Pontiac Ouest’s three municipalities are waiting to hear about the status of a grant that would help them share services in administration, public works and waste management.
L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, Chichester and Sheenboro councils all passed resolutions in summer 2025 in favour of a project that could see all three municipalities share those departments. Currently, Chichester and L’Isle-aux-Allumettes share an administration staff separate from Sheenboro, while each municipality handles its own public works and waste management.
The three municipalities applied through Quebec’s municipal affairs ministry for a grant to fund the project. The base grant is worth $350,000 to help them merge these services, but municipalities who apply for the grant can receive an additional $175,000 if they participate in an intermunicipal amalgamation study.
If the application is successful, the three municipalities would receive $525,000, or 75 per cent of the project costs. The municipalities would pay the rest.
The project is still in its early stages as municipalities have not yet been approved by the ministry, so the shape of what the project could look like is still unclear and has yet to be looked at by the respective councils.
All three Pontiac Ouest municipalities already participate in some sort of service sharing with their neighbours. All three municipalities share a website and the Pontiac Ouest fire service. L’Isle-aux-Allumettes and Chichester share a director general and administrative staff, while Sheenboro and L’Isle-aux-Allumettes share a library.
Chichester mayor Donald Gagnon said it makes sense to continue looking at shared services where it’s needed. He said the creation of the Pontiac Ouest fire department allowed his municipality to save money and offer a better service to its residents, and said he hopes that continuing to share more services will achieve the same.
“That was the best move we ever made,” he said. “The cost for small municipalities gets higher and higher, and we’ve been managing to keep our costs for the fire department pretty stable.”
Sheenboro mayor Doris Ranger agreed that the shared fire department has worked well, but that it had to be negotiated. She said the same is expected as municipalities consider sharing even more services with their neighbours.
Gagnon said his municipality is open to exploring whatever route it can take to make services better for its residents. “Everything’s on the table. We’re looking at every option,” he said.
Currently, each municipality operates its own transfer site for waste, but councils are considering changing that too. Gagnon said Chichester council is looking at sharing a transfer site with L’Isle-aux-Allumettes.
He said now that door-to-door collection of recyclable materials has started, and with compost and garbage collection on the horizon, the main uses for the transfer site are now only for building materials and large items.
“We can’t operate a transfer site and pick up garbage because it’s too much of a burden on our residents. We’re looking at how we can still give all the services but keep our costs to a minimum,” he said.
Ranger said while nothing is on Sheenboro council’s agenda for the time being, she knows it will be too expensive for the municipality to operate its own transfer site.
“We know we can’t afford to have door-to-door pickup and have a transfer site,” she said, adding that conversations need to be had about where Sheenboro residents will dump their industrial waste and large garbage items.
L’Isle-aux-Allumettes and Chichester director general Alicia Jones said the municipalities have not received a response about their application, but are hoping to hear back before the end of March.
