MRC Pontiac

Four municipalities sign new fire service agreement

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K.C. Jordan – LJI reporter

Bryson, Calumet Island, Campbell’s Bay and Litchfield municipalities will benefit from a shared fire service agreement as of July 1, the four municipalities announced in a joint press release on June 11.

With the new agreement, firefighters from all four municipalities will operate as a single department, administered by the Municipality of Campbell’s Bay.

“All firefighters from the four municipalities will be dispatched at the same time,” said Campbell’s Bay director general Sarah Bertrand. “It’s like one big fire department now.”

The Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield Fire Department has been responding to structure fires in Bryson and Calumet Island in an unofficial manner since 2011, when local fire departments were subjected to new minimum requirements that the Bryson and Calumet Island departments were not able to meet.

A 2012 merger between the Bryson and Calumet Island departments was not enough to help those municipalities meet the required number of firefighters to achieve a strike force, so Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield has remained responsible for structure fires on the territory ever since.

Under this lastest agreement, the Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield department will still be responsible for structure fires on the territory but can now benefit from the resources of the Bryson and Calumet departments, including fire trucks, firefighters and equipment, in responding to those fires.

Campbell’s Bay mayor Raymond Pilon said a shared budget will make it easier to pool resources, like the fire truck, as well as make new purchases for the department.

“When it comes to the decision to replace a truck, the money will be there [ . . . ] sharing this between four municipalities makes it a lot more affordable,” he said as an example.

While fire halls in Bryson and Calumet Island will continue to be used, those two municipalities will continue to respond to non-structural calls in their territory. “Power line down, bonfire in somebody’s backyard, we’ll each do our own,” said Kluke.

Additionally, firefighters from those halls will be dispatched from a single location, meaning response times are not affected.

“What’s happening now is a formalized, pre-planned service agreement, not just mutual assistance,” said Julien Gagnon, MRC Pontiac’s public security coordinator, in an email.

“This creates predictable staffing, ensures dispatch is streamlined, and clarifies financial and legal responsibilities. It’s a shift from, ‘We’ll help if you need us’ to ‘We’re your designated fire service.’”

Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield chief Kevin Kluke, who will act as chief of the shared service, said the agreement will boost firefighter numbers from around 25 to around 45, making it easier to meet service levels.

“Sometimes Bryson has two or three. Sometimes we don’t have our eight here. So by putting it together, we’re going to hit our eight 100 per cent of the time, and that’s the biggest problem,” he said.

Pilon said the agreement will also improve the department’s consistency, making sure all firefighters have the right training and that all equipment is inspected and up to snuff.

“Now, everybody’s working under their own municipality, but this will be one big team that is working and training together,” he said. “We will make sure all the equipment is up to par, and that the firefighters are up to par in their training also.”

The budget for the agreement will be shared between the four municipalities, with Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield and Bryson-Calumet Island departments splitting the cost down the middle.

Bryson mayor Alain Gagnon said although his municipality will contribute 20 per cent of the overall budget, he believes the service will be better for his residents because it will be able to meet provincial requirements.

“If there was a house fire, we were calling Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield automatically. During the weekdays, [when] people working are out of town, we don’t have the minimum eight, so you’re always calling your neighbours to help out. So this time with the four of us it will be a lot easier.”

Gagnon confirmed that Bryson has purchased a “new-to-them” fire truck, which will be ready for service within a few weeks.

Litchfield mayor Colleen Larivière said while her municipality pays slightly more than Campbell’s Bay into the agreement due in part to the larger size of its territory, it is still a good deal because it makes for a better service.

“It benefits us as much as them because it gives us the manpower we need, and the equipment, and vice-versa,” she said.

“I’m very pleased that we finally came to a consensus and we’re all on the same page, and I think it’s going to provide a better service for our residents.”

Public security coordinator Gagnon said shared fire service agreements like these are becoming more common due to more stringent requirements from the province, but also because they help municipalities to pool resources.

“No single municipality could afford a full-time fire chief on staff to ensure this management, but together this becomes possible and affordable,” he wrote.

“From a public security standpoint, [these agreements] simplify coordination, reduce liability, and improve training consistency across departments. They also promote better equipment sharing and long-term sustainability for the fire services involved, all the while not actually changing the service to the population.”

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Quebec adopts new flood zone regulations

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Sophie Kuijper Dickson – LJI Reporter

Quebec’s environment ministry has adopted a new framework that will be used to define flood zones across the province and regulate what is permitted in each zone.

Under Quebec’s previous regulations, residents could find themselves in flood zones where risk was defined as either a one-in-20-year chance of flooding, or a one-in-one hundred-year chance, a framing of flood probability that was often misunderstood.

