MRC-des-Collines-de-l’Outaouais has welcomed long-standing Warden Marc Carrière who has been serving the community for many years and hopes to continue to do so, “now 100% of my time will be for the MRC des Collines,” said Carrière.

A few MRCs still haven’t adopted the new system, where the warden is . . .

elected by universal suffrage, rather than chosen by the council of mayors. The MRC Pontiac is the second to do so in the Outaouais region after the MRC Vallée-de-la-Gatineau, and now MRC-des-Collines follows suit with the election of their new warden.

Carrière has been a pioneer in his community. He started off in politics at a young age when he was elected councillor in Val-des-Monts. He occupied the position for four years [from 1992 to 1996], then became the mayor and remained there for 12 years [from 1996 to 2008].

In addition, in 2008 Carrière was elected as a member of the National Assembly for the riding of Chapleau, a position he maintained for 10 years. With his experience in the federal and provincial government, Carrière believes that is what will help him serve the MRC: “I’m quite happy to have been elected for the next four years,” he said.

He was also previously elected President of the Regional conference of elected officials for the Outaouais. He occupied the position for five years, while also being the mayor of Val-des-Monts and Warden of the MRC of Papineau. During his time there he tackled big issues such as agriculture and forestry.

The first thing on his agenda, according to Carrière was the adoption of a $30.2 million budget announced on Nov 24. One of his top priorities is the recovery and development of the local territory, therefore the council of mayors have chosen to allocate an additional $300,000 into the development of the community, highlighted in the press release on Dec. 1.

“It was quite a rush, it was quite a lot of work but with all the mayors we adopted a good budget for next year.”

He added they had more money to pour into areas such as economic, social and sustainable development this year, which he is happy about as it will help them rebuild a strong community.

Some of his priorities right now include building up businesses and tackling issues such as lack of employees, as well as public security issues in the MRC. When asked about the Municipality of Pontiac he said one of the major aspects is supporting farmers: “we want to work hard with our farmers to help them,” he said.

One of the challenges and things he hopes to work on during his time in office is to bridge the gap between the citizens and the MRC. Carrière pointed out that he wishes to help people better understand what he and the MRC can do for them. He explains his role as being two-fold “the MRC provides a lot of services to the municipalities [and] we also provide services to the citizens,” he said.

Hitting the ground running, the warden has been talking to community members and has started working with different people and organizations. He expressed how thrilled he is to be in this position, “I can’t wait to work the next four years to help our citizens,” said Carrière.

Register or subscribe to read this content

Thanks for stopping by! This article is available to readers who have created a free account or who subscribe to The Equity.

When you register for free with your email, you get access to a limited number of stories at no cost. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to everything we publish—and directly support quality local journalism here in the Pontiac.

Register or Subscribe Today!