Ruby Pratka

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A federal loan program intended to promote the construction of affordable, wheelchair-accessible rental housing units has led to the construction of 48,000 units across the country, according to the federal government. However, despite the fact that Quebec has nearly a quarter of Canada’s population and the highest proportion of renters of any province – nearly 60 per cent of Quebecers rent, according to a recent Angus Reid poll – less than 5,400 of those units are in the province. 

The $55-billion Rental Construction Financing Initiative has existed in various forms since 2017 and received a $15-billion funding top-up in this year’s federal budget. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which administers the program, it provides low-cost funding to eligible borrowers during the riskiest phase of product development of rental apartments.

The program, aimed at “general-interest” housing – housing other than seniors’ and students’ residences –  offers low-interest loans ranging from a minimum of $1,000,000 up to 100 per cent of the cost of the residential component. Eligible projects must contain at least five rental housing units, respond to a need for rental supply, and contain at least 20 per cent affordable units (defined as rent below 30 per cent of the median total family income for the region where the unit will be built) for at least ten years. (Projects which have received additional funding from municipal or provincial affordable housing initiatives may be exempt from the federal affordability requirement.) They must also feature 10 per cent wheelchair accessible units and meet certain energy efficiency requirements. Developers must “prove financial and operational availability” to be considered.

Compton-Stanstead MP Marie-Claude Bibeau is among the Liberal MPs promoting this initiative – a key plank of the government’s housing strategy – across the country. “Making loans more accessible to encourage construction of housing while making sure some apartments are reserved to be affordable is important for us,” she told the BCN. “We want private entrepreneurs to know this money is available under very interesting conditions.”

When the top-up to the program was first announced earlier this year, NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan told reporters it would make only a small dent in the affordable housing crisis, stating that “97 per cent of the units built are not affordable.” Bibeau responded that definitions of “affordable housing” vary according to region and other circumstances. “Maybe they [the NDP] were using different affordability criteria,” she said.

Bibeau said she expected buildings financed by the program to be built “pretty quickly.”

“We’re talking about loans from an experienced organization [the CMHC] so that wouldn’t create unreasonable delays.”

Bibeau said she hoped 131,000 new rental units would be built across the country by 2031 as a result of the recent $15-billion top-up.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A Cowansville man may be facing homelessness due to a little-known provision in the province’s tenants’ rights regulations.

Donald Guénard, 70, has lived in a 3 ½ in a four-plex on Rue Principale in Cowansville for the past 26 years. In February 2022, he and his neighbours learned that the building, recently purchased by the local construction company Groupe Schinck, was slated to be demolished.

While his neighbours have been able to find alternative options in the interim, Guénard, a retiree who lives on a fixed income of about $1,800 per month, has not. “The ones who moved, they paid crazy prices,” he said. For the past two years, his rent has been $425 per month. “There’s nothing like that anymore, and I don’t have the means to pay more. Now I only have a couple of weeks to find something.”

Under most circumstances, it’s illegal to evict people like Guénard – low-income seniors 70 and older who have lived at the same address for more than 10 years. If Guénard had chosen to move before his 70th birthday, he would ordinarily have been entitled to compensation equivalent to two years’ rent. In case of a disagreement between himself and the property owner, he could appeal to the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) the province’s housing tribunal

However, those conditions only apply to classic “renovictions” and legal evictions  – where the property owner plans to expand or subdivide the unit, change its usage or adapt it for themselves or a relative. Because Groupe Schinck plans to demolish the four-plex rather than renovate it, Judge Anjuly Hamel of the TAL ruled, the housing court has no jurisdiction. It’s up to the municipality – which issues demolition permits through the municipal demolition committee – to manage demolition cases.

“Donald should be unevictable, but the fact that there’s a demolition permit means those criteria go out the window,” said Serge Racicot, Guénard’s friend, who is helping Guénard – who doesn’t have a computer, a cell phone or a car – navigate the process and find alternative housing. “His apartment is not in great shape but he doesn’t complain.”

Racicot explained that the new owners had the renters sign a new temporary lease in early 2022. Guénard successfully contested that lease before the TAL in 2023, but earlier this year he received another notice from a bailiff. “That was when we went to the TAL again…and they said that because there was now a demolition [planned], they didn’t have jurisdiction. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen.” The city demolition committee conditionally granted a demolition permit for Guénard’s building on March 26 of this year.

The BCN spoke briefly with a co-owner of Groupe Schinck who did not want to be named. They said they had met with Guénard and sincerely tried – so far unsuccessfully – to help him find alternative housing. They vehemently denied that the planned demolition was a renoviction in disguise, saying “if you saw the building, you’d know” why it was slated for demolition. According to a TAL submission, Groupe Schinck plans to build two six-plexes on the property after the four-plex is demolished.

Julie Coderre, a budgetary advisor at the renters’ rights organization ACEF Montérégie, has also been providing support to Guénard. She cosigned a letter to Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard about Guénard’s case. “As you already know, the citizens of Cowansville cannot oppose the demolition of their building before the TAL, because the city has a committee which takes the decision. When a building is demolished, most of the time, it is occupied by tenants who have affordable rents. These tenants will have great difficulty getting rehoused at an affordable price afterwards. Even if there is compensation, this amount will quickly run out with a much more expensive rent.”

She and Racicot are concerned that in light of the moratorium on evictions for subdivision, enlargement or change of usage that came into force last month, developers will exploit rules around demolition to tear down old buildings, build new ones and charge increased rent.

Racicot said he believed evictions for demolition should be regulated by the same rules around advance notice, compensation and contestation before the TAL as other kinds of evictions. “It’s not a table that you’re kicking out; it’s a person,” said Racicot. “I don’t know how Donald will manage.”

Fanny Poisson, a spokesperson for Mayor Sylvie Beauregard, said in a brief statement that the demolition committee “is sensitive to the realities of the rental market and obviously considers everything before making its decisions.”

That’s small consolation for Guénard, who says the situation has kept him awake at night. “Nothing new is going on here – just the machine winning again, to the detriment of a proletarian like me.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The long-planned $15-million expansion of the CHSLD de Bedford will not take place, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS announced late last week.

 Patient advocates had been pushing for an expansion since at least 2015, according to the non-profit Lévesque-Craighead Foundation, which raises money to support the CHSLD and other local public health facilities in and around Bedford. Plans to expand the facility were first announced in 2019 but ran into delays due to the pandemic. In May 2022, Brome-Missisquoi MNA Isabelle Charest and minister for seniors’ affairs Marguerite Blais announced details of an expansion plan which would allow the residence to accommodate up to 49 residents in private rooms and create a protected unit with eight places for people with cognitive disabilities who are susceptible to wandering, as the BCN reported at the time.

Last week, the CIUSSS announced the project was shelved due to a lack of demand. Residents will remain in double rooms.

Rosane Rivard, director of CHSLD services for the CIUSSS, said the demand for CHSLD places has dropped in recent years due to the increasing popularity of home care. “Current data shows that the CHSLD de Bedford, with its 42 beds, responds to demand,” she said. “Among the 42 beds, 39 are occupied, and six of those are users in transition, meaning that the CHSLD de Bedford wasn’t their first choice.”

Certain smaller renovations will go ahead over the summer, and starting in the fall, the CIUSSS plans to put in place a “living space committee” (comité milieu de vie) with a range of community stakeholders. The cost and the extent of those renovations are still to be determined.

Christiane Granger, president of the Lévesque-Craighead Foundation, said the foundation was “very surprised at this 360-degree turn” by the CIUSSS.

Both Granger and Pierrette Messier-Peet, president of the Bedford Pole Health Committee (BPHC), said the cancellation shook their trust in the CIUSSS. “We’re very disappointed and demobilized – it puts our partnership in question,” Granger said.

“We’re all in shock,” Messier-Peet said. “They told us they would close 12 beds over the summer and those beds would reopen in the fall, but how do we know they’re not going to do another 360?”

Messier-Peet said that more than 25 per cent of the population of the Bedford area is made up of seniors 65 and older, and that sending older people who need CHSLD care outside of the region would make it harder for family and loved ones to take an active role in their care. “The government talks about localized services, but they’re closing services in the regions to focus on the cities. We have been working on this for 12 years and [the CIUSSS] just turned their back on it.”

The BPHC scheduled a public meeting on June 17 (after the BCN went to press) at the Centre Georges-Perron in Bedford. “Everyone is a bit shocked, and on Monday we’ll try to reassure people,” Messier-Peet said.

“It’s sad that we won’t have these beds – it’s especially sad for the foundation which has put a lot of effort and money into it. It’s sad that people who have lived their lives here might not be able to finish their lives here,” Bedford Mayor Claude Dubois said. He stopped short of saying he had lost confidence in the CIUSSS, saying “We just have to assume they’re acting in good faith.”

Rivard told the BCN that the 12 beds closed this summer were still expected to reopen this fall. According to a report in La Voix de l’Est, the CIUSSS’ most recent budget reflected a $43.8-million deficit.

“We are aware that some partners may be disappointed and we completely understand. We are continuing our partnership with a common goal of meeting the needs of the population. We have invested significantly in the development of home support services and we will improve the living environment at the CHSLD de Bedford,” CIUSSS spokesperson Karine Guay told the BCN.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Advocates for tenants’ and seniors’ rights are warning seniors who rent “not to sign anything” if they are proposed a new short-term lease out of the blue.

Earlier this spring, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government put in place a three-year moratorium on several common types of evictions; on May 22, a temporary ban on evictions with the stated goal of subdividing, enlarging or changing the usage of a unit took effect. However, as Sophie Dulude, director general of the renters’ rights group ACEF Montérégie-Ouest, explained, some landlords get around these restrictions by pressuring renters into breaking their leases of their own free will.

On June 12, dozens of tenants and their supporters protested in front of a complex on Boul. Fortin in Granby recently acquired by Laval-based company Immeubles Galleon, accusing the company of doing just that.

“The first indications we had were back in March, when a few people signed agreements breaking their leases and saying they had to leave for September,” Dulude said. “People would show up without warning around dinnertime or in the evening and try to get [renters] to sign agreements breaking their lease. There is a moratorium on evictions, but this is not an eviction, it’s a termination of the lease.”

“These are older folks with limited revenue, and some of them are more vulnerable,” said Madeleine Lepage, president of the Association québécoise pour les droits des retraités, which organized the June 12 protest. “About 25 of them broke their leases after 20 years or more. They were living in good, cheap, clean apartments – the kind of thing we would like to protect from speculators trying to enrich themselves on our backs.”

The renters who have terminated their leases are left in a difficult situation, with similarly priced units almost impossible to find, Dulude said.

Multiple sources have claimed that Immeubles Galleon is linked to Montreal-based speculator Henry Zavriyev, who made headlines in 2021 for trying and failing to turn the Mont-Carmel private seniors’ residence in Montreal into apartments, and that company representatives who went door-to-door at Mont-Carmel to persuade residents to break their leases had also been going door-to-door on Boul. Fortin. The BCN could not officially confirm this. Zavriyev rarely gives interviews; an email to the company he founded was redirected to Laval-based real estate agent Terry Geramainis, who did not respond to follow-up inquiries by press time.  

“Don’t sign anything”

Québec Solidaire housing critic Andrés Fontecilla has three words of advice for anyone faced with a person at their door trying to get them to sign a lease termination agreement. “Don’t sign anything.”

“As long as you haven’t broken your lease, you can stay where you are,” he said. “Contact your housing committee and make sure you have all the facts.”

Once a renter has signed the termination agreement, Dulude said, “there’s not much they can do” although they can try to go before the province’s housing tribunal and plead that they did not give informed consent before signing the termination agreement.

Although they agreed that the moratorium on classic renovictions was a step in the right direction, Dulude, Lepage and Fontecilla called on different levels of government to do more to discourage real estate speculation. “Housing is a right in Canada, not a piece of merchandise – you shouldn’t be able to kick people out of where they’re living to raise rents,” Dulude said. 

Dollard-des-Ormeaux School celebrates graduation 

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The 25 graduating students of Dollard- des-Ormeaux School in Shannon celebrated the end of their high school careers at a concise ceremony and reception at the school on June 6.

After the black-robed students marched in to the sounds of “Pomp and Circumstance,” principal Julie Carpentier congratulated the soon-to-be graduates on reaching this “exciting milestone” before yielding the floor to English teacher Paul Hudson, who spoke to students about the power of literature and its potential to help them grow as people.

“You’ve faced challenges, celebrated victories and grown in ways that you haven’t even realized yet,” he said. “You’ve learned about the courage to seek truth and stand against oppression in Night, the importance of individuality and innovation in Anthem, the impact of conflict in All Quiet on the Western Front and how 400-year-old themes can still ring true in our Shakespeare units.” Hudson said he hoped students would “remember to stand against oppression like Elie [Wiesel], cherish your own voice like Equality- 7-2521 and seek peace like Paul Bäumer.”

Central Québec School Board chairperson Stephen Burke, who will be stepping down after this fall’s school board elections after more than 35 years of involvement with the board, gave his yearly address to graduates.

“Some of you already know what your future will be and you’re ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime – your own life,” he said. “Others are still searching. … Whether it’s CEGEP, university, professional school, vocational training or the workforce, whichever path you choose, may it lead you to your own happiness.”

Salutatorian Amelia Béland gave a clear-eyed and sardonic address ending on a positive note. “Whatever you do, let it make you smile for no other reason than that you’re living.” Carpentier and colleague Nicholas Keats presented graduates with their diplomas, amid the shouts and cheers of parents, siblings and classmates.

Award presentations followed, including the Base Commander’s Cup, presented by Lt. Col. Enrico Pelle of CFB Valcartier; a new award in honour of recently deceased DDO teacher Terry Neville, presented by Neville’s brother Danny Neville, also a longtime DDO teacher, and the award’s founding donor, DDO alumnus Joseph McSween-Blanchard; and the Quebec Chronicle- Telegraph English Award.