The province’s new regulations, adopted last week, create five new flood zones, each defined by factors such as frequency and depth of flood, and each with their own set of rules as to what kind of construction or renovation is permitted in said zone.

The maps indicating exactly where these flood zones will be, however, will not be available to the public until Mar. 2026, when the new regulations will come into effect.

In a press conference on June 12, environment minister Benoit Charette emphasized his government is not creating new flood zones, rather accurately identifying and regulating activity in flood zones that already exist.

“We want to make sure people have the good information about where they live. Today it’s not the case because many of these maps are not up to date,” Charette said.

“Without these changes, you are or you’re not in a flood zone. The risk is not considered. Now, everybody will know exactly what kind of risk they are facing at their residence. So it’s a major change of thinking but it’s for the protection of the people and their goods.”

Charette said while he won’t have a confirmed number until the final maps are released, he estimates approximately 30 per cent more homes will fall in a flood zone under the new maps, bringing the number of Quebec residences in a flood zone from 25,000 to approximately 35,000.

This estimate is significantly lower than last year’s predictions from the ministry, which figured some 77,000 homes would find themselves in a flood zone determined by the new maps.

On Thursday, Charette attempted to ease anticipated anxieties from homeowners across the province who are worried about the implications of suddenly finding themselves in a flood zone, where before they were not.

“Those who are not today in a flooding zone, and those who will become, it’s because the risk is very very low,” he said.
Pontiac MNA André Fortin said he cannot imagine how this might be reassuring to residents anxious about the future of their homes.

“Even the low-level flood maps will have implications for what people can and cannot do, and will have an impact probably on the value of their home. So you can’t treat this lightly,” he told THE EQUITY, emphasizing his greatest concern with the adoption of these new flood zone regulations is that the ministry has yet to publish any maps.

“We’re still in a situation where we’re debating regulations while people who may be affected by this don’t know if they’re in flood zones or not. It’s hard for people to understand the implications of the regulations without a clear mapping of the flood maps [ . . . ] Everybody is at this point flying blind,” he said.“The other thing that’s an obvious miss for us is that there’s a refusal on the part of the ministry to allow residents a way to contest the mapping.”

Five new flood risk zones

The new flood zone categories are determined by risk as well as depth of flooding.

Very high-risk flood zones see frequent flooding of 30 cm or more. The province defines ‘frequent’ as a 70 per cent chance of flooding at least once in 25 years.

High-risk zones see frequent flooding under 30 cm, or somewhat frequent flooding of over 30 cm. Medium-risk zones see somewhat frequent flooding under 30 cm, or infrequent flooding of more than 60 cm, and low-risk zones see infrequent flooding of less than 60 cm. The province defines ‘infrequent’ as an area that has between a seven and 20 per cent chance of flooding in 25 years.

The fifth zone created following consultations with municipalities over the past year is for areas that are protected by flood prevention infrastructure such as a dike or retaining wall.

Depending on the category in which a property falls, different regulations will apply. Property owners in all categories can replace a roof, change windows, and do interior renovations.

Those who end up in the very high-risk category would not be allowed to build a new house or rebuild one that has been destroyed, if the damages cost more than 50 per cent of what it would cost to replace the building. As well, new structures cannot be built in very high risk zones. Renovations to make the home more flood resistant, however, would be possible.

Property owners who find themselves in the high-risk category will be able to erect new buildings and rebuild after a flood, with certain restrictions.

Residents who find themselves in a low-risk category will have few restrictions applied to them. They will be able to expand their buildings, do substantial renovations, and reconstruct after flooding without restrictions.

All of these regulations will come into force in Mar. 2026, at which time the new flood maps will also be shared.

Until then, the province’s current transition maps, established after the 2017 and 2019 floods, will remain in place.

To help municipalities roll out these regulations, the environment ministry has formed a committee that will receive feedback on regulations and address questions about implications of the maps that still don’t have answers.

For Fortin, this one of the only silver linings in the new regulations.

“That’s a positive step,” he said. “That means we’re not set in stone forever and that there’s an opportunity for ongoing improvement of the regulations.”

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100 Mile Arts hosts networking event for Pontiac creatives

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Emma McGrath – LJI Reporter

Wakefield-based arts non-profit 100 Mile Arts Network hosted its first Pontiac networking event on Thursday evening at the Spruceholme Inn in Fort Coulonge.

The non-profit works to support English-speaking creative professionals across the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais, MRC Pontiac, and MRC de la Vallée-de-la-Gatineau by connecting artists, venues, and organizations to strengthen and promote talent across the regions. While it’s been doing this work since 2017, most of its efforts have been focused on the Gatineau Valley area.

