On Dec. 17, the MRC Pontiac council of mayors held its final public meeting of 2025, approving the 2026 budget of $11,104,323. The full budget presentation can be viewed here.

Though larger than previous years ($8,913,136 in 2025 and $9,858,728 in 2024), the growth in this year’s budget was largely driven by increased grant funding from the provincial government. 

MRC director general Kim Lesage explained in an email that this year marked the start of a five-year funding agreement with the ministry of municipal affairs (MAMH) for the regional and rural development fund (FRR). 

“The Vitalization components [of this] budget has been increased by the government to provide greater support to MRCs and smaller municipalities facing development challenges,” she wrote.

This was represented by a $1.7 million increase to “development grants” on the revenue side ($1,918,664 to $3,690,785) and a corresponding $1,533,806 bump on the expense side for “Strategic development (FRR Streams 1-2)”. 

Municipal shares, the fees that municipalities pay to the MRC for services, increased slightly by $136,453, from $4,206,500 to $4,342,953 in 2026 (see page two). However, they declined as a percentage of overall MRC revenues from 47 per cent in 2025 to 40 per cent in 2026. The MRC’s press release notes that shares were reduced from $0.1026 to $0.1008 per $100 of standardized property value. 

The budget passed unanimously, though there was no representative from the municipality of Waltham at the meeting. 

Warden salary increase

Council approved the remuneration of the warden, to $66,644 in 2026, a roughly $14,000 increase from the 2025 base salary of $52,533.06.

MRC director general Kim Lesage said she proposed the increase after doing research on the pay of wardens in similarly sized neighbouring regions. The base salary of the warden in MRC Vallée-de-la-Gatineau (with a population of around 20,000) was $96,236 in 2024. 

According to the bylaw, the warden is also entitled to an expense allowance, which Lesage said is around $20,000 this year, for expenses when the warden attends conferences or other official duties on behalf of the MRC. 

The role of warden was made a stand-alone, elected position in 2017, as previously, the council of mayors would choose one of their members to represent the county as warden, in addition to their mayoral duties. 

At the time, L’Isle-aux-Allumettes mayor Winston Sunstrom put forward a resolution requesting that the salary be bumped to at least $65,000. 

“It places too low a value on the most important role at the MRC,” he said, according to EQUITY reporting at the time.

In 2017 the council voted down the proposal, 13-4, with only the mayors of Bristol, Clarendon and Shawville siding with Sunstrom (l’Île-du-Grand-Calumet did not have a representative at the meeting).

The bylaw also states that  mayors and the warden are reimbursed for their travel expenses to plenary and public meetings.

Two requests sent to Hydro-Quebec

Also at the meeting, council passed two resolutions relating to public utility Hydro-Quebec.

The first was in response to the frequent outages in the upper Pontiac, a longstanding issue for residents of the area. 

The resolution states that Hydro-Quebec’s planned substation in Mansfield and upgrades to the local grid “are based on a schedule that does not respond to the urgency of the situation in MRC Pontiac”. Work to build the new substation and 30 km of lines between it and the Cadieux substation in Bryson, which will also be upgraded, is expected to start in 2028 and last until 2031.

The resolution asks Hydro-Quebec to grant the project “priority status” and asks that the Quebec government provide financial and regulatory support to speed up the timeline.

The second was in regards to reporting in La Presse, which cites documents obtained from arbitration between Quebec’s ministry of environment and the union representing its engineers relating to the state of the province’s dams.

The documents note the number and complexity of emergency repairs to dams isare increasing, and the experts tasked with monitoring the situation say they are no longer sufficient to meet the demand.

The MRC resolution expresses council’s “deep concern” and requests that the relevant authorities, including Hydro-Quebec but also Ontario Power Generation and private dam operators like Brookfield provide transparent updates on the state of their infrastructure. 

Mayors present cheque for ESSC walk in support of Bouffe Pontiac

During the meeting’s public question period, a contingent from École secondaire Sieur-de-Coulonge gave a presentation about their recent walk in support of Bouffe Pontiac (see our Dec. 3 edition). 

Teacher Martin Bertrand, along with students Charlie Sauriol, Ryan Levesque and Wick Bilodeau spoke about their experiences on the 60 km walk from Mansfield to Shawville and back to Campbell’s Bay, which raised $3,000 for the local food bank. 

Bertrand said he had been asked many times why they chose the challenge. 

“We were doing the Terry Fox walk at school, and some of the students were saying, ‘Can we do more, what’s next?’” he said. “And I joked, I said, ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to see how far we could walk in 24 hours.’ Well the joke was on me because they said, ‘Oh let’s do that sir!’”

He spoke highly of the youth that took part, and emphasized that they volunteered for the trek. 

“We keep saying that today’s youth, they’re not built like they used to be, that they’re lazy, they don’t want to do anything, no ambition. Well I totally disagree with that,” he said. “I’ll turn this around, today’s adults are the ones imposing that on their children. The day we stop imposing our personal limits and our fears on our youth, well we’re going to give them a chance to grow.”

The group was presented with a cheque for $1,380 from MRC warden Jane Toller, from the sponsorship and donations budget. 

“I’ve always heard one thing, going back to the days of forestry and the [log] drive and everything else, that wherever people from the Pontiac work, all over Canada and the world, we are known to have the hardest workers,” she said.  

Both Bertrand and Toller said that they found the youths’ efforts inspiring.