Valedictorian Fifamin Minerva Houeto gave a rousing final address and presented the Book of Passage – a memory book containing messages from each cohort of DDO graduates to the next – to Secondary IV student Charlie Turcotte.

Carpentier then said the long-awaited words, “You may toss your caps!

Awalt’s Arcade gets QHS students playing on the same team

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

As Quebec High School students prepared for exams and graduation and started looking ahead to summer this past week, history teacher DJ Awalt’s classroom was one of the few places they weren’t eager to leave.

Over the past eight years, Awalt, who amassed a huge video game collection growing up in Prince Edward Island in the 90s, has transformed his classroom into Awalt’s Arcade, filling it with vintage game consoles. On their lunch breaks, students stream into the classroom, waiting in line to challenge their classmates to multiplayer games and try to beat each other’s high scores at Pac-Man, Mario Bros and other classics.

Awalt said the idea for the arcade started to take shape when his girlfriend noticed that the games were taking up rather a lot of space in the couple’s Quebec City apartment. At the same time, he said, “I saw kids on their phones during breaks, not talking to each other. I wanted to do something like an arcade to give them a place to socialize, because that’s what an arcade is supposed to be, a place where you play with your friends. Games are great for bringing people together.”

Students from throughout the school come to the arcade and get to know their class- mates. During the QCT’s recent visit, Mohammad, a shy Secondary IV student from Iran, who arrived in Quebec City with his family a few months ago speaking no French and hesitant English, spent the period re-enacting a Liverpool- Real Madrid match with four other older students on a FIFA console. Secondary I students Owen Mackenzie and Raphaël Cloutier were trying to beat Mackenzie’s pinball record. Other students lined up in front of an old TV to play a popular fishing game. Another Secondary I student said he’d learned about the arcade from his older sister and brother, and it was one of the reasons he chose to attend QHS. The annual weekend overnight game marathon, where Awalt keeps the arcade open all night, is the stuff of teen legend. Some of Awalt’s fellow teachers also drop in on their lunch breaks or after school, trying to outdo each other.

Awalt moved cheerfully from console to console, handing out extra controllers. “Now, kids play a lot of online games, and people aren’t always nice online,” he said.

“Everyone here,” Cloutier chimed in, “is nice.”

The younger students in the room are expected to finish high school in 2027 or 2028, after the planned opening of the new consolidated high school. Awalt hopes he’ll be able to take the arcade with him when the school moves, maybe even putting it in a separate space outside of his crowded classroom. “There’s a need for spaces like this in all schools, where students can have fun and socialize. We hope the same sense of community will still be there in the new school.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The “sunflower” program providing English-speaking hospital staff at Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital and Memphremagog Hospital with sunflower badges to make them easier to spot has roots in the Gaspé and Côte-Nord regions.

Lou Landry, communications co-ordinator at the Centre intégré de santé et des services sociaux (CISSS) de la Gaspésie, said a similar program, YelloMello, has existed in the Gaspé since at least 2021, in hospitals and clinics throughout the region.

“I am told that we are receiving positive feedback from the English-speaking population. … English-speaking people tell us that it allows them to more easily identify employees who will be able to answer their questions quickly. Several employees have also mentioned in the past that they are proud to participate in this initiative.”

The CISSS de la Côte-Nord has also had a program in place since 2021, where English-speaking employees wear yellow badge clips. About 400 staff have the badges, according to CISSS spokesperson Pascal Paradis.

Jody Lessard, based in Baie-Comeau, is the president of the North Shore Community Association, an advocacy group for English speakers in the Côte-Nord region, and also president of the regional access committee for English-language health services in the region. She explained that the initiative started with a voluntary list of bilingual employees. When the idea of giving employees a visual identifier came up, Lessard mentioned she had seen English-speaking health professionals in the Laurentians wearing yellow tags to indicate that they could provide English service.

The Côte-Nord yellow badge program was born. In the region, it’s known as the Assistant Linguistic Liaison Orientation (ALLO) program. “With the language laws we can’t use an English tag, but the ALLO [acronym] sounds like hello to an English speaker,” she said. “It has made patients less shy about asking for English service.”

Lessard explained that there are about 5,300 anglophones in the region, many of whom are older and many of whom live in remote Lower North Shore communities without second-line health care services or road links with the rest of the province. “The biggest challenge is transport – it’s a long drive, or you have to fly in, and then there’s an overnight stay. Health centres help organize transport, but it’s still a lot for a 15- or 30-minute consultation and the older you get, the more stressful that is, especially with the language barrier…but things have improved, and there are a lot of staff who can speak English. “ In addition to the ALLO program, Lessard said several North Shore institutions were putting pictograms in place to help non-French-speaking patients find their way around.

“It would be really nice if [yellow badges and pictograms] could spread across the province,” said Lessard. “Remember the ‘orange wave’ a few years ago? It would be nice to have a yellow wave in health care.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Bromont’s public transit projects are getting a new lease on life thanks to the city’s inclusion in a Canadian Federation of Municipalities (CFM) mobility-as-a-service pilot project.

Bromont is one of a dozen Quebec municipalities included in the CFM’s Green Municipal Fund initiative, coordinated by YHC Mobility. The CFM will pay half of the estimated $265,000 needed to put in place a car-sharing system in Bromont.

Bromont Mayor Louis Villeneuve told the BCN that the funding would allow the city to acquire at least one electric vehicle and make it available for car-sharing using a mobile app, similar to the Communauto car-sharing service available in major cities in Quebec but on a much smaller scale. There will also be tools within the app to book ride-shares and allow citizens to make their own cars available for car-sharing, “kind of like an on-demand, Bromontois Uber,” Villeneuve said. The app, he added, is already being used by the regional public transport service in the Gaspé.

Villeneuve was unsure when the first rides would be made available for citizens. “We need to do a needs assessment, create the tools and prepare the cars,” he said, adding that the full cost, schedules and insurance implications still need to be worked out in the coming weeks and months. 

In 2021, Bromont rolled out MOBI, a summer shuttle bus pilot project. The city initially planned to make a form of MOBI permanent on weekends, launch an on-demand taxi service on weekdays and set up a city-run car-sharing platform by 2024. That project ran into a roadblock after three calls for tenders failed to turn up any workable bids. Earlier this year, Amélie Casaubon, communications and citizen services co-ordinator at the Ville de Bromont, told the BCN the city was “working on a sustainable mobility plan, but it’s still at a very early stage.”

“We were very disappointed that MOBI was stopped – we still believe in it,” Villeneuve said. “With MOBI, we were a bit left to ourselves – we had to pay for everything and run three calls for tenders to get a single bid which we weren’t able to accept. We can move forward with the [Green Municipal Fund] project because it’s a pan-Canadian fund subsidized by an organization.”

“Eventually, we’d like to be able to take some cars off the road, to have transit for tourists who have just gotten off the bus, for young people, for elderly people, for people who have had a few drinks,” Villeneuve said. “It’s important to have public transit. It’s a no-brainer.”

No one from the CFM was available to comment at press time.

ICQ tables new offer as library strike drags on 

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Three months after employees in the Ville de Québec public library system began an unlimited general strike, the Institut canadien de Québec (ICQ), the city-funded nonprofit which oversees the library system, tabled a new proposed agreement on May 31.

In a statement, ICQ spokes- person Mélisa Imedjouben called the proposal “a final and global offer.”

“We hope the new offer will allow our team to go back to work and give citizens back full access to our libraries,” she said.

However, Roxane Larouche, spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Work- ers of Canada (UFCW, better known in Quebec by its French acronym TUAC), of which the library union is a member, said “several unanswered questions remained” in the proposed agreement. “We can- not present this offer to our members as long as we don’t have answers and the relevant documentation,” she told the QCT May 31. “We agreed to meet next week in order to have all the answers we need.” If the union executive agrees to put the proposal to a vote and members approve it, it could be several weeks before the strike ends, Larouche said.

Larouche could not share details of the proposal before members had seen it. Strikers’ main demands include more flexible scheduling, higher pay for entry-level staff and pay equivalent to Ville de Québec staff doing similar jobs.

The offer tabled last week is the fourth proposal aimed at ending the strike. In mid- April, the Ville de Québec, which finances the ICQ, rejected one proposal; another was rejected by union members in a narrow (52 per cent to 48 per cent) vote in April. Transition Québec leader Jackie Smith is organizing a citizens’ march in support of the strikers on June 8, starting at 1 p.m. at the Saint- Charles Library in Limoilou and marching to the Gabrielle- Roy Library in Saint-Roch. She said she had received more than 2,000 messages from constituents hoping for a swift end to the strike.

“A lot of people depend on libraries – families, retirees, homeless people, anyone who needs to get out of the house and go somewhere without having to spend money or be- ing rushed along,” said Smith, the mother of two young children. “It’s a place where neighbours can meet, where parents can take their kids for storytime … I’m so tired of reading the same books to my kids over and over again!” She also pointed out that with summer on the horizon, many people rely on libraries for air conditioning and summer reading programs for school- age children. “These kids have experienced the pandemic, the teachers’ strike and now they may lose their summer reading programs,” she said.

She accused the city of pinning the blame for the strike on the ICQ and wear- ing down striking employees with a long dispute. “It’s time for citizens to speak with one voice and say this is unacceptable,” she said. “Our librarians are important – pay them well, end this impasse and reopen the libraries, but not at any price.”

Three public libraries – the Gabrielle-Roy Library, the Monique-Corriveau Library in Sainte-Foy and the Étienne- Parent Library in Beauport – are open with reduced hours during the strike, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and 12 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. The other 23 libraries in the city are closed for the duration of the strike.

Staff and volunteers at BMP and Memphremagog hospitals are wearing these sunflowers to show they are able to serve patients in English. Photo courtesy of the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS. 

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Sunflowers are popping up at Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins (BMP) Hospital and Memphremagog Hospital. Employees and volunteers who are willing and able to serve patients and their families in English are wearing crocheted sunflowers on their badges.

The sunflower initiative is a joint pilot project of the Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital Foundation, the Memphremagog Hospital Foundation, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS and individual employees and volunteers who decide to wear the sunflower. According to the Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN), a provincewide advocacy network for access to health care in English in the regions, similar programs exist at hospitals in the Gaspé and Cote-Nord regions, and in Prince Edward Island, where flowers are used to identify French-speaking staff. 

English-speaking staff and volunteers at BMP and Memphremagog hospitals are wearing sunflowers on their badges.

Caroline Van Rossum is the point person for English services at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS. She said the CIUSSS obtained survey data which showed that English speakers in the Townships “didn’t always feel comfortable” asking for service in their first language.

Because BMP is not an officially bilingual hospital, English words can’t be used in signage, hence the decision to use a visual symbol, Van Rossum explained. A wordless symbol is also easier to understand for young children and people who have trouble reading. “The challenge now is making sure it’s well known, so [staff and volunteers] decide to wear it and patients know what it represents,” Van Rossum said. She said it was hard to know, this early in the project, whether the sunflowers made English-speaking patients more at ease, but that was the goal.

Francis Laramée, executive director of the Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital Foundation, said the sunflowers indicate to patients that a staff member is comfortable serving patients in English, and allow non-English-speaking staff to easily find a bilingual colleague when necessary.

Across the two hospitals, according to Van Rossum, 1,300 staff and volunteers have chosen to attach the flowers to their badges. “Anyone who wants to can wear a sunflower, and we’re seeing more and more each day,” Laramée said.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The CLSC Lac-Brome will be closed from June 17 to Sept. 8 and the CLSC Sutton will be open only two days a week during the same period, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS has confirmed.

The reduced hours are in anticipation of staff shortages as many employees go on vacation. “Like every year at this time, we are making service adaptations to take into account the workforce situation and the needs of the population. Each time we make an adjustment, we ensure that there are CLSC services accessible within a reasonable distance to receive care and services,” CIUSSS spokesperson Nancy Corriveau told the BCN.

Contrary to certain media reports, Corriveau said there would be no change to the opening hours of the CLSC de Bromont, which would remain open two days a week.

Corriveau said the scheduling changes had been announced during a press conference May 16. Although the press conference generally addressed summer scheduling changes and service cancellations, the Lac-Brome and Sutton closures were not specifically mentioned during the event. A CIUSSS press release previously said the Lac-Brome testing centre and “nursing care service point” would be closed during the summer.

Brome Lake Mayor Richard Burcombe said he found out about the impending closure a few weeks ago from a town receptionist who also worked at the CLSC. “There was no consultation – it was an arbitrary decision,” he said. He called the situation “unacceptable.”

“We’re being treated as second-class citizens. Right now, it takes two weeks at a minimum to get an appointment, and by closing us completely and reducing the hours in Sutton…it will make the delays even worse,” he said. “We have an elderly population, and we also serve West Bolton, Brome Village and parts of Potton and Sutton … now, those people will have to go to Cowansville or Bromont.”

He noted that last year, the CIUSSS announced plans to close the CLSC for the summer but it was ultimately kept open two days a week after backlash from the public. “It’s very important to keep that public pressure up,” he said.

Sutton Mayor Robert Benoit was dismayed to learn from members of the media that CLSC hours were being cut in Sutton. “There was a communiqué that mentioned [Brome Lake] but there was no mention of Sutton,” he said. “I support the mayor of Brome Lake and we’ll try to make our voices heard. I know [the CIUSSS] is having difficulties with human resources, but this is an essential service and at the end of the day we have to find a way.”