Thursday’s event was its first organized with the express purpose of bringing together Pontiac artists, and offered itself as a relaxed, informal get-together designed to help local artists and arts groups connect, discuss shared challenges and perhaps spark future collaboration.

Representatives from local organizations, including the Pontiac Community Players theater group and Pontiac Enchanté, the Luskville-based classical music concert series, spoke briefly about the hurdles they’ve encountered as arts programmers in the Pontiac region.

Val Twolan-Graham, vice-president of Pontiac Community Players, shared one of the group’s goals is to grow its audience and attract participation from across the Pontiac, but said the region’s large geographical span makes this difficult.

Carson Becke of Pontiac Enchanté, emphasized the importance of cultural investment in rural areas.

“I don’t think it is right that the culture gets collected in big cities and these regions are considered satellites. I think regions have to have their own cultural identities, and they have to be invested in,” he said.

“Our ambitions are to provide concerts elsewhere in the Pontiac. I’m intrigued by seeing the Spruceholme Inn.

This is a place I could totally imagine presenting concerts in the future,” he added, offering evidence the event’s purpose – providing opportunities for artistic collaborations within the Pontiac – was producing results.

In a conversation with THE EQUITY, Sebastien Molgat, communications director for 100 Mile Arts Network, echoed many of the challenges expressed by arts facilitators at the event.

“If you look at a map you can very quickly see it’s all rural. These areas have been home to artists for a long time and there have been strong communities built around that. But there isn’t a lot of infrastructure, compared to cities for example, to meet each other and to come together for shows,” he said.

“It’s sometimes hard to feel like you’re a part of a community when everybody is so spread out, and not very visible.”

Molgat emphasized English-speaking artists in Quebec often lack the support systems more readily available to their francophone peers.

“As a minority community in Quebec, newfound artists don’t quite have the same community foundation that perhaps francophone artists might have and that historically has extended to practical support opportunities, [such as] places at a community level for them to show their art, and financial support to carry out their activities,” Molgat said.

Following presentations, the group gathered around a piano where classical pianists Sureen Barry and Carson Becke of Pontiac Enchanté played four beautiful duets for the group.

Becke shared that he and Barry “used to hate each other” in their youth, as they were each other’s fiercest rivals in piano competitions. However, he said later into adulthood, the two discovered that their collaboration offers them more success and enjoyment.

Their story and performance echoed the purpose of the evening, and the ethos of the 100 Mile Arts Network: that when artists come together, something truly beautiful can emerge.

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Campbell’s Bay consults on draft of greening plan

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K.C. Jordan – LJI Reporter

Campbell’s Bay residents got a peek on Thursday at the plan its municipality hopes will increase the town’s resilience to climate change, improve road safety and beautify its downtown core.

The public consultation was the second hosted by CREDDO, the Outaouais environmental organization with which the municipality has partnered to develop the plan for greening the municipality’s downtown core.

Last June the municipality announced $70,000 in funding from Quebec’s environment ministry to undergo the first phase of a project to develop a greening master plan, aimed at reducing the impact of climate change on lived environments.

As part of this program, Outaouais environmental organization CREDDO began mapping out a plan to reduce the impacts of urban heat islands in the municipality and improve stormwater management.

In January, CREDDO employees invited residents to give feedback about what kinds of infrastructure they would like to see and which areas they would like to see improved in this greening effort, then created a draft based on the feedback.

The draft, which was shared with the public on Thursday evening, proposes work for priority areas highlighted by residents in the first consultation, including Front Street, Leslie Street, and near the Maurice Beauregard Memorial Park.

It shows certain areas near the waterfront could see trees, shrubs and perennials planted to improve flood management, while other streets in town could see varying amounts of greenery and integrated rainwater management put in.

The draft proposed areas where green outcroppings could narrow various roads, including three along Leslie Street and one at each extreme of the downtown core on Front Street.

It also showed digital renderings of examples of various kinds of infrastructure that could be installed, including planting trees, installing green parking zones, and narrowing streets using vegetation.

Anta Kama, the project lead with CREDDO, said the options presented were not final, and the intention was to hear from the community and council about what kinds of infrastructure and locations they wanted to see prioritized.

“We will start meeting with [the council] next week to make sure that we are aligned on the prioritization and that we actually select the sites that we’re going to work on,” she said, adding that they will use the feedback to create a final plan to be presented to council late this summer.

Campbell’s Bay director general Sarah Bertrand said the draft plan appeared to reflect what the community asked for at the first consultation.

“It’s about reducing heat islands, greening mineral areas, as well as helping manage our stormwater drainage in conjunction with road safety,” she said.

She said a safety study done with engineers a few years ago found a need to make the Leslie Street corridor safer, as a large number of students walk the street to and from St. John’s Elementary School.

