Quebec elections

Sophie Kuijper Dickson – LJI reporter

With just over three months left before the end of her second term as MRC Pontiac’s first elected warden, Jane Toller has announced she will not be running for a third term in the upcoming municipal election.

She shared the decision with a small group of local reporters on Wednesday morning at the Spruceholme Inn in Fort Coulonge, one of several businesses she owns in the municipality.

“After a significant amount of thought and prayer, as this is a very difficult decision for me to make, I have decided not to seek re-election as the warden of the MRC Pontiac,” Toller said, standing in front of paintings of her great-great-grandparents George Bryson Sr. (who served as warden in 1862) and his wife Robina Cobb, as well as a sign displaying the 11 development priorities she says have guided her eight years as warden.

She said after much reflection, she made this decision to step away from public office to be able to focus on completing her Doctor of Ministry, which she has recently begun, to invest more time developing the businesses she owns, and to spend more time with her family, including the seven grandchildren who have been born since she began her first term in 2017.

“My children need to see more of me. And I want my grandchildren to know me. I want to play an important role in their lives,” Toller said.

She expressed gratitude to Pontiac residents and MRC staff for trusting her in the position, and pride in the revitalization work accomplished during her mandate.

In 2021, Toller won with 3,301 votes (52.69 per cent), collecting 337 votes more than her opponent Mike McCrank. In 2017, she won 3,597 (47 per cent) of the 7,653 votes cast.

“This has been the best job I’ve ever had. I believe the revitalization is in full swing and we have reversed the predicted forecast of a downward trend.”

Reflections on energy-from-waste

Regarding Toller’s push for the development of an energy-from-waste garbage incinerator at the Pontiac Industrial Park in Litchfield in her second term, she said it was “an experience,” but that she has no regrets.

“Looking back on everything that happened last year, I’ve only grown and benefitted from the experience. [ . . . ] From a percentage of the population I received a lot of opposition. And I do know, because I’m told every day, that the majority of people who weren’t speaking up were happy we were at least studying it,” she said.

“And I will say too, it takes courage to even attempt a hot-potato item like that. [ . . . ] I think in the end it all worked out for the best. I don’t think Pontiac was the best location. [ . . . ] It got personal, but you know, that’s part of the job, you just have to be able to let that go and understand people need to vent.”

Toller said she plans to continue her community support efforts through business development, with a specific focus on bringing a public swimming pool to the Pontiac, a project on which she has been working since before she was first elected.

She said both attempts at securing provincial funding for the project have failed, but that she has found a new way to get it built.

Toller said she is happy to see two local politicians – Campbell’s Bay councillors Josey Bouchard and Jean-Pierre Landry – have already expressed their intention to run for her seat, and that she believes others will likely join the race now that she’s announced her decision not to run.

“I am very fortunate to have had two mandates,” she said. “We don’t have term limits, but I do think it’s important to step aside and let someone else take the torch.”

Sophie Kuijper Dickson – LJI reporter

While the municipal election is still months away, and the official nomination period only opens mid-September, two new faces have declared their intention to run for warden in the fall.

Josey Bouchard and Jean-Pierre Landry, both councillors for the Municipality of Campbell’s Bay, have confirmed they plan to make a go for the region’s highest public office position come September.

“New challenge for me this fall, I’m running to be the next warden MRC Pontiac,” Josey Bouchard announced in a July 9 post to her private Facebook account.

Bouchard has worked as a teacher for over 30 years, is a co-founder of local healthcare advocacy group Pontiac Voice, and is in her first term as councillor.

She was campaign manager for her mother, Charlotte L’Écuyer, both when she served as Pontiac MNA, as well as when she ran for MRC Pontiac warden in the 2017 election.

Bouchard said she has been mulling the decision for about a year,

“It’s been a process, because you think about the ins and outs, the positives and negatives, because public service is not an easy thing at all. [ . . . ] Of course as a teacher, as a health advocate, being a town councillor, it’s sort of the normal progression of saying, ‘Maybe I can be even more useful there [as warden],’” she said.

“Of course everybody is [in politics] for their own sets of reasons, so it’s to try to make sure we look forward all together to the 21st century, and that we’re ready to take on all the challenges that comes with that, especially in this volatile environment we’re in,” she added, alluding to the economic turmoil caused by U.S. president Donald Trump, and particularly the local impacts of U.S. tariffs.

Jean-Pierre Landry has also confirmed his intention to run for the warden’s seat this fall, as was first reported by Pontiac radio station CHIP FM.

Landry, whose family moved to the Pontiac in 1967 from Shawinigan when he was four years old, is in his second term as municipal councillor in Campbell’s Bay since being elected in 2017.

He also served in the role in the late ‘90s, and over the years has served on boards of various local community organizations.

“I had some people approaching me, asking me if I was considering maybe running in the elections for warden, so knowing that there was a public interest for my candidacy, j’ai dit okay.”

Landry said he was approached with the same question ahead of the 2021 elections, but that he decided not to run at that point as his children were still young and he was still working full-time.

Now he is retired from his 33-year career working for Services Québec in Campbell’s Bay, and teaches part-time at École secondaire Sieur de Coulonge.

“It is my adopted region, I am very proud of the Pontiac, and I know there is potential here, as much in the people as in our resources,” he said.

“Why not give it a try? I’m available, I have experience, I love the place.”

MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller has not yet announced whether she intends to run for a third term in the seat.

“At this point I have four months left in my current term. I am working hard, focused on completing as many projects as possible by November,” she wrote in an email to THE EQUITY.

“I am happy to see others stepping forward as the race for the warden position is an important one. I will confirm my future plans at a later date.”

The nomination period during which candidates must submit their names for the Nov. 2 election is between Sept. 19 and Oct. 3.