“I understand the concerns raised by citizens of Brome Lake following the modulation of health services for the summer which will result in the temporary closure of the CLSC Lac-Brome. The CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS assured us that this is a temporary measure taken in a context of labour shortage and staff taking vacations. We also know that dressing, routine nursing and laboratory services will be available at the local service point in Cowansville, located 20 minutes away, and in three other CLSCs less than 15 minutes from Brome Lake. My team and I will continue to monitor the situation closely,” Brome-Missisquoi MNA Isabelle Charest said in a brief statement.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The construction of new fire stations in Dunham and Frelighsburg will go ahead as scheduled despite changes to a provincial subsidy program. The two towns had initially submitted a joint grant request under a Quebec government program for municipal infrastructure, the Programme d’amélioration et de construction d’infrastructures municipales (PRACIM). However, the joint request was denied and the municipalities were told to apply separately.

“It’s too bad – we would have liked to have one fire station in Dunham and a smaller one in Frelighsburg. The costs would have been a bit lower… but it’s a government decision,” Dunham Mayor Pierre Janecek said. “It would have been nice but it didn’t work out.” Janecek said that if the initial request had been granted, 83 per cent of the cost of the new fire station would have been paid by the province; now, he expects only 70 per cent will. Beyond that, though, the decision “doesn’t change a lot.”

Janecek said the municipality expects to apply for the grant over the summer and start construction in fall 2024 or spring 2025. The cost of the new building, which has been in the works for “seven or eight years,” is estimated at $7.5 million, of which the municipality will shoulder just over $2.7 million. The new fire station, more spacious than its predecessor, will be on the corner of Route 202 and Rue Malenfant next to the Parc de L’Envol near the municipal garage. Calls for tenders will be launched soon.

Frelighsburg mayor Lucie Dagenais said splitting Frelighsburg’s fire station project from Dunham’s “gives us a little more freedom.” Like Dunham, Frelighsburg has been planning for a new fire station for several years. “Have you seen the fire station?” Dagenais said. “It’s totally obsolete – we can only fit two small trucks in and we have to rent a space to store the fire truck. Our fire department shares a tiny office with the public works department – now they’ll have [their own] offices.”

Dagenais said she hoped that the new fire station, shared with the public works department, would help the part-time fire department recruit and train more members. “We care about our fire department and we want to give them a better work environment and a training and practice space better adapted to their needs,” she said.

The fire station, with an estimated budget of $2 million, will be built on the site of the former filtration marsh once the town’s new water treatment plant is built. Dagenais expects it to be in use by 2026 at the latest.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs, which oversees the PRACIM program, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The municipality of Cowansville and the Comité de sauvegarde du bassin versant du Lac Davignon (CSBVLD) are seeking volunteers for efforts aimed at preventing the spread of the invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. Volunteers are needed to help remove the tarps and weighted bags put down to prevent watermilfoil growth last year and place tarps in other strategic locations in the lake.

The work will be carried out in two phases, from June 17 to July 12 and from Aug. 1-16, in collaboration with experts from the Regroupement des associations pour la protection de l’environnement des lacs et des bassins versants (RAPPEL).

“In 2024, the Town of Cowansville reinvested $100,000 in the Fonds Bleu, a fund dedicated to protecting the lake. This fund will make it possible to carry out phase 2 of the vast operation. It is a necessary investment to maintain recreational activities and the biodiversity of the lake,” Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard said in a statement.

“Our committee will be mobilized again this year … to ensure that operations run smoothly,” said CSBVLD president Pierre St-Arnault. “We are counting on our many volunteers to help us.”

Watermilfoil has been present in Quebec lakes for several years and watermilfoil control is a priority for many lakeside municipalities. The dense, feathery clumps of watermilfoil crowd out native aquatic plants, get caught in fishing equipment and the motors of small boats, and inconvenience swimmers.

St-Arnault previously told the BCN that although it’s essentially impossible to eradicate watermilfoil, the goal of the initiative is to suffocate the invasive plant as much as possible. To do this, RAPPEL divers position large tarps in predetermined areas where the watermilfoil is abundant. Weighted bags are then dropped on the tarps to hold them in place, first by professional divers and then by volunteers piloting a pedalboat.

St-Arnault also emphasized the role of boaters in preventing the spread of invasive plant and shellfish species in the lake by washing their boats. “The Town of Cowansville has installed a boat washing station at the nature center in order to limit the introduction of invasive exotic aquatic species, including Eurasian milfoil. Other invasive species are on our doorstep, including the zebra mussel and other invasive aquatic plants. Let’s practise prevention by washing our boats,” St-Arnault said.

Anyone interested in volunteering to contribute to watermilfoil control efforts is encouraged to contact the CSBVLD via its website at lacdavignon.org.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

More than 3,200 community nonprofits working in health, social services and disability advocacy are asking questions about future provincial funding after what they are calling arbitrary changes to the Programme de soutien aux organismes communautaires (PSOC).

The $28-million PSOC received a $10-million top-up in the most recent provincial budget. Eligible organizations initially believed that the top-up funds would be divided equally, with a few thousand dollars going to each nonprofit. However, they recently learned that the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) intended to divide the money “according to criteria Minister [responsible for social services Lionel] Carmant alone knows,” explained Daniel Cayley-Daoust, co-spokesperson for the Coalition des Tables Régionales d’Organismes Communautaires (CTROC), a provincewide network of regional networks of community organizations. “Our understanding is that the money is still there, but we don’t know how it’s going to be distributed.”

When the budget was passed in March and during the detailed study of budgetary appropriations in April, CTROC was under the impression the funding would be distributed equally. “This is the first time, as far as we know, that money was given in the budget, confirmed in appropriations and then walked back by the minister,” said Dominique Vigneux-Parent, a spokesperson and research and analysis officer at the Sherbrooke-based ROC Estrie, a CTROC member.

Cayley-Daoust explained that PSOC funding is “mission-based funding” which cash-strapped nonprofits use for administrative costs, to run activities and to fill shortfalls. For some organizations, it represents as much as 80 per cent of their budget. “Having a situation where only some groups have access to this money creates an issue with equity; it creates competition that is not healthy and it creates extra work,” he said. 

“The money should be distributed to all the member organizations, but [the government wants] to pick and choose,” Vigneux-Parent said. “We have no idea of the criteria that will be used.”

Late last week, Vigneux-Parent told the BCN CTROC was hoping to secure an emergency meeting with Carmant.

“The process for analyzing funding requests within the framework of the amount of $10 million, as presented in the budget plan, will be clarified soon,” MSSS spokesperson Francis Martel told the BCN.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Potton taxpayers will have to wait to find out if they will be on the hook for at least some of the money owed to dog attack survivor Dominique Alain and her partner Leo Joy.

Alain was attacked by three pit bulls belonging to Potton resident Alan Barnes while jogging in Potton in March 2019; according to medical reports cited in court documents, her injuries were so severe that doctors initially feared for her life. While she eventually regained the ability to walk and to drive her car, she still lives with significant physical and cognitive limitations and has not been able to return to full-time work.

The dogs involved were euthanized; Barnes was found guilty of criminal negligence in 2021, served six months in prison and has been banned for life from owning dogs. The same year, Alain and her partner, Leo Joy, sued Barnes; GF Inc., the owner of the land on which the attack occurred; and the municipality of Potton for a combined total of just under $562,000, alleging that town officials had known for several years that the dogs were dangerous, known that they were being kept illegally at a time when an anti-pit bull bylaw was in force, and failed to act.

On May 15, Superior Court Judge Sylvain Provencher ruled that Barnes and the municipality both bore responsibility for the incident, and awarded Alain and Joy $535,000. It is not yet known how or if Barnes and the municipality will split the sum. On May 31, Marie-Michelle Chartier of public relations firm Arsenal Conseils told the BCN that the municipality would respect the judgment and that the Fonds d’assurance des municipalités du Québec, the town’s insurer, would not appeal. Potton director general Martin Maltais said the insurer would determine how the sum would be divided between Barnes and the municipality.

“Whether insurers will cover the entire cost or just part of it, I don’t know. One thing is certain, in addition to the deductible for the municipal administration, the rest is paid by the insurers (and perhaps) Alan Barnes in proportions that I do not know,” Maltais said. “This part is in the hands of the insurers linked to Mr. Barnes.” Maltais didn’t know when the insurers’ decision would be made public.

Former mayor calls for councillor’s resignation

Court documents state that several town employees and elected officials knew about, or should have known about, the dogs and the danger they posed as far back as 2016. Provencher ruled that then-public works director Ronney Korman, Coun. Jason Ball, municipal building inspector Marie-Claude Lamy and town clerk Claire Alger should have been aware of the dogs and ensured action was taken. According to the ruling, in 2016 an unnamed cyclist  came to the town hall and reported being bitten by a dog to Alger and receptionist Melissa Harrison, but no action was taken at the time; Ball was slightly bitten by one of Barnes’ dogs in 2017 and Korman’s wife, Suzanne Viens, narrowly escaped attack later that year.

According to the judgment, Ball, who was not yet a town councillor at the time he was bitten, was afraid of the dogs and of how Barnes might react if he filed a complaint, so no complaint was filed. He didn’t bring up the dogs with the municipality until June 2018, when the town’s cultural heritage committee was considering putting a walking path in place near where the incident happened. “The Court is of the opinion that Ball, as a municipal elected official, was not only personally aware of facts and circumstances demonstrating a real danger … but also that he should then have taken measures for Potton to intervene with the aim of minimally ensuring the safety of pedestrians who would use this section of the route … which he neglected to do,”

After the judgment was made public, Louis Veillon, mayor of Potton from 2013 to 2017, issued a statement calling for Ball’s resignation. “I was mayor at the time [Ball was bitten] and I wasn’t aware of it,” Veillon told the BCN. “As an elected official, you are held to a higher standard, and your first obligation is to report it. The fact he was attacked by a dog and he never reported it is a problem.”

Ball and Potton communications director Valérie Thérien declined to comment.

MondoKarnaval to skip 2024 edition

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

MondoKarnaval, the annual summer cel- ebration of cultural diversity in Lower Town, will skip a year this year to plan a bigger and more widespread celebration in 2025, organizers announced last week.

“This year, we are organizing ourselves to diversify and improve our programming, which is already very eclectic. This will allow us to offer you the most intense party in Quebec, next year, in 2025! We firmly believe that this break will strengthen MondoKarnaval … for a memorable and festive experience for all participants,” organizers wrote on social media. “It’s important to keep working together in the same spirit of our first decade. We can already promise marvellous and atypical artists and innovations next year, for the greater pleasure of our faithful spectators.”

In the statement, organizers thanked the federal, provincial and city governments, ExpoCité, the Grand Marché, Desjardins, Decathlon, Trudel Alliance and several local media outlets for their support over the years.

MondoKarnaval traces its roots to Afrique en Fête, a festival which held its first edition in summer 2010 at the Baie de Beauport. The first edition under the MondoKarnaval name was held at the Cartier-Brébeuf National Historic Site in Limoilou in 2014. In 2020, the festival organized a series of online concerts under the name MondoNuméris; a hybrid edition was held at Place Fleur de Lys the following year. In 2022 and 2023, the event was held at Place Jean-Béliveau. The free event usually features concerts by local and international artists, a colourful parade, a soccer tournament and artistic and culinary booths staffed by representatives of various cultural groups and festivals, including groups involved with the English- speaking community.

“It’s never an easy decision [to skip a year]. We’ve had a nice 10 years, and we’re not the first festival saying we’ll take a break to better prepare for next year,” festival founder Doina Balzer told the QCT. “We’re taking a well-deserved rest. I know it can be disappointing for some people who were going to block that weekend off.” Balzer said it was a “constant battle” for the festival’s all-volunteer team to organize the event, secure funding and partnerships and weather the impacts of inflation. “The cultural environment is really difficult – we find that culture is being deprioritized everywhere. Prices went way up last year … everyone is running after the money and the money is not necessarily there.”

Balzer said that although it wasn’t unheard of for festivals to pivot to a once-every-two- years format, she believed the 2024 break would be a one- off and that the event would remain annual in future. “We just want to take the time to give everyone a good show next year,” she said.

Stairs receives heritage award from MRC de la Jacques-Cartier

Longtime 78th Fraser Highlanders pipe major and acclaimed local bagpiper Alan Stairs (left) received the Porteur de tradition (“tradition carrier”) award from the MRC de la Jacques-Cartier (represented by prefect Sébastien Couture) at a ceremony on May 23. Stairs, who lives in Stoneham, was honoured alongside the Société d’histoire de Sainte-Brigitte de Laval, heritage preservation nonprofit Souffler les Braises and the web series VIVANT, in which he was also featured. The awards are given every two years to individuals and groups who have contributed to “initiatives that make living heritage shine in respectful and inventive ways.” (RP-LJI)

Government tables three-year moratorium on most evictions 

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

In a surprise announc ment on May 22, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government tabled a bill declaring a three-year moratorium on several common types of evictions and expanding eligibility for protections offered to some older renters.

“The bill we have tabled today places a moratorium on evictions for the enlargement, subdivision or change of vocation of a property,” Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau told reporters at the National Assembly. If the bill passes before the end of the current legislative session, the moratorium will be in effect retroactive to May 22. It may be selectively repealed in certain regions if the rental housing vacancy rate rises above 3 per cent.

Property owners will still be able to evict tenants who violate the terms of their lease, or take back a property for their own use or the use of a close family member.

Additionally, measures that ban evictions for low-income seniors 70 and older who have lived in the same unit for at least 10 years will be extended to seniors aged 65 to 69, and the income threshold raised by 25 per cent. Unlike the moratorium, the expanded protections for seniors will be permanent. Renters already have the right to contest what they believe to be an abusive rent hike without breaking a lease, but the new bill would make that option clearer.