“If we can enhance the road safety of our streets for our users, that’s what would make the option prioritized,” she said, adding that the municipality will not make any final decisions about what to prioritize until the plan is finalized in September.

“We don’t know what options are going to be chosen [and] we don’t know the price to those options,” she said.

As part of a provincial grant for the Oasis program approved last spring, Campbell’s Bay will contribute 20 per cent of the cost of creating the plan, with the province contributing the rest.

Bertrand said once the plans are finalized, the municipality will then be able to apply for a second grant through the program which can be used to go out for tender and then also complete the construction work.

“Most likely the council will have to secure additional funding,” she said, adding that there are grants from the provincial transportation ministry and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities available as well.

She said the plan the municipality will get out of the program will hopefully allow it to apply for additional grants in the future.

“This shows that the municipality has already begun [the work], we’re serious, and we’ve already invested money and time into it,” she said.

CREDDO will spend this summer reviewing feedback from Thursday’s consultation and will present the final version of the plan to council at the end of the summer, before unveiling the plan to the public at the third and final consultation in September.

Upon the program’s completion in September, Campbell’s Bay will join Thurso as the only two Outaouais municipalities to have completed the greening plan program.

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FilloGreen fined $125K for improper 2018 waste disposal

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Sophie Kuijper Dickson – LJI Reporter

The Litchfield-based Centre FilloGreen sorting centre has been fined $125,000 by Quebec’s environment ministry for violating the Environment Quality Act in 2018.

The sorting centre and transfer site, located in the Pontiac Industrial Park, collects, receives and processes dry construction, renovation and demolition (CRD) materials.

In July 2024, it also signed a contract with MRC Pontiac for the collection and transportation of the region’s household waste to the landfill in Lachute.

According to a June 4 press release published by the Ministry of Environment, an Apr. 14 decision found the company guilty of improper disposal of residual materials on its Litchfield site in 2018, leading to a $100,000 fine and a $25,000 fee that had to be paid to the province’s funds for justice access and victims of crime.

Louis Potvin, a spokesperson for the environment ministry, said an investigation found that pieces of wood, plastic, cardboard and compostable materials mixed with plastic and cardboard were dumped on the site in a place other than a place where their storage, treatment or disposal was authorized by the ministry. This is in contravention of article 66 of the act.

“They did not have ministerial authorization to dispose of residual materials [on their site],” Potvin told THE EQUITY.

“You need authorization from the ministry to have this kind of site. You can’t dump residual materials just anywhere in Quebec.”

But FilloGreen environmental technician Laurent Kiefer says there’s more to the story. He said in 2014 the company had applied for a certificate of approval (CA) to run a landfill for dry construction materials, as at that time the only certificate it had was for sorting these materials.

He said the province’s environment ministry had indicated it would be granting the certificate but the process was taking a long time.

“So we were waiting for that, and after three years we decided to stockpile some material on the site, the old landfill site for Smurfit Stone,” Kiefer said, explaining they only did so because they had been led to believe the granting of their landfill permit was imminent.

When, in 2019, the environment ministry issued an order for the company to stop prohibited disposal practices on its site, this after the company had already been fined $40,000 for four previous infractions, FilloGreen, frustrated it had yet to receive its landfill permit for construction waste, took the order to court.
Kiefer said in court FilloGreen successfully struck a deal with the ministry in which it agreed to follow the ministry’s order in exchange for being granted its long-requested landfill permit and a clean slate.

“But they never mentioned we were going to get a fine two years after about something from before that deal,” Kiefer said, explaining the fine, which was only delivered in May 2023, was for an infraction investigated in 2018.

Potvin said there are different levels of infractions. First offenses usually get a notice of non-compliance and a request the company rectifies the situation.

In 2019 THE EQUITY reported that since 2013, the sorting centre has received 10 notices of non-compliance from the ministry.

“If the situation is not corrected, an administrative penalty may be imposed on the company,” Potvin explained.

He said in some cases, such as this one, infractions are transferred to the province’s Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions. FilloGreen’s infraction file was transferred to this department in 2021, the same year it reached its agreement with the environment ministry.

“We were respecting every law and everything, and then three years after, we get the fine,” said FilloGreen co-owner Roch Gauvreau, recalling the surprise he felt when he received the fine in 2023.

He said while he disputed the validity of the fine, as he felt it undermined his agreement with the environment ministry, the company decided to plead guilty to this latest fine to remain in good standing with the environment ministry.

“If we weren’t following what they were saying, they wouldn’t give us anything,” Gauvreau said, pointing to the four CAs FilloGreen has obtained since 2021 as evidence that it has been following environmental regulations, including a permit for stocking contaminated soil, to operate as a transfer station for household waste, and to resell CRD material.

