The Council of Mayors voted 15-to-3 at Wednesday’s public meeting to rescind a resolution requesting Residence Meilleur repay a $30,000 grant, which was originally passed on March 27, 2020. The vote came after a long debate, which saw arguments over proper procedure, conflict of interest rules and the legality of the move.

Residence Meilleur is a not-for-profit retirement residence in L’Isle aux Allumettes. It was named in honour of late notable resident Fred Meilleur.

As THE EQUITY reported last week, the dispute over the $30,000, which was part of a total $180,00 Residence Meilleur received from the MRC starting in 2016, originally seemed to hinge on whether the money was an overpayment of a . . .

$150,000 grant agreed to in the 2016-2017 FDT (Fonds de développement des territoires) budget, and would therefore need to be paid back, or if it was a separate grant from the 2015-2016 FDT budget, and therefore legitimate. However, the perimeters of the debate shifted by the end.

Donald Gagnon, mayor of Chichester, started things off by introducing a resolution asking that the request for repayment be rescinded. The resolution stated that the $30,000 and the $150,000 grants were from separate FDT budget years, and Residence Meilleur communicated the existence of both grants to the Societe d’habitation in order to obtain approval for the project. Furthermore, the resolution stated that Residence Meilleur provided documentation to council that they were told that the $30,000 grant was legitimate by the MRC.

Procedural dispute

However, before Gagnon’s resolution was voted on, Sandra Armstrong, mayor of Mansfield et Pontefract, introduced a counter resolution to defer the vote on rescinding the payment until the council could be advised by lawyers on the legality of the move.

“Last week I talked to a lawyer, and there seems to be red flags in this file,” said Armstrong, explaining why she thought the vote should be deferred.

This caused Cory Spence, mayor of Ile aux Allumettes, to interject with a point of order to dispute that Gagnon’s resolution should be voted on first, as it had been introduced first. Colleen Larivière, mayor of Litchfield supported Spence’s move.

Warden Jane Toller stated that the deferral vote should go first, as whether or not it passed would determine if the original resolution would still be applicable.

However, the deferral vote failed, with 12 mayors voting against the resolution and six voting for it.

Bill McCleary, mayor of Shawville, said after the vote that if the deferral vote was introduced before Gagnon’s resolution, he would have supported it, but the way introduced meant he couldn’t support it.

Mayor Beauregard said that there was an agreement among the mayors that resolutions needed to be brought to the plenary meeting first in order to be brought to the public meeting, and therefore the vote to defer was illegitimate.

“I remind everybody that if we followed the rule once, then we have to stick with it,” said Beauregard in an interview after the meeting. “I’m a guy that will follow rules, but the rules are made for everybody and not to be broken by certain people.”

Warden Toller stood by the move, stating that she understood the procedural rules of council from her years on the Toronto city council.

Dispute over facts

After the failure of the vote to defer, Toller went on to dispute the wording of Gagnon’s resolution, stating it was factually incorrect.

“What I know was that the first resolution ever approved from the 2015-2016 FDT budget was $30,000, but there were only two other resolutions approved, one was for $60,000 and the second one was for $60,000. If you add those up it comes to $150,000,” said Toller. “There was never a resolution for the final $30,000.”

Toller went on to explain that should the request for repayment be rescinded, the 18 municipalities would have to pay the $30,000 from their collective shares that they provide to the MRC.

Mayor McCleary asked why this money had to come from anywhere when it was already spent. Cyndy Phillips, economic development director of the MRC explained that it was discovered that only $150,000 was authorised to be spent by the province, even though $180,000 was spent. Therefore, the payment of the $30,000 had to be reversed.

“That $30,000 is in limbo and needs to be accounted for. And it can’t be accounted for under the old FDT fund,” said Philips.

“It’s about accountability to the province,” said Toller.

As the debate progressed, Toller began to encourage the council to amend the resolution to say that the council voted to give Residence Meilleur a total of three $30,000 and two grants of $60,000 for a total $150,000, in order to accurately reflect the record of what resolutions were actually passed.

To further complicate matters, an email sent to Residence Meilleur by an employee of the MRC in July 2018, which was provided to the THE EQUITY, seems to clearly suggest that they were to be told that they received a total of $180,000.

“The conclusion is that there was a clerical error made by the MRC administration, which led the Residence Meilleur to believe that they had an extra $30,000. If this was the case it is our duty to help out this organisation which in turn helps out all the constituents of the MRC,” said Mayor Spence.

Both Toller and Phillips acknowledged that this was a mistake by the employee. “I think there’s errors in many of the communications going back to those times,” said Philips.

In the end two amendments proposed by Mayor Maurice Beauregard of Campbell’s Bay and Mayor Spence were added to Gagnon’s original motion, which stated the MRC council only voted to give Residence Meilleur three grants, which amounted to $30,000 plus $60,000 plus $60,000 for a total of $150,000, but given the mistakes made by the MRC, the overpaid $30,000 would come out of the MRC’s surplus (which is made up of the revenue shares provided by each municipality).

The final vote was 15 voting in favour of the amended motion to three voting against it. Mayor Armstrong of Mansfield et Pontefract, Mayor Christine Francoeur of Fort Coulonge and Mayor Lynne Cameron of Portage du Fort voted against the resolution.

The board of Residence Meilleur was very pleased with the result, according to a press release about their reaction to the vote.