“This [moratorium] is a strong measure which is justified by the magnitude of the current housing shortage,” said Duranceau, noting that more than 560,000 new temporary residents have moved to Quebec in the last two years. “Considering the context and the strong demand for housing, some owners may be tempted to evict tenants in order to obtain better profitability. Unfortunately, in the absence of a sufficient supply of housing, the consequences of eviction … can lead to precarious situations for citizens [which] will impact several facets of our society, including the demand for health care, homelessness resources and food banks. We’re proposing a time-out to give the market time to respond to the demand.”

She argued that subdivisions, enlargements and changes of use – the three reasons for eviction targeted in the law – “change the portrait of the rental market without doing anything constructive to expand availability.” Duranceau called the bill “complementary” to Bill 31, the controversial housing reform bill passed earlier this year.

She said the only long-term solution to the housing crisis was to “increase supply, and construction … takes two to three years.”

Duranceau thanked Québec Solidaire (QS) housing critic Andrés Fontecilla, who has called for a similar moratorium since 2019, for his collaboration on the bill. “These aren’t gains for the CAQ or for Québec Solidaire – they are gains for renters,” Fontecilla said at a separate announcement along- side QS seniors’ affairs critic Christine Labrie. Labrie said QS was “pleasantly surprised” by the bill but would have liked to see protections for older renters further expanded.

The Regroupement des Comités logement et Associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ), a provincewide federation of renters’ rights groups, called the moratorium a “pleasant surprise.” However, RCLALQ spokesperson Cédric Dussault said it should include guardrails to prevent legal bad-faith evictions. “For example, there’s no control over the repossession process [where a property owner evicts a tenant to house themselves or a close family member.] There should be follow-up to make sure the [family member] is actually living in the unit.”

He also said depending on private developers to increase the housing supply for poorer renters was “magical thinking” and that greater investment in social housing had to be part of any housing plan. “We need to place better [controls] on evictions, rent controls, address the [units] we lose to tourist housing, augment our construction of social housing and support marginalized and older renters – if we don’t address all of that, homelessness will go up,” said Dussault.

Véronique Gagnon of the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) noted that the measure came too late for the thousands of renters who received eviction notices late last year or early this year, and are scrambling to move before July 1. “There are a lot of people who are living with roommates, living in places that are too small or have nowhere to go. We’re expecting a tough July 1.”

The Quebec Landlords Corporation, better known by its French acronym CORPIQ, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new bill. The landlords’ association “understands the laudable intentions behind this measure, but emphasizes that it will not help resolve the widespread housing shortage which continues to grow,” its president, Éric Sansoucy, said in a statement.

NOTE TO LJI EDITORS: This story originally appeared in the QCT.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

In a surprise announcement on May 22, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government tabled a bill declaring a three-year moratorium on several common types of evictions and expanding eligibility for protections offered to some older renters.

“The bill we have tabled today places a moratorium on evictions for the enlargement, subdivision or change of vocation of a property,” Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau told reporters at the National Assembly. If the bill passes before the end of the current legislative session, the moratorium will be in effect retroactive to May 22. It may be selectively repealed in certain regions if the rental housing vacancy rate rises above 3 per cent.

Property owners will still be able to evict tenants who violate the terms of their lease; evictions to house close family members will also remain legal.

Additionally, measures that ban evictions for low-income seniors 70 and older who have lived in the same unit for at least 10 years will be extended to seniors aged 65 to 69, and the income threshold raised by 25 per cent. Unlike the moratorium, the expanded protections for seniors will be permanent. Additionally, renters already have the right to contest what they believe to be an abusive rent hike without breaking a lease, but the new bill would make that option clearer.

“This [moratorium] is a strong measure which is justified by the magnitude of the current housing shortage,” said Duranceau, noting that more than 560,000 new temporary residents, have moved to Quebec in the last two years. “Considering the context and the strong demand for housing, some owners may be tempted to evict tenants in order to obtain better profitability. Unfortunately, in the absence of a sufficient supply of housing, the consequences of eviction … can lead to precarious situations for citizens [which] will impact several facets of our society, including the demand for health care, homelessness resources and food banks. We’re proposing a time-out to give the market time to respond to the demand.”

She argued that subdivisions, enlargements and changes of use – the three reasons for eviction targeted in the law – “change the portrait of the rental market without doing anything constructive to expand availability.” Duranceau called the bill “complementary” to Bill 31, the controversial housing reform bill passed earlier this year.

She said the only long-term solution to the housing crisis was to “increase supply, and construction … takes two to three years.”

Duranceau thanked Québec Solidaire (QS) housing critic Andrés Fontecilla, who has called for a similar moratorium since 2019, for his collaboration on the bill. “These aren’t gains for the CAQ or for Québec Solidaire – they are gains for renters,” Fontecilla said at a separate announcement alongside QS seniors’ affairs critic Christine Labrie. Labrie said QS was “pleasantly surprised” by the bill but would have liked to see protections for older renters further expanded.

The Regroupement des Comités logement et Associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ), a provincewide federation of renters’ rights groups, called the moratorium a “pleasant surprise.” However, RCLALQ spokesperson Cédric Dussault said it should include guardrails to prevent legal bad-faith evictions. “For example, there’s no control over the repossession process [where a property owner evicts a tenant to house themselves or a close family member. There should be follow-up to make sure the [family member] is actually living in the unit.”

He also said depending on private developers to increase the housing supply for poorer renters was “magical thinking” and that greater investment in social housing had to be part of any housing plan. “We need to place better [controls] on evictions, rent controls, address the [units] we lose to tourist housing, augment our construction of social housing and support marginalized and older renters – if we don’t address all of that, homelessness will go up,” said Dussault.

Véronique Gagnon of the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) noted that the measure came too late for the thousands of renters who received eviction notices late last year or early this year, and are scrambling to move before July 1. “There are a lot of people who are living with roommates, living in places that are too small or have nowhere to go. We’re expecting a tough July 1.”

The Quebec Landlords Corporation, better known by its French acronym CORPIQ, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new bill. The landlords’ association “understands the laudable intentions behind this measure, but emphasizes that it will not help resolve the widespread housing shortage which continues to grow,” its president, Éric Sansoucy, said in a statement.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A patients’ rights group is raising the alarm after the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS announced plans to temporarily close 12 beds at the CHSLD de Bedford this summer.

While several long-term care facilities in the region are slated to temporarily lose beds this summer because of anticipated staffing shortages, the loss of 12 beds in Bedford’s 42-bed facility is proportionally the largest planned cut in the La Pommeraie local service area, according to Pierrette Messier-Peet, co-spokesperson for the Bedford Pole Health Committee.

Messier-Peet said she understood the labour shortage and the need for staff to take summer vacations, but worried that moving CHSLD residents would compromise their care and make it harder for family members and informal caregivers to visit. “Everyone knows someone [in Bedford or the surrounding towns] who has been sent to Farnham or Cowansville because there’s no room in Bedford, and now there’s even less room,” she said, adding that her uncle, a resident of the CHSLD de Bedford, had been moved four times in the last year. “These are very vulnerable people; this is their last address and there’s nowhere else for them to go. Being moved around will disorient people and even hasten their deaths.”

She also worried that the closure of the beds would be permanent. “The labour shortage won’t end by magic in September,” she said. She also worried about the implications of the bed closures for the CHSLD’s long-delayed expansion project.

CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS spokesperson Nancy Corriveau sought to allay Messier-Peet’s concerns about relocation. “The temporary closure of these beds will be done gradually by not filling the places left by the departure of users,” she said. “It is also possible that some residents will receive an offer to be relocated to a desired environment. Not all residents wishing to stay at the Bedford CHSLD will be relocated.”

Corriveau said the CIUSSS was expecting to be able to reopen the beds in September.  “Regarding the renovation project, we are currently under evaluation in order to consider the evolving needs of the population and the availability of staff,” she added.

Messier-Peet noted that in response to a labour shortage in acute care hospitals in the Côte-Nord region earlier this spring, Health Minister Christian Dubé had dispatched a mobile team, known in health sector jargon as an équipe volante (“flying team”). “We’d love a flying team down here.”

Messier-Peet said Notre-Dame-de-Stanbridge Mayor Daniel Tétreault, the point person on health issues for the Bedford pole, is working on addressing the issue with local elected officials. Neither Tétreault nor the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS was available to comment at press time.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A residential addiction treatment centre for women has requested a permit to open a facility in the Villa Châteauneuf, a former convent turned religious retreat centre at the heart of a dispute between the municipality of Sutton and the nonprofit board of directors responsible for its maintenance.

The Villa Châteauneuf is a former convent and school that was built in 1911 on a 25-acre plot donated by philanthropist and politician Eugene Dyer. In 1971, it was transferred to the Foyers de la Charité, a network of religious retreat centres-slash-utopian communities based in France and affiliated with the Catholic Church. In June 2023, amid declining religious participation and the impact of COVID restrictions, the papal delegate of the Foyers de la Charité decreed the closure of the entire network; the last six permanent residents of the Sutton centre moved out last September. Since then, the complex of eight buildings has sat empty, overseen by a nonprofit board of directors. The board of directors intends to donate it to a charity; the municipality wants to use its right of pre-emption to take the complex over and move local services there, replacing the aging Centre John-Sleeth.

Both Sutton mayor Robert Benoit and board vice-president Victor Marchand said they believed their plan was in accordance with Eugene Dyer’s wishes for the property. The BCN contacted Dyer’s great-granddaughter, Sutton resident Ann Dyer, to see if it was possible to consult written records of the donation, but the documents weren’t available. Dyer has previously supported the municipality’s plans for the Villa Châteauneuf. 

Caught in the middle of the dispute is La Passerelle, the province’s only long-term residential alcohol and drug rehab centre exclusively for women. La Passerelle currently has a 24-bed facility in Saint-Simon de Bagot, in Montérégie, and a long waiting list; director general Amélie Lemieux said acquiring the Villa Châteauneuf would allow it to add a second facility with 40 more beds in private rooms and invest in bilingual services.  Lemieux said she was aware of the conflict between the town and the board, but believed it was “not our problem.” 

Lemieux said the planned La Passerelle centre in Sutton, like the one in Saint-Simon de Bagot, would be a long-term rehabilitation centre for women in recovery from addiction to alcohol or other drugs –  not a “deintoxication centre” for those going through acute withdrawal. Some patients apply for places at the centre on their own initiative; others are assigned there by a court after being charged with a crime linked to their addiction. They would not be allowed to leave the property on their own. “When we came to Saint-Simon, there were people who didn’t want the centre in their backyard, but we ended up building good relationships in the community,” she added.

La Passerelle would need approval from the municipality and the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS to open a treatment centre. Benoit confirmed that the centre had requested a permit from the city, but said he had not spoken with anyone from La Passerelle, and had not had any communication from the Villa Châteauneuf board in months.

Benoit said the town has the right of first refusal for any proposal to do with the property – a right he intends to use. “Our priority is to use it for a community centre, and these people [the Villa Châteauneuf board] are depriving the citizens of Sutton of a community centre which would serve our needs.”

Générations Actives gets seniors, teens moving

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

As Pierre Lortie approached the finish line of the 1974 Canadian Ski Marathon after a gruelling 60-kilometre trek through the Outaouais, near Montebello, he saw a cheering crowd, a pack of exhausted fellow skiers and a very old man. Race founder Herman “Jack Rabbit” Johannsen, in his late 90s at the time, stood at the finish line shaking finishers’ hands. He told Lortie, “You must come back every year, young man.” Lortie, a university professor specializing in business management, answered, “Yes, sir.” He kept his word. He knew then that skiing would be a lifelong sport for him – as it was for Johannsen, who started skiing at two, lived to be 111 and skied well into his second century.

Decades later, Lortie, now 83, is helping young people learn to ski through Générations Actives, an intergenerational program where seniors introduce students at Quebec City schools, many of whom are recent immigrants or from less privileged families, to winter sports. “I’m no Alex Harvey, but I’ve been skiing all my life, and I figured I could contribute something healthy for those young people.”

Générations Actives was started in July 2023 by Luc Richer, the founder and long- time executive director of Motivaction Jeunesse, an established local nonprofit which provides outdoor sports opportunities for school groups and less privileged youth. “There are not a whole lot of activities for older people who want to do recreation and sports, and there are not really any inter- generational outdoor sports programs at all,” said Richer. In February, he recruited older adult volunteers, many in their 60s and 70s, to team up with high school students for an out- door winter triathlon; a smaller summer event is planned for later this month and Richer is hoping to organize a bigger event in the fall. “I was a little worried that the sauce wouldn’t take, but the students are open-minded,” Richer said. “They were surprised to see seniors who were active and in good shape and enjoying life.”

Dominique Guimond, a French-as-a-second-language teacher at École secondaire De Rochebelle, one of the city’s largest public high schools, jumped at the chance to have her students discover skiing and skating – and a new language – alongside seniors.

“When kids move to a new country, any sports and recreation are put on pause,” she observed. Many of them have also left their grandparents behind, and come from societies where spending time with elders is seen as a valuable learning opportunity. “Some of the students say, ‘They [the seniors] are in better shape than me!’ It’s also a good opportunity to speak French outside the classroom – the seniors aren’t going to adapt their language to my students!”

Lortie and retired auto mechanic and poet Gilles Duclos, 73, are two of the program’s more active volunteers. “We went skiing with the Rochebelle kids in March and they don’t necessarily speak French, so we had to explain a new sport to them with hand gestures,” Duclos recalled. “In January, we were with a private school in Beauport, and I was grouped with three young men and we talked about poetry and electricity and induction motors; at one point I was drawing in the snow to try to teach them the basics of electricity.” Lortie recalled telling a group of teenagers unused to being physically active, “Wake up! I don’t want to go to your funerals!”

“There’s nothing worse than retiring and saying, ‘That’s it, I’ve done enough, I’ll rest,’” said Duclos, who took a part- time job with the Ville de Québec Cyclistes Avertis bike safety education program and started learning Spanish in “retirement.” “Staying home in your bubble is what accelerates aging.”