“It’s past due, it’s been a while and it’s not representative of what we’re actually doing right now.”

Regarding intentions his father Roma Gauvreau has previously stated in letters published in local media indicating a desire to open a landfill for household waste at the Litchfield site, Gauvreau said, the company is not pushing for that right now.

“That’s my dad’s point of view. That’s different from me. We’re open to everything but we’re not pushing for that. Right now it’s not the priority.”

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Alleyn and Cawood wantsaccess to Pontiac schools

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Sophie Kuijper Dickson – LJI Reporter

A committee of parents and municipal leaders has formed in Alleyn and Cawood to look into what it would take for their kids to get school bus transportation to the French and English high schools in the Pontiac.

While Alleyn and Cawood is one of 18 municipalities in MRC Pontiac, the Hauts-bois-de-l’Outaouais and Western Quebec school boards’ boundaries send kids from the municipality to either the French high school in Gracefield, or St. Michael’s, the English high school in Low.

This is of concern for Alleyn and Cawood councillor Sidney Squitti, who in January tabled a resolution, passed by council, requesting the school boards revise ,these boundaries, and at April’s council meeting tabled another resolution to form a working committee tasked with exploring the expansion of the school bus boundaries.

“This revision will ensure that students from Alleyn and Cawood can access programs that align with community needs, providing them with opportunities to contribute to vital services, such as firefighting and skilled trades, thereby strengthening the municipality as a whole,” the January resolution reads.

Squitti says children should have access to unique programs offered at the high schools in their own community, pointing to the Firefighter 1 training program at École secondaire Sieur de Coulonge and the welding program at Pontiac High School.

“There’s opportunities there that the youth here don’t have access to, so we’re just hoping we can get them access to these opportunities,” Squitti told THE EQUITY ahead of Saturday’s meeting.

“We are hoping to provide our youth with choices. Creating choices of where they can obtain their education is the ultimate goal.”

On Saturday, Squitti invited community members interested in joining the committee to meet for the first time.

The group formed a committee – officially called the School Transportation Committee – focused its mission, and chose a chair.

“We have officially named the committee ‘School Transportation Committee’ as it is not necessarily a change in boundaries that we are looking for. We simply want transportation for our youth to attend secondary school in the Pontiac if they choose to do so,” Squitti said.

She noted the committee had decided it would not work to have the school boundaries changed, as this would be a big project that would involve getting the consent of other municipalities involved.

“We just want our youth to have the opportunity to choose between Low and Gracefield or Shawville and Fort Coulonge,” she said. “There are different opportunities available in the Pontiac than there are in other schools.”

She said she’s also heard from parents who have concerns with challenges getting access to continuing education and elementary school programs in the Pontiac, but for now, the committee will focus on high school access.

Committee members are Alleyn and Cawood councillor Ross (Guy) Bergeron, director general Isabelle Cardinal, Rebecca Gravelin, councillor Sidney Squitti, Western Quebec School Board ward three commissioner Tracey Moore, Joseph Squitti and committee chair and councillor Mona Giroux.

“Even myself as a mom with a nine-year-old right now, this is something I’m thinking about too,” said Isabelle Cardinal.

“I want to give my daughter as many opportunities as she can have. And Sidney has young kids too, so we kind of are wearing both hats ourselves, being with the municipality and being parents as well.”

George Singfield, director general for the Western Quebec School Board, explained it’s the board’s council of commissioners that determines the school boundaries, and that the buses align with whatever the school boundaries are.

He said he understands parents in Alleyn and Cawood might be frustrated as buses used to take kids to Pontiac high schools many years ago.

“Any parent can apply for a cross boundary transfer,” he said. “But if they’re accepted, the transportation is not attached.”

The committee now plans to gather a list of names of children who would be interested in attending schools in the Pontiac to bring to the school boards as evidence of interest in this project.

“We want to ensure our youth don’t drop out of high school because they don’t have something that keeps them interested, a goal at the end other than just a high school diploma.”

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Pontiac seniors’ life expectancy 1.5 years below Outaouais average, CISSSO finds

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Sophie Kuijper Dickson – LJI Reporter

Following the publication of a report on the state of seniors’ health across the Outaouais earlier this month, Outaouais healthcare authority CISSSO has shared Pontiac-specific statistics that offer greater insight into the health of residents aged 65 and older in this slice of the region.

At an event hosted in Campbell’s Bay on May 22, representatives of the local healthcare network shared key findings with the 110 seniors from across the Pontiac who gathered to discuss challenges associated with aging in this region and brainstorm solutions.