“It’s full and there’s a waiting list. Everybody that’s there is loving the living arrangements and we need more of that. We need to keep our seniors here,” said Mayor Beauregard about the need to support retirement residences in the area.

“The decision that was made I think in the end is a good decision because it’s not easy for volunteers to have to fundraise and to look after the operating expenses of a senior’s home,” said Toller. “I think we at the MRC in particular, perhaps have learned something from this experience that we need to be very diligent about how we manage grants, and make sure that you don’t get a check unless a resolution is voted on first.”

However, before the final amendment of the resolution and vote, the council debated the issue for about an hour and in the process brought up various points of contention.

“They got caught”

Mayor Gagnon at one point in the debate made an impassioned speech stating that they were talking about a struggling senior’s residence, which was desperately needed in the Pontiac. He also demanded an apology from the warden for her use of the phrase “got caught” in describing her view of the situation in last week’s article in THE EQUITY.

Doris Ranger, mayor of Sheenboro, Mayor Beauregard and Mayor Larivière echoed this sentiment.

“I was always happy to come here, but when I saw what was in the paper today, I was very disappointed,” said Ranger.

After the vote, the Residence Meilleur released a statement which in part said, “The Board of Directors is now very concerned about the comments made by Warden Jane Toller to THE EQUITY,” in reference to the “got caught” line

Toller said she made the comments in haste.

Dispute over conflict of interest.

During the debate, Mayor Spence brought up that some mayors had suggested that he and other mayors who are on the board of Residence Meilleur shouldn’t be allowed to vote on the resolution due to conflict-of-interest rules.

Mayor Gagnon, Mayor Ranger and Mayor of Waltham, Odette Godin, are all current members of the board of governors of Residence Meilleur.

“Let it be known for a conflict-of-interest to exist there must be a direct or indirect benefit to the individual. Given the fact that Residence Meilleur is structured as a non-profit and run by mostly volunteers, I challenge anyone to show where these mayors will personally gain in a pecuniary matter or otherwise, [from this vote],” said Mayor Spence.

He went on to say that it was suggested that he was in conflict-of-interest simply due to the fact that he represented Ile aux Allumettes, which he disputed.

“If we were to follow this logic then the warden would be in conflict anytime she votes, because she is the representative of the entire region,” said Spence.

He claimed legal advice given to the council said that he and other mayors would not be in conflict under the circumstances presented by the Residence Meilleur issue.

Mayor Armstrong argued that many mayors could have been in a conflict of interest, and used it as a point to reiterate why it would have been a good idea to clarify that with a lawyer before the vote.

Mayor Christine Francoeur went further in an interview after the debate. “Some of the mayors were in total conflict. They should not have been able to vote on [Residence Meilleur]. They should not have been able to say anything about it. They should have been out of the room completely. And not only for the vote, but for every discussion[on the subject], because that’s how it works.”

Mayor Armstrong says she will discuss the matter of the potential conflict of interest with her lawyer.

Some Mayors don’t want to pay.

Mayor Armstrong, who was one of the three mayors to vote against the resolution, stated that she would try to block any money from Mansfield et Pontefract from being used to cover the $30,000 overpayment.

“Why are 18 mayors meeting and deciding something one year and then another year they decide to reopen the vote because we have a few new mayors? And then they vote something against what the first council voted for? That’s the principle of matter,” said Armstrong.

“Article 1491 of the Code Civil du Québec says that if there’s a mistake in a payment, this money should be returned,” said Armstrong. “I don’t have anything against the project. We need housing like that. But the person that received that money should have brought it back.”

It’s not yet clear what legal recourse Armstrong has.

“We’re one of the biggest municipalities and I don’t believe they should take money from us.”

Mayor Francoeur also disagrees that her municipality should have to contribute towards the resolution, though is less firm on saying definitively she won’t pay.

“I mean, we all have things that we need to pay for in our own municipality,” said Francoeur. “We don’t have any extra money to be giving to other municipalities. We’ll see what develops, but yes, if there is a possibility that we don’t need to pay, definitely I will be using that possibility.”

At the meeting however Toller said a dispute where a mayor opposed a resolution and expected their municipality to not have to pay shares towards it had happened before and it had been established that there’s no option for a municipality to opt-out.

Sandra Armstrong says she’s working with a lawyer to see what her options are.

Further grants given to Residence Meilleur

Though there was no vote, another r esolution passed in 2016 which provided a grant-in-lieu of taxes to Residence Meilleur from the MRC of $2,100 for 35 years was affirmed at the meeting.

This is in addition to a number of other grants Residence Meilleur is receiving from municipalities in the Upper Pontiac.

Ile aux Allumettes has currently committed to giving Residence Meilleur three separate streams of financial support, according to Winston Sunstrum, spokesperson for the residence and former mayor of Ile aux Allumettes. The first is a grant of $7,500 a year for 10 years. The second is a grant in lieu of taxes of $6,300 a year for up to 35 years or until Residence Meilleur can balance its annual operating budget. Thirdly the Ile aux Allumettes also contributes up to $3,160 a year for tenants who qualify for subsidized rentals.

Chichester, Sheenboro, and Waltham have each committed to giving the Residence Meilleur $3,500 a year for 10 years for a total of $25,000 each, according to Sunstrum.

Sunstrum said they also received some donations from Rapides des Joachims and said the mayor may join the board of Residence Meilleur at some point in the future.

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