Lortie’s parting words of advice for both teens and fellow retirees on a bright spring day can be summed up in three words – “Va jouer dehors – Go play outside.”

Générations Actives is actively seeking both seniors and school groups for upcoming activities. If you are a teacher or an active retiree interested in getting involved with the program, contact Luc Richer directly (luc.richer@generationsactives.ca).

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered Potton resident Alan Barnes and the Municipality of Potton to pay a combined $535,000 plus court fees to Dominique Alain, who was critically injured when she was attacked by Barnes’ dogs while jogging in March 2019, and Alain’s spouse and caregiver Leo Joy. A third defendant, GF Food Equipment, the owner of the property where the dogs were housed, was found not responsible.

In a separate criminal case related to the incident in 2021, Barnes was convicted of criminal negligence and sentenced to six months in prison and 240 hours of community service, and banned for life from owning dogs. The dogs involved were euthanized.

Alain, a small business owner who also held a part-time job as an elite tennis referee, was mauled by three pitbulls belonging to Barnes in March 2019. She suffered significant blood loss and injuries that were initially life-threatening, according to medical reports cited in the ruling, and required more than a dozen operations; for several weeks, she was bedridden and unable to move her arms or legs. Through extensive rehabilitation, she eventually regained enough mobility to walk unaided, drive and return to work a few hours a week. However, reduced stamina and balance, memory and concentration problems, post-traumatic stress and chronic nerve pain as a result of her injuries have hampered her ability to return to a normal life. She has suffered extensive scarring of her arms, legs and back. She is unable to work more than 15 hours per week at Pro-Lens, the replacement optical lens company she owns, and has never been able to resume refereeing; she initially sued the municipality for about $211,000 in lost revenue in addition to $250,000 in non-pecuniary damages. The court ruling was based on a smaller estimation of lost revenue ($164,000), but the court ruled that her request for $250,000 in non-pecuniary damages was justified. “No sum of money can wipe the memories from [Alain’s] mind,” Provencher wrote, stating that Alain’s inability to work full time or enjoy outdoor activities she once loved has contributed to “enormous suffering.”

Joy, for his part, was awarded $75,000 by the court for non-pecuniary damages, specifically for psychological trauma, time spent caring for his partner (several hours a day, every day, according to the ruling) and money invested in adapting the couple’s house to Alain’s mobility needs.   

According to the ruling, the municipality “denied all responsibility.” However, the court ruled that the municipality should have been aware the dogs were a threat to public safety, considering that several complaints had been made to the town hall about the dogs dating back to 2016.  Provencher also noted that Potton bylaws prohibited the possession of pitbulls in the municipality between 2005 and 2018; Barnes kept the dogs illegally for at least two years without any apparent action on the part of the municipality.

“[Ronney] Korman, Director of Public Works and Public Safety Services (fire and first responders), [Jason] Ball, town councillor, [Marie-Claude] Lamy, building inspector responsible for enforcing the by-law concerning animals, and [town clerk Claire] Alger,  all aware … that Barnes’ dogs are aggressive and dangerous, and … banned from the territory of Potton until May 2018, all demonstrate passivity, laxity, even nonchalance in that they all fail to take action,” Provencher wrote, noting that Ball had been bitten by one of the dogs in 2017 and Korman’s wife, Suzanne Viens, narrowly escaped attack that same year.

Valérie Thérien, a spokesperson for the municipality, told the BCN that the town’s insurance company was reviewing the file and the town could not comment further.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

It was November 15, 1976, and Quebec voters had just brought to power the first sovereigntist government in the province’s history. In the coming years, thousands of English-speaking Quebecers would leave the province to escape what for them had become an untenable political climate; Law 101 and the 1980 sovereignty referendum were just a few years away. Brendan O’Donnell was sitting in a Montreal tavern with his brother Kevin, thinking about what it all meant for the English-speaking community. Lord Durham famously mocked French-speaking Canadians as a “people without a history;” the O’Donnell brothers were worried that with the rise of Quebec nationalism, the same fate would ironically befall the English.

“He [Kevin] said no one had written a definitive history of English-speaking Quebec. If someone wanted to write a history, they would need secondary sources,” Brendan O’Donnell said. 

In the intervening years, O’Donnell, who now lives in Stanbridge East, has compiled an exhaustive bibliography of works on English-speaking Quebec. Over the course of his career with Parks Canada, he travelled widely and spent his free days in university libraries, noting every work he could find that referenced the history of English-speaking Quebec – “from the University of British Columbia to Memorial University in Newfoundland.”

First published in print, the bibliography went online-only in 2009; now hosted by the Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), it contains over 14,000 titles in multiple languages.

Next month, the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) will honour him with the Marion Phelps Award, given annually to a person who has made outstanding long-term contributions to the preservation and promotion of Anglophone heritage in Quebec.

“It’s an honour to receive the award for this project,” he told the BCN. “It’s not a book that explains Quebec history; it’s a tool for researchers.”

O’Donnell is a longtime volunteer at the Missisquoi Museum, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this spring. He observed that no museum or university department is dedicated to sharing the history of English-speaking Quebec as a whole. “We tend to work in silos – we talk about Irish and Jewish and Italian Canadians in Quebec, and about English Quebec literature, but no one has really taken an interdisciplinary approach to English Quebec history. There is QUESCREN, but there’s no faculty of English Quebec studies. There’s the QAHN quarterly magazine [Quebec Heritage News] but there’s no peer-reviewed scholarly journal. There are the small regional museums such as the Missisquoi Museum which do a lot of work on English-speaking Quebec, but there’s no museum specifically dedicated to English-speaking Quebec history. One of the things I’ve been hoping this project will spawn is a discipline called English Quebec Studies [encompassing] the Italian, Jewish, Irish and Black anglophone communities, and people in the Pontiac and the Gaspé and the Townships, their history as well.”

QAHN president Matthew Farfan said advocating for the preservation of anglophone history is “a constant battle” in today’s Quebec – a battle to which O’Donnell has dedicated countless hours. “We have to be vigilant and make sure our community is reflected in the history of modern Quebec,” he said, alluding to the history museum in Quebec City proposed by the Coalition Avenir Quebec government, where the place of English-speaking communities remains unclear. “It’s really important to recognize people, especially volunteers, who are a huge part of preserving that history.”

QAHN will present the Marion Phelps Award and the Richard Evans Award (given to an organization or group that has made a significant contribution to the preservation of anglophone heritage) at a ceremony at the Maison Forget in Montreal on June 29. For more information about attending, email home@qahn.org.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The town of Bromont has taken another step toward restricting the whistling of trains on its territory, but one expert helping the municipality navigate the process told the BCN that it may be another year or more before the whistles stop.

“We hope we’ll get there,” Bromont Mayor Louis Villeneuve said at the May 6 council meeting. “It can’t happen overnight. There are more and more trains passing so we are hoping to get ahead of this. We’re about to send humans to Mars, so I’m sure we can get improved signaling systems. This is a long project but I’m hoping we’ll get there eventually. 

There are seven railroad crossings on the territory of the town of Bromont. In July 2023, councillors passed a resolution asking Canadian Pacific, the owner of the tracks that cross the city, to restrict the use of whistles. At the May 6 meeting, councillors passed two resolutions asking the Quebec Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTQ) to approve their request to stop the whistles.

Donald O’Hara, co-ordinator of the Alliance du corridor ferroviaire Estrie-Montérégie (ACFEM), has been mandated by the city to navigate the whistling cessation approval process. Once council and MTQ approval is granted, the municipality has to work with CP to develop and implement alternative strategies to get pedestrians, animals and cars off the tracks without using the whistle, and implement them at each of Bromont’s seven crossings, he explained. These strategies can include improved safety gates, fencing, strobe lights and other sound signals. Transport Canada must then review the safety plan co-developed by the company and the municipality. Whistling can only stop once Transport Canada gives its final approval. Even then, train drivers can still use the whistle if they believe it’s necessary to clear people or animals from the tracks.

“The whistle is an important safety feature and it’s there for a reason. The process is long and expensive, and involves not just negotiations, but the physical process of putting up gates and signage, and that takes time and money,” O’Hara said, pointing out that a single safety gate can cost several hundred thousand dollars. “The cost is shared between the municipality and the railway company, and there are grants available, but it takes the time and money that it takes. It is taxpayer money and councillors have to consider that.”

O’Hara estimated that Bromont was still “a year, a year and a half away” from getting a whistle ban implemented. In Sherbrooke, which is also working toward a ban, he expected the process to take several years, because plans needed to be put in place for each of the city’s 46 crossings.

Only one municipality in the region has successfully banned train whistles on its territory, according to O’Hara. That was Coaticook, more than 20 years ago. Along with Bromont, Magog and Sherbrooke are also working toward whistle bans. “Different municipalities have different approaches – in Lac-Mégantic, people want to hear the whistle, because it means someone is driving the train. In some other municipalities, it’s a nuisance. It’s definitely not the greatest thing when it wakes you up at night.”

No one from the City of Bromont was available to comment further at press time.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The Organisation du Bassin versant de la Baie-Missisquoi (OBVBM) is partnering with the Granby Zoo to improve survival rates for a rare species of turtle in the Pike River watershed.

The Eastern spiny softshell turtle is considered endangered in Canada, and the Pike River, Missisquoi Bay and Lake Champlain watersheds are home to Quebec’s only viable Eastern spiny softshell turtle population. The mother turtles, who don’t lay their first eggs until about the age of 15, lay their eggs about 50 metres from the riverbank, and floods mean some baby turtles drown before they hatch. Juvenile and adult turtles are at risk from predators and boat propellers.

Biologist Patrick Paré is the director of the research and conservation department of the Granby Zoo. “The first thing you have to understand about the eastern spiny softshell turtle is that it’s a softshell turtle,” he said, emphasizing the fact that boat propellers can cut through the turtles’ shells and cause serious injury or death.

He said there are only about 300 eastern spiny softshell turtles left in the area, including as few as ten egg-laying females. Juvenile survival rates are also low. “The babies weigh only six or seven grams…and if we release 2,000 babies, we get 50 adult turtles.”

The Granby Zoo project, run annually since 2009 and funded for the next three years by the OBVBM, involves monitoring turtle nesting sites along the Pike River, removing the eggs to be incubated in a lab and releasing juvenile turtles back into the wild.  Paré said researchers spend ten hours a day observing riverside nesting sites in June in order to bring eggs to the lab.

In 2023, 209 young turtles whose eggs were incubated at the Granby Zoo lab were released into the river. “By protecting eggs from threats such as predation and significant fluctuations in water levels caused by climate change, the program aims to preserve this emblematic species of the region,” OBVBM communications and mobilization coordinator Julie Reinling said in a statement.

The OBVBM also plans to keep working with boaters to raise awareness of the threat turtles face from boat propellers and stress created by vibration and noise from boats. In 2023, the organization surveyed over 1,500 boaters, of which just over half were aware of the presence of the endangered turtle. Four out of five were willing to reduce their speed to 10 km/hour to decrease the risk of turtle collisions.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

When Jen Tevyaw opens the door of the Centre d’Action Bénévole (CAB) in Sutton on May 25 for the weekly Baby Drop-In, she’s expecting to see not just babies and their parents, but grade-school children and even teenagers. Alumni are more than welcome at the program’s tenth anniversary celebration – the session has even been moved from Friday to Saturday for the occasion to allow working parents to attend with their school-age kids.

A decade ago, Tevyaw, a busy mother of three who had recently completed doula training, noticed a lack of English-language services for young parents in rural areas in the Eastern Townships. “I was really eager to see something flourish here in our community that, you know, I could facilitate, but also participate in as a community member,” she told the BCN. She approached the CAB and Baby Drop-In was born; fifteen parents attended the first Friday morning session. Originally, Baby Drop-In was a monthly volunteer-run program for parents in Sutton and Abercorn; a year later, thanks to grant funding, it became a weekly event, and it now attracts families from all over the region. Earlier this year, a similar program, the Lac-Brome Playgroup, was launched in Brome Lake, and the CAB Sutton now offers a home visit respite care program for new parents as well.

Parents can “drop in” at the CAB between 9 a.m. and noon, share a coffee and chat while their babies and toddlers play in a safe environment. The program includes a sharing circle and presentations on different aspects of pregnancy, the postpartum experience or parenting. Parents are welcome to arrive at any time and to speak as much or as little as they like. “Come as you are,” said Tevyaw.

“My biggest goal with the program is that people feel really welcomed when they come in, that they’re introduced to other parents, and that there’s a warm environment for them to settle into and not feel alone as young parents,” she said. New parents “might be a little bit socially shy and not want to show up to a gathering where they don’t know people. So they’ll often come for the first time when there’s a [presentation] topic that interests them. Then they’ll be like, okay, it’s warm, it’s welcoming. I’m going to stay here.”

“I think we assume that we’re just going to go into [parenting] and know what to do, but we don’t – and unfortunately, in our culture, we’re really disconnected from one another,” Tevyaw said. “You’re not just going to walk up to someone in the grocery store and talk to them about what you’re going through…but we had three new-ish moms at this morning’s session and they went to the park across the street and they’re still out there chatting now.”

One of the goals of Baby Drop-In, she said, was to create a “village” around new parents. “Just to have someone else hold your baby while you can go pee and have a coffee is so precious,” she said, adding that parents who have a community around them are at lower risk for postpartum depression and anxiety.

The anniversary celebration on May 25 will include snacks, cake, live music and a discussion around the future of the program, including a name change that will reflect the fact that it is bilingual and open to parents of older children.

To learn more about Baby Drop-In, contact the CAB Sutton directly.                                   