Overall, the report found life expectancy in the Pontiac to be lower than the regional average (79.4 in the Pontiac vs. 81.1 across the Outaouais), the portion of people without a secondary degree to be higher (by 8 per cent), the percentage of smokers to be higher (20.9 per cent vs. 14.8 per cent), and the average income to be lower ($27,200 in the Pontiac vs. $31,400 Outaouais-wide).

On the other hand, 53.1 per cent of Pontiac seniors claim to be more or less satisfied with their social life, compared to 49.7 per cent Outaouais-wide.

“For us, it’s not new information, but to be able to put a number on certain things can help encourage partners and other organizations to work with us,” said Nicole Boucher-Larivière, CISSSO’s director of health and social services for the Pontiac.

“For example, the 40 per cent of people not having a high school diploma. Well it can help us pass the message that we need to adapt the way we communicate with our population to make sure the message is properly getting out there.”

She said the numbers that jump out for her are those that shine a light on the state of respiratory and cardiovascular illness in the region.

Short-term hospitalizations for chronic illness of the respiratory, digestive and circulatory systems are higher in the Pontiac than across the Outaouais.

Per 10,000 people, 397 short-term hospitalizations in the Pontiac were caused by chronic illness related to the circulatory system, as compared to 251.7 per 10,000 across the Outaouais.

Likewise, short-term hospitalizations for chronic respiratory illness are at 184 per 10,000 people in the Pontiac, while the Outaouais’ average is 129 per 10,000.

Boucher-Larivière said while these higher numbers are in part due to the fact that doctors at the Pontiac hospital may in some cases retain patients who live far from the hospital longer than needed to make follow-ups easier, there is more to the story.

“Some of the most important [numbers] for me are the problems with respiratory and heart conditions we have in the area. We’re above average by a lot, and we know that our consummation of cigarettes and vaping is through the roof, but they are directly related, and it’s not always seen that way,” she said.

“Our life expectancy is down by 1.5 years for that specific reason. So we need to work on cardiac issues and chronic respiratory diseases to bring back the healthy life expectancy for that population.”

In the Pontiac, 3.6 per cent more deaths of people 65 and over are caused by cancer than across the Outaouais, and 4.5 per cent more deaths are caused by heart disease.

Boucher-Larivière said one big challenge to improving the local population’s cardiac and respiratory health is the use of vapes instead of cigarettes.

“[People are] vaping in the car with their kids, in their house with their 85-year-old mom, people are vaping thinking because there’s no smell for the people around them, but it’s just as dangerous, if not more. That information is not out there.”

Lack of transport, communication key challenges

Following CISSSO’s presentation, attendees were invited to discuss strengths, challenges, and possible strategies for improving access to three key determiners of a healthy lifestyle: physical activity, isolation and loneliness, and food security.

At one table, a group from the Chapeau and Chichester area discussed the lack of exercise options for seniors in the upper Pontiac, as well as the lack of options for socialization. While the day centre offers weekly exercise classes, some felt they could use more frequent opportunities to get out of the house.

“We were hoping to get better service than we have in the west end of Pontiac. The service is not real bad, but it’s not good,” said 86-year-old Earl Lapine, who had traveled to the event with his 97-year-old brother and 87-year-old friend. “There’s not enough people [up there] to make it worthwhile for them to come. I think that is the problem [ . . . ] I’d like them to be up more to take us out.”

At another table, Georgette Robitaille of Bryson shared quite the opposite experience, noting the local Golden Age Club offers exercise classes several times a week, and then on the off days, she does exercises at home. She said this routine, combined with the frequent visits she has with her family and the time she spends with her friends make it possible for her to keep a positive outlook as she gets older.

“I’m never anxious of aging. I like to say I’m young at heart, as long as I can.”

While the region’s many support networks, including Golden Age clubs and Lions clubs, were highlighted as local strengths, most discussions eventually came back to the need for more transportation services to ensure seniors are able to get access to the many services they need, get groceries, and see their friends, and better communication strategies that can help seniors stay in the know.

Limitations to the numbers

The data used by CISSSO to produce this study was collected by the government of Quebec through various means but is largely based on numbers from the last census, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and from information gathered through telephone surveys.

Bristol senior Val Twolan-Graham raised concerns with how the data was collected, asking specifically about how many people were surveyed, and in what age group.

“When it’s presented as data from just 65 on, there could be a huge amount of fluctuation between answers of a 66-year-old and an 87-year-old in a community,” she said explaining that, based on her work organizing various supports for seniors in her own community, she knows that the needs of a 66-year-old, such as her self, will be fairly different from the needs of older seniors.

She also flagged concerns with the age of the data used in the report, a concern echoed by Boucher-Larivière.

