this year I got to wear my uniform,” said organizer and volunteer firefighter Kelly Nitschkie.
“This run was a fundraiser for the department and the success will help us deliver on our mandate,” Nitschkie said, while jubilantly adding, “It was an amazing day.”
Vehicles started out at Berard’s Store in Tancredia and spent the bulk of the course on the island using GPS coordinates to help guide them. At each checkpoint stop, participants collected playing cards in sealed envelopes.
The Lions Club in Bryson acted as the final stop on the run where participants handed in their sealed envelopes, which were subsequently opened to reveal a poker hand. Participants then had the option of swapping out a single card at a cost of $5 to improve their hand.
“When we do a fundraiser like this, it goes a long way in helping us get the equipment that we need,” said Assistant Fire Chief Jason Beaudoin.
“We are a small fire brigade and often the regulations that come down have financial obligations that make it difficult for us to keep up.”
The first place prize of $400 went to Christa Kelly, with Kaitlyn Zimmerling coming in second and Dominic Rousseau taking third.
“I have to thank the firefighters,” Beaudoin said after handing out the awards, making special mention of the new Firefighter 1 training program underway at École secondaire Sieur de Coulonge.
“When these kids come out of high school, they are technically certified firefighters and can start fighting fires in our municipalities.” (Firefighting training for Fort Coulonge students a first in Quebec, The Equity Nov. 2023).
Beaudoin then handed over the reins to the volunteer musical entertainment for the evening, The Dukes of Charteris, with his final words of, “It’s time to party.”
The band consisted of Bill Miron on drums, Robert Wills on guitar and vocals, Thomas Fishel on saxophone and vocals, and newcomer Clifford Welsh on bass and vocals.
And entertain they did with a robust collection of classics, all adjusted for their brand of country charm. Miron was a joy to watch on drums as he animated his way around the various tunes and Fishel kicked things up a notch with both his saxophone and collection of harmonicas. Collectively, they brought music to every corner of the hall and feet to every inch of the dance floor.
The Lions Club played perfect host, providing the hall complete with a chili supper. President Betty Leach welcomed attendees, Melanie Beriault and Barb Sparling ran the canteen, and Relics Leach took care of kitchen duties, which included cooking up a big pot of chili.
Some scant six weeks after their last big event, The Fireman’s Ball, the Bryson Grand Calumet Fire Department lived up to its reputation for hosting must-attend community events, and the Lions Club once again stepped up to show that they are an integral part of that community.

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

Local Journalism Initiative / The Equity / May 29, 2024 / Alleyn and Cawood, Charles Dickson, LJI reporter

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

Charles Dickson, LJI Reporter

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

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

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