Chris Lowrey
PONTIAC July 10, 2017
After a brief scare about the prospect of volunteer drivers being eliminated in January, local collective transportation organizations like TransporAction Pontiac can breathe a little easier.
Initially, the provincial government was considering changes to the Public Transportation Development Assistance Program (PTDAP). These changes, which would have come into effect on January 1, 2018, would have meant that TransporAction Pontiac would have lost its provincial funding to pay volunteer drivers.

But after a meeting with four of the region’s MRC wardens, Pontiac MNA André Fortin and the minister responsible for the Outaouais Stéphanie Vallée, Quebec’s Transport Minister Laurent Lassard has agreed to a plan to keep volunteer drivers on the road until 2020.
Volunteer drivers are paired with clients in need through groups like TransporAction Pontiac. The drivers assist clients by driving them to doctor’s appointments or to get groceries. Under the current arrangement, drivers are compensated $0.48 per kilometre.
Clients pay a small fee to use the service; those who travel long distances with TransporAction pay a maximum fee of $25.
The potential change to the PTDAP put the future of TransporAction in doubt. But the new arrangement preserves the organization for another three years.
This marks the first time that collective transportation organizations have a longer-term deal; most previous deals had to be renewed every year.
Under the current arrangement, groups like TransporAction get their funding from the province’s green fund. The fund is meant to give support to initiatives that will decrease the carbon footprint of a particular region.
In the Pontiac, TransporAction was seen as a service that could cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by providing things like carpool coordination and buses for clients.
However, once the government closely examined collective transport groups, the one-on-one nature of most reservations meant that the government thought there were limited savings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, the province was about to cut funding to groups like TransporAction.
But after last week’s meeting, the minister of transport agreed to a plan that would see TransporAction get its funding from a different avenue through the provincial government.
The total budget for Transporaction is $300,000 – with most of the funding coming from the MRC and the province through the MTQ.
Details remain scarce but Fortin said he plans to introduce legislation in the fall that would change the funding arrangement for collective transportation organizations.
Fortin said that regulators overlooked rural regions like the Pontiac when they changed the legislation.
“It was an unintended consequence,” Fortin said. “They didn’t necessarily understand the needs of the local citizens.”
But Fortin said that the service works well for users and provides Pontiac residents with a reliable transportation option when there are few others available in the region.
“It’s a system that works well and there’s no reason to change it.”