“The difficulty we have, because it’s done at a provincial level, is there’s a three year delay before we get the numbers, and then we need a year to analyse and put into a form that can be digested, so there’s always a four year delay,” Boucher-Larivière said, noting the pandemic will have skewed certain statistics used.

“We’d like to find funding to do a local survey so we could have the numbers right away.”

Pontiac seniors’ life expectancy 1.5 years below Outaouais average, CISSSO finds Read More »

Mayors call on province to speed up cell coverage timeline

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

K.C. Jordan – LJI Reporter

MRC Pontiac mayors voted on May 21 to call on the province to prioritize cellular coverage improvements in the Outaouais and Pontiac in its master plan to better service rural communities, after the region was omitted from a plan to do so elsewhere in the province by next year.

In 2022, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) promised to implement full cell coverage in rural regions of the province by 2026. By 2024 construction was under way on the 84 sites it had chosen for the first phase of the project, and in June 2024 the party announced an additional $170 million investment in an additional 100 locations.

While work in the Outaouais region was originally slated to be finished by the next provincial elections in 2026, MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller said she learned the work would be delayed despite the MRC not having been informed.

“I feel it’s not acceptable,” Toller said. “We have many zones where there is no service and this is very difficult for us because of many reasons.”

Waltham mayor Odette Godin and Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence tabled a similar motion at an MRC Pontiac council meeting in Jan. 2024, which demanded the province prioritize cellular service in the upper Pontiac and cited several public safety incidents that had occurred due to the lack of cell reception.
THE EQUITY reported at that time that a Waltham woman had died because she had collapsed and the TransporAction driver who was there to pick her up could not reach emergency services in time due to the poor signal.

“That’s one example, emergencies,” Toller said on Friday. “Second, when people are coming to bring businesses or purchase homes, the first thing they ask is about cellular service.”
She said according to her conversations with Pontiac MNA André Fortin the government may not have entirely been the cause of the delay.

In an email to THE EQUITY, Fortin shared what he knew of the plans.

“The government is still promising to roll out cell phone coverage, but they are dependent on companies doing it,” he said. “There doesn’t appear to be a clear game plan for many areas including parts of the Pontiac and the Gatineau Valley.”

Toller said she expects the work should be completed by 2028.

$250K for PPJ maintenance

Mayors also voted in favour of a new funding program that will pay for certain routine maintenance operations of the Cycloparc PPJ.

MRC director general Kim Lesage said the transportation ministry will cover 50 per cent of all expenses related to maintenance. “It could be for signs, it could be for seasonal employees, the tractor, even the gas that we put in the tractor, the stone dust, replacing culverts, everything we do on the bike path,” she said.

The MRC will contribute $125,000 total toward this project, $85,000 of which comes from FRR stream 2 funding while another $40,000 comes from municipal share revenues. It will ask for another $125,000 from the ministry.

“There will be an inspection, probably next month, of the whole trail and determine where we are going to do upgrades,” she said. “We are looking at putting in new gates, some of them are needing to be replaced.”

Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence read a notice of motion about a proposed bylaw change relating to the Cycloparc PPJ which, if passed, would allow certain motorized vehicles access the trail in specific cases.

Lesage said the idea is to update the existing bylaw that has been in place since 1998 to reflect the fact that there are certain motorized vehicles that wish to use the trail.

“Before, it said ‘No vehicles are allowed.’ Well, now we’re saying maybe there are vehicles allowed,” she said, listing e-bikes as an example of vehicles that will be allowed on the trail if the bylaw is passed by the mayors.
Lesage also said the bylaw could also allow “van lifers” – visitors who travel in camper vans and stay at the MRC’s dedicated van stops – to park their vans on the wider parts of the trail.

“For example, in Campbell’s Bay in front of the park there’s that big parking lot, there’s room to park with a van, so it’s making it easier that way,” she said.

She said the PPJ is an asset the MRC must use and maintain well and make accessible for all of its users if it is to be a driver of tourism in the region.

“[It’s about] quality of life, exercise, fresh air, we have the path so we want people to use it. It brings people into different towns and they get to discover and come back, or tell their friends to come.”

MRC to release composting call for interest

Mayors also voted in favour of the MRC releasing a call for interest for the management of organic waste in the county.

MRC environmental coordinator Nina Digiaocchino said the MRC wants to put out a call for interest in order to gauge interest and cost before proceeding with a call for tender.

“We hope to be able to establish what the actual cost would be involved,” she wrote in an email. “And also help determine if there are any local or other businesses that would be interested to handle the collection, transport and or possible processing of compost.”

She said the call for interest should be released by mid-June, and will ask companies to draft proposals for various scenarios.

“Backyard composting continues to be encouraged and works very well in certain areas. However, the type of program we are looking at here includes a much larger array of acceptable materials such as fats, meats and essentially anything produced in your kitchen,” she said.