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Bromont residents who want to borrow sports equipment at Grégoire Park in Adamsville can now do so through a mobile app at a self-service kiosk. Mayor Louis Villeneuve and Adamsville Councillor Jocelyne Corbeil officially opened the service on April 30 alongside representatives of the city’s recreation department and the Montérégie recreation and sports directorate and students from the nearby St-Vincent-Ferrier primary school.

People who want to borrow equipment from the Boxup kiosk will have to download an app using a QR code displayed onsite, fill out an online form and provide a piece of ID, explained Laurent Bédard, sports and recreation co-ordinator for the Ville de Bromont. They’ll then be able to open the locker containing their chosen ball, bat or pair of skates, and use the equipment for the next three hours.

The Boxup module in Grégoire Park has six lockers; Bédard said city staff will make sure the equipment on offer varies from season to season. “There will be things like baseball bats and gloves and a basketball there in the summer; in winter we want to bring in hockey helmets and skates,” he said. The module will be in Bromont for at least the next four years as part of a pilot project; it may be moved from one park to another during that time depending on demand.

“In light of the labour shortage, the city wants to use digital tools to offer equipment rental in parks where there are not necessarily staff there all day,” Bédard said. “We also want to make sure everyone has access to recreation – stereotypically, Bromont is a wealthy city, but there are families that find recreation expensive.” Annie Guillemette, a recreation advisor at the Conseil Sport Loisir (CSL) Montérégie, said studies showed that a lack of accessible equipment made immigrants and families with young children less likely to try outdoor activities.  Bédard, who has a young son, said the opportunity to rent equipment will also come in handy for people who want to try a sport or let their children try a sport without buying a full set of equipment or without hauling their own equipment to the park.

“We want the project to be well known and used, so that it brings more life to the parks and is used by kids and the whole neighbourhood,” Guillemette said.

The Bromont self-service kiosk is part of a provincewide project co-ordinated by regional sports directorates, aimed at increasing access to borrowed or rented equipment. By the end of June, similar kiosks should be set up in Val-des-Sources, Danville, Weedon, Cookshire-Eaton, Potton and Ayer’s Cliff, according to Nadia Fradette, coordinator responsible for outdoor activities, parks and recreational spaces and adapted recreation at the Conseil Sport Loisir de l’Estrie. The same application allows people to rent equipment from any box in the province. Other sports equipment rental projects, not involving the app, are planned later this summer for Val-Saint-François and Windsor, and elsewhere in the Montérégie region, according to Fradette and Guillemette.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Ski Sutton, Ski Bromont and several other area tourist attractions will benefit from the latest round of post-pandemic “relaunch” funding from the provincial tourism ministry, Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx announced April 29.

“The tourism industry is booming in the Eastern Townships, a region that has nearly 1,400 businesses and more than 20,500 tourism-related jobs. According to the most recent data, the economic contribution of sectors associated with tourism amounted to $794 million. The supported projects will promote the growth of tourism, an important driver of local economic development,” the minister’s office said in a statement.

Alongside CAQ MNAs from around the region, Proulx announced that the government would provide $34.3 million of funding across five programs – the Programme d’aide à la relance de l’industrie touristique (PARIT), Programme d’appui au développement des attraits touristiques (PADAT), Programme de soutien aux stratégies de développement touristique (PSSDT) and the regional development agreement for digital transformation in tourism.

“The investments announced today demonstrate the dynamism of local businesses and the strong tourism potential of the Estrie and Brome-Missisquoi regions. I congratulate the organizations in my riding which have received support from our government, in particular Ski Sutton, whose project is in perfect agreement with its mission to offer … distinctive four-season activities in the great outdoors,” Brome-Missisquoi MNA Isabelle Charest said.

Ski Sutton was one of the largest recipients, receiving a $5-million PARIT grant to install a new four-person lift cabin, automate its lift access system, expand its sculpture garden with contributions from local artists, add a lookout for hikers and add summer glamping (luxury camping) facilities. Expérience Embargo, which organizes the annual Soif de Musique music festival in Cowansville, got a $35,000 grant through the regional development agreement toward organizing this year’s edition. Ski Bromont ($35,000 for real-time visitor communication tools) and the Vignoble Léon-Courville in Brome Lake ($23,000 for renovations and improvements to guided tour areas) also received regional development agreement funding.

Soif de Musique cofounder Philippe Mercier said the funding comes at a crucial time for the rapidly growing festival, which is preparing for its fifth edition. “Everything is costing more and it’s harder to find volunteers,” he told the BCN. This year’s festival has an impressive list of headliners – Flo Rida, Charlotte Cardin, Patrick Watson, Les Trois Accords, rising Montreal-based girl power band Les Shirley and Acadian trad-rockers Salebarbes – and will also feature an expanded campground and vineyard tours with surprise pop-up concerts.

Ski Sutton CEO Jean-Michel Ryan echoes Mercier’s sentiments. “This support is fundamental … since the pandemic, costs have exploded, and a lot of projects would not be realizable without PARIT.” he said. He said the new four-person lift will make it easier for families with young children to stick together on the same lift. The size, exact location, capacity and opening date of the “glamping” facility are yet to be determined pending discussions with the Town of Sutton, although Ryan said it would include “more cabins than tents” and would provide one more possible place for tourists to spend the night in a region struggling with a shortage of housing options.

Ryan said he expects the lookout, the new “glamping” facility (exact placement and capacity to be determined) and the expanded sculpture garden to help the resort develop year-round revenue streams, a necessity in light of climate change and shortened ski seasons.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

During the week, the grounds of Sutton School ring with the shouts and laughter of elementary school children. On May 11, the municipality is hoping to draw a more varied crowd.

The Sutton-Abercorn Community Development Table is organizing the second post-pandemic edition of the Fête des Générations (Generations Party) on the school grounds that day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Many families with young children know other families with young children, and many people over 60 know other people over 60, but this is an invitation to go and mingle,” said Sutton resident and organizing committee member Chantal Renaud, 39.

The event will feature a free cold buffet, board games, storytelling, arts workshops, slacklining, pickleball, skateboarding, pump track activities, activities for babies, concerts by local artists including performers from the Sutton International Fiddle Festival, kiosks with information about community services and an intergenerational barter market. In case of rain, the event will be moved inside the school; only the activities that require specific outdoor facilities, like the pumptrack, will be cancelled. The event will be free and people will be able to drop by for a few minutes or stay the whole day. Although there is no charge for the buffet, there will be a $2 charge for compostable dishes – participants are encouraged to bring dishes from home. Organizers are planning for a crowd of several hundred.

“We’re trying various things to get people talking and mixing, things that are appealing to all age groups,” said Renaud, who attended the event last year with her family and was won over by the concept. “You might be sharing a table with people you don’t know at lunch, or trading an unopened toothbrush for a puzzle, or something like that, at the barter market. The sky’s the limit!”

“If your kids are in school or daycare, you run into your kids’ [classmates] and their parents all the time, but you don’t necessarily run into other people in the village. A lot of my neighbours are seniors, and we see them regularly, but we wouldn’t necessarily invite them to our house because our house is messy with three kids and they might not feel comfortable. That’s why it’s important to have activities where different generations can meet up, like the Grace Church supper and like this event.”

Renaud said she believes it’s important for children and young parents to get the opportunity to interact with seniors, and vice versa. “So many seniors suffered from the absence of children in their lives during the pandemic. For kids, it’s important to see people older than your parents, to get the whole picture of what life is – it broadens your horizons. For my children, their grandparents don’t live close by so it’s important for them to have that contact with elders. We’ve learned a lot about Sutton [by getting to know seniors], and sometimes a lot of just general life and parenting wisdom.”  

The volunteer organizing committee, CAB Sutton, Sutton School, Sutton School Parent Participation Organization, Club FADOQ Les Deux Monts, Racine Pop, Maison des jeunes Le Spot, Parc d’environnement naturel de Sutton, Jardin d’enfants de Sutton, Coop Gym Santé Sutton, CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS and the Town of Sutton have collaborated to organize the community party, which gets funding from the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS (“Éclaireurs” project) and the Réseau de développement Brome-Missisquoi funded by the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon. Anyone who would like to volunteer during the event can write to fetedesgenerations.sutton@gmail.com. 

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The East Bolton public market will soon have a permanent home in Terrio Park. Construction is scheduled to begin this week on a permanent pavilion with a steel structure and wooden roof to replace the seasonal tent used to house the market in past years. The new pavilion, set on a 12×18 concrete slab and 6.6 metres high, should be finished by mid-July, according to the municipality.

When the market is not in session, the pavilion can be used for public events, concerts and family reunions, Mayor Vinciane Peeters explained. Although it won’t be heated, it will be accessible year round and set up close to an existing parking lot.

The pavilion is expected to cost $330,000, with more than half of that amount funded by grants from the MRC de Memphremagog and the Quebec ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food (MAPAQ). Le Rucher Boltonnois, the food security and arts and culture nonprofit which coordinates the public market and a concert series in East Bolton, took steps to have it installed, Peeters said.

The Saturday morning public market began in 2018 in a small gazebo in the park and has kept growing ever since. Peeters said the municipality has been trying to have a permanent structure for the market built for the past several years. “The market is doing well, but it costs a lot to put the tent up and take it down again, and [the tent] will reach its expiration date at some point, so we thought it would be better to have something permanent,” Peeters said. The structure could be expanded with added awnings if needed, she said. The market will begin in June under the tent before moving to the pavilion when it’s ready; the tent will eventually be sold.

Peeters said by building the pavilion, the municipality hopes to encourage local farmers and “create a living community space” used for events and public gatherings. “We don’t have a big community hall in East Bolton, so we’ll hold public events there [weather permitting],” she said. Residents who are planning events such as family reunions will be able to call the municipality and book the pavilion, although priority will be given to town events.

“Our municipality sets itself apart by using its park to encourage inclusion and vitality in its

community. It wants to make it a place that fosters the creation of links between people of all

backgrounds in order to encourage at the same time the local and proximity economy, culture,

family and community life in nature and in a pleasant outdoor setting,” Peeters said. An official opening ceremony should take place later this summer. 

Anglophone communities have uncertain place in proposed history museum

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

If all goes according to the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s plans, Quebec City will be home to a third major museum as early as 2026.

The Musée National de l’Histoire du Québec is expected to open in spring 2026 at the Camille-Roy Pavilion of the Séminaire du Québec, near the Basilica-Cathedral Notre- Dame-de-Québec in the Old City. Premier François Legault made the announcement on April 25 in Quebec City alongside culture minister Mathieu Lacombe, minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region Jonatan Julien, several local MNAs, Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand and Musée de la Civilisation CEO Stéphane La Roche.

“I’m very proud to announce the creation of the first museum entirely dedicated to the history of the Quebec nation,” Legault said. “Quebec City is naturally the place for it … be- cause Quebec City is where it all started.” He went on to wax lyrical about the “improbable” survival of the first French settlers and the francophone nation they gave rise to, and the “Indigenous peoples who were here before us and helped us through the years.”

“We had to fight for it,” Legault said, mentioning the Patriote rebellion; the 1838 Durham Report, which recommended the assimilation of francophones into Canada’s English-speaking majority; and the survival of French- speaking Quebec amid “a sea of English” in North America. “The fact we still speak French here is an exploit,” he said. “It’s important to share that with our young people.”

He said the state-of-the-art, interactive, child-friendly museum would trace 400 years of history through “great people and great events,” share the stories of eminent artists, athletes, statespeople and businesspeople and show off the “grandeur of our land” and collective victories such as the creation of Hydro-Québec.

“My objective is that when Quebecers come to see the museum, they’ll say, ‘I’m so proud to be a Quebecer,’” he said. “This museum will show us that we can dream big. I’m proud to be a Quebecer and what I want with this museum is for Quebecers to be even prouder.”

The museum is widely understood to be a scaled-down version of the CAQ’s Espaces Bleus project, which envisioned a museum of Quebec history, culture and identity in each region of the province, and was ultimately shelved due to ballooning cost estimates.

Legault read a long list of Quebec public figures, living and dead, who he expected the museum to honour, including singers Céline Dion, Robert Charlebois, Gilles Vigneault and Jean-Pierre Ferland; authors Michel Tremblay and Dany Laferrière; and sports legends Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau, Marie-Philip Poulin and Mickaël Kingsbury. Laferrière and sprinter Bruny Surin, both born in Haiti, were the only immigrants mentioned, and no anglophones or Indigenous people mentioned by name. When pressed by CBC reporter Cathy Senay, Legault said, “I could see a place for someone like Leonard Cohen.”

The Ministry of Culture and Communications (MCC) could not provide a full list of organizations that had been consulted for the project by press time, but MCC spokesperson Catherine Vien-Labeaume said a yet-to-be-established “scientific committee” would ensure a diversity of perspectives, including those of First Nations and English speakers. As of this writing, the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network and the Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network (Quescren) said they had not been approached. The Huron-Wendat Nation and the Musée Huron-Wendat had not been consulted either, according to Huron-Wendat Nation spokesperson Rose- Marie Ayotte.

“I look forward to seeing how the new museum explores what a Quebecer is, how it explores that idea of nous,” said Quescren research associate and historian Lorraine O’Donnell. “I’d love to see a process where anglophones and other cultural communities are consulted. We’d be very interested to help develop quality content.”

O’Donnell and Guy Rodgers, a filmmaker and advocate for anglophone arts and culture who has consulted for Montreal history museum Pointe-à-Callière, both said they hoped the museum would incorporate anglophone history and avoid perpetuating the stereotype of anglophones as elitist and out of touch with the francophone majority. “Our communities are very diverse in terms of socioeconomic and regional background,” O’Donnell said. “The stereotype that equates anglophones [with] an economic elite in Montreal is part of the story, but it isn’t the whole story. I’d love to see a nuanced picture.”