Mayors call on province to speed up cell coverage timeline Read More »

FilloGreen wins MRC garbage contract

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

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 »

MRC Pontiac to centralize recycling collection

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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 »

MRC Pontiac launches new agritourism route highlighting local producers

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

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 »

Dumoine’s Tote Road trail complete

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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 »

MRC launches new round of FRR2 funding

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$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 »

Incinerator town hall series wraps up

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Stopping the project requires 10 mayors to vote against it, but there is no plan for another vote, says warden

Charles Dickson, LJI Reporter

The series of five town hall-styled meetings hosted by MRC Pontiac to present its “initial business case” on the proposed garbage incineration project concluded last week with the final sessions held on Tuesday evening in Campbell’s Bay and on Wednesday evening in Otter Lake.
At both events, Jane Toller, the warden of MRC Pontiac, welcomed the people gathered, estimated to be slightly more than a hundred in Campbell’s Bay and slightly fewer in Otter Lake.
Both meetings opened with the image of a 2008 issue of THE EQUITY projected on the screen, featuring a front-page story about the plan to build a garbage incinerator near Shawville. The warden described how subsequent councils explored options for an incinerator up until 2012.
“In the end, there was insufficient tonnage to move forward,” she said, explaining that there was a suggestion at the time to investigate possibilities to secure garbage in Gatineau and Ottawa.
“So, I think that this clarifies a lot about our history, and that it [the proposal for a garbage incinerator] hasn’t just started this year with the current MRC Council of Mayors,” she said.
When the warden turned things over to Corey Spence, mayor of Allumettes Island, to make the presentation, he prefaced his remarks with a description of the warden’s motivation in advancing the project.
“Over the past year, Warden Toller diligently navigated the complexities of the energy-from-waste issue, with the hope of exploring a project where the Pontiac could play a leading role in the new paradigm of the circular economy,” he said.
Spence continued with a reference to a video recording in which Dr. Paul Connett, a long-standing critic of garbage incineration, enumerates a range of his concerns about the environmental, health and economic consequences of the technology.
“Unfortunately, a video was widely circulating in social media effectively sowing fear and uncertainty with regards to waste-to-energy technologies, even before the MRC had a chance to fully contemplate the project,” Spence said.
In the ensuing exchanges at both gatherings, much of the same ground was covered as in previous presentations, both in terms of what was presented and how the audience reacted. Farmers raised their concerns about the effect that pollution from the incinerator falling on agricultural lands could have on consumer demand for their products. Some raised the issue of the potential contamination of Pontiac’s environment and the impact it would have on tourism in the area. Others expressed worries about the health implications, including cancer, and our already over-burdened health care system. Concern was raised about the impact on our highways. And, as with the previous meetings, the audience of a hundred people, plus or minus, was overwhelmingly opposed to the project.
Colleen Larivière, the mayor of Litchfield, the municipality in which the MRC intends to locate the proposed incinerator, was in the audience at the Campbell’s Bay meeting.
“The Litchfield municipal council has made very clear their stand on the incinerator. We oppose it, we adopted a motion that we’re opposed,” she said.
“We have 5,000 tons of garbage in the Pontiac. That’s what we should be talking about,” she said to loud applause. “We’ve been talking about composting and recycling at the MRC for three years now. We haven’t gotten very far. Let’s work on that,” Larivière said.
In light of the opposition at both meetings, the warden commented that it is a minority of the people who are opposed to the project who come to the meetings, while people who support it stay home. She said that the environmental assessment, when everyone is consulted, would provide a better indication of the level of support for the project.
One man asked what tipping point would need to be reached for the MRC to abandon this project.
“Or do you intend to carry on with this despite angry meetings all over the place? If you’re not getting the drift by now, I don’t know if you ever will,” he asked.

“It would be when 10 mayors decide they don’t want to study this any further,” the warden replied. “But we also are not planning to have a vote for a while, so there’s nothing to vote on,” she clarified.
MRC posts initial business
case online and then takes it down
Meanwhile, the initial business case produced by consulting firms Deloitte and Ramboll, the subject of the series of public meetings which the warden had promised would be made available to the public as of last Thursday, was initially posted on the MRC website and then pulled down.
In a statement issued on Monday of this week, the MRC alluded to an apparent disagreement between MRC Pontiac and the two firms over a detail of the contract governing publication of the document.
“We were advised Friday morning by the parties involved that releasing these documents violated a third-party confidentiality clause that was written into the contract to commission the analysis,” the statement read.
“In our opinion, these documents are in the public domain since they were paid for with taxpayers’ money. That said, we have for the time being removed the links to the documents while we carry out legal verifications concerning the publication of these documents.”

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