“The CAQ launched this [Espaces Bleus] idea a few years ago, and it turned out to be a big boondoggle, so they scrapped it. This history muse- um is a way of saving face and centralizing it,” said Rodgers, who explored the rich and varied history of English-speaking communities in Quebec in the documentary What We Choose to Remember. “You do want people to feel proud of their history, but is the vision of history that’s going to be pre- sented positive and inclusive, or will it be resentful? A good history museum would make everyone feel welcome, but anything put together under this government is not likely to do that.”

Library strike set to continue after staff reject proposal 

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The strike affecting Quebec City’s public library system is set to enter its ninth week after unionized staff narrowly voted down a proposed collective agreement. Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCWU, more widely known by its French acronym TUAC) local 501, which represents about 200 collections, billing and related staff at the city’s 26 public libraries, rejected the proposal, 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Turnout was estimated at 73 per cent.

Employees have been on strike since March 1. Their main demands include more flexible scheduling, higher pay for entry-level staff and pay equivalent to Ville de Québec staff doing similar jobs.

The agreement that was voted down last week was the third attempt to resolve the dispute. A previous agreement negotiated through a conciliator from the Quebec Ministry of Labour was rejected by the Ville de Québec, which finances the library system through the nonprofit Institut Canadien de Québec (ICQ).

The parties are not allowed to speak publicly about the details of a rejected agree- ment. “The specific reasons people vote yes or no are their business [but] from what we’ve heard, the fact that there was very little movement on pay parity compared to the first proposal and the fact that the first proposal was rejected by the city have led to a lack of trust” between the employees and the ICQ, TUAC spokesperson Roxane Larouche told the QCT. The fact that the ICQ must validate any proposed agreement with the city before approving it also complicates matters. “Ninety-nine per cent of the time, we don’t have to deal with that,” Larouche said.

She said she expected negotiations to resume over the next week. In the meantime, picket lines will return to the steps of city libraries. Larouche said morale has been high on the picket line so far “although such a close vote might make it hard for some people,” and strikers benefit from the union’s nationwide strike fund.

ICQ spokesperson Mélisa Imedjdouben said in a brief statement that the ICQ was “deeply disappointed” at the lack of a resolution to the strike. “The offer presented to unionized staff took into ac- count the concerns expressed in terms of salaries and working conditions, while keeping in mind the need to ensure responsible management of public funds,” she said.

Twenty-three of the city’s 26 libraries will remain closed until further notice. The other three – the Monique-Corriveau Library in Sainte-Foy, the Étienne-Parent Library in Beauport and the Gabrielle- Roy Library in Saint-Roch – are operating on a reduced schedule, open only on Thursdays and Fridays from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

An ambitious public transportation project in Bromont has been quietly shelved after three calls for tenders failed to give rise to any workable bids.

After a pilot project in summer 2021 showed encouraging ridership results for a shuttle service within the city, plans were announced to expand the shuttle service as early as 2022, implement a taxi-on-demand service similar to the one in Cowansville, work with major employers and surrounding municipalities to set up transport for employees, and set up a municipal car-sharing system that would allow people to loan their cars to their neighbours.

At the time, the then-head of the city’s sustainable mobility committee, Pierre Vinet, said transit advocates hoped to “develop a package that will allow people to get rid of their second car, if they have one” by 2024.

Vinet and MRC Brome-Missisquoi (MRCBM) director general Mélanie Thibault confirmed that the project as it was originally conceived is off the table.

“We made three calls for tenders, and sometimes we had no bidders and sometimes the estimated costs were so high that we couldn’t move forward,” Thibault said. “One of the impacts of the pandemic and of everything that was happening with the world economy meant that costs exploded.”

Amélie Casaubon, communications and citizen services co-ordinator at the Ville de Bromont, told the BCN the city was “working on a sustainable mobility plan, but it’s still at a very early stage.”

Service not resumed in Sutton

In Sutton, an environmentalist group held an Earth Day rally to call for the return of inter-city bus service to the city. Transdev, the company which provided the service, never brought it back after the pandemic. Solidarité Environnement Sutton spokesperson Sylvie Berthiaume said the organization was asking for an on-demand taxi service between Sutton and Bromont, where people would be able to use an existing private bus service to go on to Montreal or Sherbrooke. There is an on-demand taxi service, but Berthiaume said reservations need to be made far in advance, “which isn’t going to inspire anyone to get rid of their car.”

“We feel that this bus service needs to be public, because it’s not profitable enough for a private company and we pay a lot [in taxes] to maintain the roads,” she said. “There are more and more people in this region, and new companies opening, bringing more and more workers who are not all living in town. If we don’t do something soon, there will be even more cars on the road and that will create extra pollution,” she said.  “We need to think in the medium term.”

Berthiaume called on the MRC to appoint a sustainable mobility point person and invest in wider, safer bike paths as well as scaling up public transit. She and her colleagues say a lack of alternatives to driving makes it harder for senior citizens, young people, low-wage workers and people sharing a car with others in the same household to get around.

Thibault said it was “possible” that details would be released in the near future about a public transit project serving Sutton, but couldn’t provide further details.

A constant challenge

Thibault explained that the MRC works with municipalities on the development, funding and coordination of calls for tenders for city transit projects. Most recently, earlier this month, it launched a weekday city bus pilot project in Cowansville in collaboration with the city and the ministry of municipal affairs.

“We have six service hubs in the MRC and a lot of rural areas and small communities, so it’s very complex and it’s hard to put an efficient [public transportation] project in place,” Thibault said. “There are certain municipalities, like Cowansville, where it’s possible to live without a car, but it’s complicated. We do have weekday on-demand bus service, but it’s not adapted to everyone’s schedule.”

“It’s very hard to live without a car in Sutton, or even in Cowansville,” Berthiaume countered. “I met a couple who was trying to function without a car in Cowansville and they just couldn’t –  they had to give in. We aren’t expecting service every 10 minutes, but it has to be better than what we have now. We’re in a climate emergency and we can’t wait 10 years.”

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

A Université de Sherbrooke (UdeS) study has shed light on what appear to be patterns of elder abuse in private seniors’ residences in Longueuil.

The study was led by UdeS social work professor and holder of the Research Chair on Mistreatment of Older Adults Mélanie Couture. Working with a local residents’ rights group in Longueuil, researchers spoke directly with residents of several private seniors’ residences and with caregivers to learn more about their own experiences of elder abuse.

Studies that consult elderly residents of care homes directly about their experiences are relatively rare, researchers found. “Our review of scientific literature around the world has demonstrated a glaring lack of data on mistreatment even though we hear about cases from stakeholders and also in the media,” Couture said.

The interviews “demonstrate[d] that mistreatment is expressed through omitted or inadequate care, unfulfilled commitments, non-recognition of residents’ needs as well as retaliation on the part of managers when they dare to complain,” the university said in a statement. Researchers also found that complaint procedures were often long, multilayered and hard to follow.

Although the full results haven’t been published, Couture said she and her colleagues wanted to publicize their findings as soon as possible, to shed light on a public health problem.

The study found patterns of “actions which cause harm, inactions which cause harm, and incidents of financial abuse” where residents were charged for care that wasn’t done. “This isn’t just a question of replacing one employee and solving all the problems,” said Couture.

Couture explained that the residents’ group and community organizations began laying the groundwork for the study as early as 2017, but the interviews took place in 2021 and 2022, shortly after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as residents of private seniors’ homes bore the brunt of the labour shortage and the housing crisis. “The housing crisis brought in an element of nonchalance [because seniors were less likely to be able to find another place to live if they were unsatisfied.] The pandemic and the housing crisis didn’t help, but there was increased public awareness,” she said. She added that “very good private seniors’ residences do exist” but the housing shortage and rising costs make finding a good residence an arduous task for many seniors. She said stricter enforcement of existing regulations and improved government support for nonprofit and co-op seniors’ home projects may help prevent abuse in the long term.

Couture said she hopes the study and the wider public conversation about ill-treatment in seniors’ residences will lead more care home residents with concerns about their treatment or living conditions to file complaints or get a caregiver, health care professional or family member to complain on their behalf. Since 2021, each CISSS or CIUSSS has had a local complaints commissioner and a complaint assistance line (1 877 767-2227.). Complaints can also be made to the provincial citizens’ ombudsman in their capacity as health and social services patient ombudsman (1 800 463-5070) or the bilingual elder abuse helpline (1-888-489-2287).

Union receives new offer as library strike drags on

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The end may be in sight as the strike by employees in the Quebec City public library system enters its eighth week.

The Institut Canadien de Québec (ICQ), the nonprofit organization which runs the library system, tabled a second proposed agreement on April 19. The first such agreement, put forward by a conciliator from the Quebec labour ministry, was rejected by the Ville de Québec, which funds the library system.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCWU, more widely known in Quebec by its French acronym TUAC) local 501 represents about 200 employees of the 26 public libraries in Quebec City, including collections and billing staff. They have been on strike since March 1. Major sticking points, according to the union, include salaries for entry-level staff, indexation to inflation, lower salaries than city employees in similar roles, the ability to take partial vacation days, shift schedules arranged so that breaks are unpaid, and unpredictable schedule changes. “In some areas [managers] would make major schedule changes without checking with employees, but people have family lives and schedule changes can disrupt the whole family,” said union spokesperson Roxane Larouche.

Larouche said members were “very disappointed but not surprised” when the previous agreement was nixed by the city. “The city didn’t approve the previous agreement [for financial reasons], so whatever comes next, workers figure what is coming next will have less on the table,” she added.

“This [second] offer takes into account all the concerns raised by the union, particularly with regard to entry-level salaries, catching up with city employees, salary progressions, work-life balance and elements related to scheduling and bonuses, while keeping in mind the need to ensure responsible management of the public funds entrusted to [the library system],” ICQ spokesperson Mélisa Imedjouben said in a statement. “The Institut Canadien de Québec wishes to reach a settlement as quickly as possible with its unionized staff.”

Larouche, who had not had time to review the offer as of late Friday afternoon, said the union would review the offer, present it to members and schedule a vote in the coming days.

Most of the public libraries in Quebec City have been closed since the strike began. The Monique-Corriveau Library in Sainte-Foy, the Étienne-Parent Library in Beauport and the Gabrielle-Roy Library in Saint-Roch are open with reduced hours. The Morrin Centre Library is managed by a separate nonprofit organization (the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec) and is not affected by the strike.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The formal transfer of the territory of Bromont from the Haute-Yamaska local health network to the La Pommeraie network is “a little signature that makes a big difference,” according to veteran Councillor Claire Mailhot, the municipality’s point person on community services.

The transfer was made official on April 17 after more than six years of discussion and nearly 14 years of waiting – ever since the town of Bromont joined Brome-Missisquoi in 2010. “When we changed MRCs, all the files followed, except for public health,” Mailhot explained. This has had several knock-on effects, from confusing public health data during the COVID-19 pandemic to patients in Brome-Missisquoi being placed on a waiting list for a family doctor in Haute-Yamaska and then manually transferred, she said. She hoped the reorganization would lead to more complete health data, better resource allocation between the two health networks, and ideally to longer opening hours and the assignment of a new doctor to the local CLSC. “Also, if you’re waiting for a family doctor, you’ll now be on the right list.”

“We [in Bromont] have always been linked with Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins hospital, and this will formalize that fact,” Mailhot added.

Community services such as food aid, which are managed by volunteer action centres in collaboration with the public health network, will also be easier to manage, she said.

She said Bromont has been working with the La Pommeraie network on many key files since 2019. “Why did [the transfer] take so long? That’s above our pay grade, but we’ve been waiting for it for a long time.”

Health officials also believe the switch will lead to better data and improved personnel allocation practices. Nancy Corriveau, a spokesperson for the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS, told the BCN that the transfer was “good news.”

“Bromont data will be officially integrated into the RLS de la Pommeraie allowing access to data more representative of local reality, which will allow us to better distribute financial and human resources. Population portraits and the needs of the population of the RLS de la Pommeraie (including Bromont) will thus be more easily accessible,” she said in a brief email. Patients “will be directed to the Cowansville sector, where for the most part they were already in the habit of going for services.”

Brome-Missisquoi MNA Isabelle Charest explained in a Facebook post that the shift “will ensure better administrative organization of health services throughout the territory and better meet the needs of the population of Bromont and the RLS de la Pommeraie.”

The reorganization “aims to allow people currently waiting for a family doctor to transfer their request to the territory of La Pommeraie; improves the planning of medical staff in the targeted territories; and ensures an adjustment of the surveillance and evaluation databases of the public health directorate so that the data reflects the real state of the population by territory,” Charest wrote.

IMAGINATION WRITERS’ FESTIVAL: 

Moon of the Turning Leaves paints a picture of hopeful dystopia

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

As the world shut down in March and April 2020, layers of public health restrictions put the world we once knew behind glass, before they were stripped away, reimposed, stripped away and reimposed again – remember the red, orange and yellow zones?

Bread-baking, video games and houseplant growing became popular lockdown hobbies, as people sought to escape from the inevitable waves of anxiety. Sudbury, Ont. author Waubgeshig Rice, however, coped by immersing himself in an even darker dystopia.

His 2018 debut novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, follows the residents of a fictional northern Ontario Anishnaabe reserve as they deal with the aftermath of an unspecified apocalyptic event. When the power goes out, no one in the small community is particularly worried at first – after all, many older residents can still remember a time before electricity – but once food and fuel deliveries stop and refugees start showing up on the outskirts of the reserve, it becomes clear something much darker is afoot. While some passages might have seemed unimaginable to North American readers in 2018, events like a grocery store run and the instant disappearance of regular school and work routines take on a chest-tightening familiarity for anyone with memories of 2020.

However, the community’s experience with colonialism, forced displacement and isolation gives it a unity and resilience that surrounding non-Native communities lack. An elder observes that her native language lacks a word for apocalypse. “Our world isn’t ending, it already ended … Apocalypse, we’ve had that over and over and we’re still here.” As dark as the novel is, with a sharp realism reminiscent of Scandinavian crime novels, it’s also shot through with humour, hope and breath- taking landscapes.

During the first wave of the pandemic in spring 2020, Rice started working on the book’s sequel, Moon of the Turning Leaves. The sequel follows a new generation on their quest to find a safe place to take root after resources near the old reserve begin to run short. Like its predecessor, it’s a dark, rich story full of hope and resilience amid testing times. As Rice put it, he wanted to “flip the trope of death and despair” present in a lot of dystopian literature and in many literary depictions of Indigenous life.

Rice, a former CBC Radio host, discussed both novels with CBC Quebec producer Kim Garrity at the Imagination Writers’ Festival at the Morrin Centre on April 9. “I was here with Moon of the Crusted Snow [in 2018] and to return here with Moon of the Turning Leaves is special,” he said.

He talked about the im- portance of the land and of the reappropriation of the Anishinaabe language and culture in his books. “As an Indigenous person, I have the apocalypse in my lineage,” he said, referring to the mass deaths from disease and war which followed European contact; attempts by colonial governments to forcibly move entire First Nations, force historically nomadic peoples to remain in settlements and outlaw cultural practices; and the residential school system.

“Our parents’ generation brought back the drums and took over the school,” said Rice, 44, who is relearning the Anishinaabe language as an adult. “It was a wide-scale collective trauma response, but it had such a positive influence on me and my peers.”

As Moon of the Turning Leaves closes, readers meet a 12-year-old girl, the original hero’s granddaughter, who has never known electricity, spoken English or encountered a culture other than her own, peppering her grandmother with questions about the old days. Although Rice said that “almost 10 years being immersed in a postapocalyptic future does take a toll,” he did not rule out the idea of a trilogy.

BRIEF: French prime minister Gabriel Attal visits Quebec City

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal visited the National Assembly on April 11 as part of a multi-day visit to Canada. Attal met with Premier François Legault (above) and with representatives of all parties, and gave an address in the Salon Bleu, the first French prime minister to do so since 1984. “As a French person, I find that speaking to you is more than speaking to cousins; it’s more like speaking to brothers and sisters, separated by an ocean but united by common values,” he said. He emphasized the shared commitment of Quebec and France to state secularism and to the protection and promotion of the French language in an increasingly globalized, anglicized world. (RP-LJI)

PHOTO (by Cassandra Kerwin)

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is welcomed to the National Assembly by National Assembly president Nathalie Roy on April 11. Attal, 35, who was appointed prime minister in president Emmanuel Macron’s government in January, is the youngest person to hold that office. Attal’s trip to Canada was his first international trip since his appointment. (RP-LJI)

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Several independent members of Sherbrooke city council have told The Record they have concerns about the future of democratic debate in the chamber as an increasing number of key roles are filled by members of Mayor Évelyne Beaudin’s Sherbrooke Citoyen slate.

Earlier this week, Beaudin appointed deputy mayor and Sherbrooke Citoyen Councillor Raïs Kibonge as council president, replacing veteran independent Councillor Danielle Berthold. At the April 9 council meeting, Berthold resigned from the executive committee; the committee is now made up of Beaudin, Kibonge, Councillor Laure Letarte-Lavoie and Councillor Fernanda Luz, all Sherbrooke Citoyen members. Although independent councillors outnumber Sherbrooke Citoyen members on the full council eight seats to six, they worry that those with dissenting views may lose the opportunity to express them unless there’s a strong independent voice on the executive committee.

“The executive committee prepares the files for the full council, so instead of nuanced proposals that will have something in them to attract anyone, we’ll have proposals with [less nuance]. It will be harder for the independents to have their voices heard,” Berthold said.

“There’s a lot of centralization in the executive committee now – there’s no one to bring an alternative point of view,” said independent Councillor Christelle Lefevre. “It’s damaging and it’s not representative of the population.”

Lennoxville Borough President Claude Charron was more direct. “We’re losing democracy,” he said. “They [Sherbrooke Citoyen] are in the majority on the executive committee, and that’s where the decisions are made. You see that a lot in municipal politics, it’s not unique to Sherbrooke; whenever a party gets in, things get difficult for independents. I try to push ideas through now and it’s a challenge.”

Lefevre said she was worried that the consolidation of power would bring more “mistrust” between independents and Sherbrooke Citoyen members, while Berthold said there could be “fireworks” on the council floor if independent members felt their views weren’t being taken into account.

Kibonge, for his part, sought to allay their concerns. He said he found it surprising that independent members were worried. “The executive committee handles day-to-day affairs, the executive committee might make a proposal, but the city council, where independents are the majority, has the power to accept or reject any decision – they are the only decision-making body.”

“Anyone can table a proposal – whether they are on the executive committee or not makes no difference,” he added. “Anyone can table a proposal and if there is no opposition, it passes, and if there is opposition, we vote. The independents are in the majority. It would be surprising if we weren’t able to address their files.”

Kibonge is a first-term councillor and close Beaudin ally who served as acting mayor during Beaudin’s medical leave late last year. He will now be tasked with impartially and diplomatically chairing the meetings of a deeply divided council. La Tribune political columnist Pierre Harvey recently described Kibonge as “le funambule en chef” – the chief highwire artist – of the city. Kibonge doesn’t shy away from the metaphor. “I do have to try to move forward while keeping everything balanced!” he said.

The independent councillors the Record spoke to all seemed willing to wait and see how council would function under Kibonge’s leadership.

“Ms. Berthold has a lot of experience, she knows how the machine works and she brought our attention to some important points,” said Lefevre. “Mr. Kibonge doesn’t have as much experience, he still has a lot to learn. We’ll see what happens.”

“There was already a difficult climate between Sherbrooke Citoyen and the independents. Will this calm things down? I don’t think so. Will things work better because Mr. Kibonge is in my place? I don’t know, but we all need to make an effort to make sure things work right,” Berthold said. “I hope for the sake of democracy that we’re moving in the right direction.”

City, major employers launch new climate initiative

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Ville de Québec is enlisting several of the region’s largest employers in a new initiative aimed at helping the city reach its climate targets and develop climate-friendly projects.

Mayor Bruno Marchand announced the formation of the Québec Capitale Climat steering committee alongside Environment Minister Benoit Charette, minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region Jonatan Julien, Université Laval rector Sophie D’Amours and Jean-François Chalifoux, CEO of insurance company Beneva. D’Amours and Chalifoux will jointly lead the committee.

According to a joint statement, the committee aims “to contribute to the objectives of the city’s 2021-2025 climate action plan, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent relative to 2010 by 2030, mobilize major employ- ers, public institutions and real estate promoters to support its climate efforts, organize an annual climate action sum- mit and make the city more climate-resilient.”

The Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Québec (CCIQ), the CHU-Université Laval hospital, the Port de Québec, Destination Quebec Cité, Hydro-Québec, Groupe Dallaire, Desjardins, the regional public health directorate and the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, one of the area’s largest public sector unions, will also have representatives on the 19-member board, along- side community and philanthropic organizations.

The initiative, inspired by similar projects in Boston and Montreal, has a budget of between $900,000 and $2 million for its first two years, provided by the Ville de Québec and the Fondation Familiale Trottier. QCC is expected to announce concrete projects in the coming weeks and months. D’Amours said she hoped the initiative would create an opportunity for “our sectors to benefit from shared knowledge and move forward together in a disciplined way year after year.”

In a soaring speech, March- and said it was “imperative” to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels because “there are a lot of people who need hope right now.

“There are a minority of people who are resisting, but there has been a tipping point in the last few years for the vast majority of citizens, who understand the obvious,” after the wildfires of this past sum- mer, he said. “We don’t have a lot of choices – we can roll up in a ball and give in to anxiety, we can be in denial… or in the face of almost certain failure, we can decide not to show up at the starting line. Or we can say, we don’t know how this will end or even if it will end, but we’ll do everything we can,” he said, citing restaurants and groups in the business community that that have begun to take sustainable development seriously, realizing that “if we don’t develop sustainably, we won’t survive at all.

“On our own, as a city, we can’t get there,” he added. “We need to get the largest employ- ers on board. We need to get everyone on board to make the city carbon-neutral.”

Chalifoux, for his part, said he was “absolutely convinced” businesses would be keen to get on board.

Charette, with whose government Marchand has locked horns over atmospheric contaminants and the fate of the tramway, praised Marchand’s “leadership” and the commit- ment of the private sector and community partners. “Frankly, I’m very, very proud,” he said. “This is inspiring for the future. Municipalities are key part- ners for us … to face climate change.”

“The transition can’t happen without structured public transit, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work on other things in the meantime,” Marchand told reporters, after Charette and Julien had left for question period at the National Assembly.

Nurses’ union rejects agreement in principle

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Representatives of the province’s largest nurses’ union will return to the negotiating table after members rejected an agreement in principle.

The Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) represents 80,000 public sector nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and IV technicians around the province. After 15 months of negotiations, the FIQ head office announced on March 21 that an agreement-in-principle had been reached. Although FIQ president Julie Bouchard emphasized that it was up to the members to accept or reject the agreement, the union pointed out in a statement at the time that the agreement contained “several steps forward,” specifically regarding salaries and changes to rules around compulsory overtime and compulsory reassignment.

However, the agreement stopped short of what many members wanted. After the results of local votes were tallied in the wee hours of the morning of April 13, the union announced that 61 per cent of voting members had rejected the agreement. Voter turnout was estimated at 77 per cent.

“Our members have spoken: they want to be considered, respected, while having better working conditions. Although they know that a collective agreement cannot solve all the problems of the public health network, they have lost confidence in the government and their managers. We call on leaders to listen to them and bring solutions to the table that will truly improve the daily lives of our members and recognize their expertise as well as the specificities of their work,” Bouchard said in a statement. “This vote means three things: our members are determined to see their working conditions improve. They believe that they have suffered for too long from a completely disorganized health network. They want to break with the culture of doing more with less and obtain full recognition of the value of their work and their expertise.”

Bouchard later told reporters she was “disappointed” that members turned the agreement down, but that she acknowledged that “60,000 people have told us something is missing.” The FIQ plans to consult its members over the next few weeks before resuming negotiations with the government. Although members backed a strike mandate last fall and held several nonconsecutive strike days, it’s unclear whether members are willing to go that far in the next few weeks. “It will be up to the members how far they want to go with that,” Bouchard said.

“We note the rejection of the agreement in principle by the members of the FIQ. We are going to meet with the union to understand what is wrong. However, our objectives will remain the same, particularly in terms of flexibility,” Quebec Treasury Board president Sonia LeBel wrote on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the results were announced.

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Compton-Stanstead MP and Minister of National Revenue, Marie-Claude Bibeau, has called the $535-billion budget released Tuesday an “intergenerational equity” budget, vaunting proposed new protections for renters and first-time homebuyers.

“There are a lot of Gen-Xers in our caucus, and we see the worries our [Gen Z] kids have,” she said in a post-budget chat with The Record. “Young people don’t dream of buying their own home anymore, because property isn’t accessible.”

The budget contains provisions to provide federal loans to support provincial and municipal housing projects. For former renters making the transition to owning their own home, programs laid out in the budget will make it easier for renters with a stable payment history to qualify for a mortgage, Bibeau explained. Mortgage insurance rules will be amended to allow 30-year mortgage amortizations for first-time homebuyers buying newly built homes, and homebuyers will be able to withdraw an additional $25,000 from their RRSPs to put toward a down payment on a house. To incentivize new builds, GST will no longer be applied to construction materials.

For renters, a $1.5-billion Renters’ Assistance Fund will be established; some of the funds will be disbursed to community organizations providing legal support and information for renters; some will be used to establish a charter of rights for renters and set up “something like a rent registry” – a public database allowing renters to see what the previous tenant paid for their house or apartment, a longstanding demand of renters’ rights groups.

The budget will also allow for the establishment of a $500-million fund for youth mental health programming, an echo of an as-yet-unfulfilled 2021 election promise. Bibeau said local mental health promotion organizations such as Mental Health Estrie would be able to apply for funding through this program to improve their own programming for youth.

On the health front, Bibeau said disability benefit recipients will get an extra $200 per month, and the federal dental care plan will continue its gradual rollout and be extended to seniors 65 and older, children under 18 and disability benefit recipients, and the first phase of a national pharmacare plan will be rolled out, making contraceptives and certain diabetes medications free to people covered by their respective provincial health plans. 

While Bibeau was hesitant to speak about the potential ramifications of specific budget measures for her riding, she cited the doubling of the volunteer firefighter tax credit (from $3,000 to $6,000) and the renewal of support for community media through the Local Journalism Initiative as budget measures to help rural areas.

The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois have both said they intend to vote against the budget – Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has called the budget “wasteful and inflationary” and Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet has accused the Liberals of interfering in provincial jurisdiction. “The Bloc Québécois denounces, among other things, the imposition on Quebec and municipalities of federal priorities in terms of housing, the imposition of infrastructure conditions under threat of depriving the provinces of funds, the financing of federal drug insurance and federal dental care,” the party said in a statement.

The future of the budget – and of the Liberal government – is in the hands of the NDP, and as of this writing, the party hasn’t said whether they will support the budget. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has called investments in pharmacare and dental care “a glimpse of what an NDP government can do” but attacked the Liberals’ overall plan: “Justin Trudeau has had nine budgets to make life better and more affordable, but Canadians are still falling farther behind.”

A “no” vote from the NDP would bring down the minority Liberal government and trigger an election.

That prospect doesn’t seem to ruffle Bibeau. “We’ve respected our engagements, and we are pretty confident that we have a people-centred budget,” she said. “I figure the next election will come in 2025.