STEPHEN RICCIO
CAMPBELL’S BAY Aug. 19, 2020
A Campbell’s Bay man is unable to live in his own home due to an ongoing debacle over an accessiblity ramp.
Having faced difficulties around building an effective ramp at his home, Basil Belland, 75, has now moved into St. Joseph’s Manor, but his inability to be in his own home has made for . . .
a miserable time.
At the age of 42, Belland suffered a stroke that left him occasionally needing a wheelchair. He had been getting assistance from the SHQ, the provincial housing organization, in building a new ramp outside of his residence.
Seven weeks ago, the Municipality of Campbell’s Bay office received a neighbour’s complaint that the new ramp was being built too close to their property. Upon inspection, Mayor Maurice Beauregard and inspector Terry Lafleur realized that the ramp construction had also begun without a permit.
Beauregard explained during the Aug. 19 MRC council meeting—when the news of Belland’s situation fully came to light—that he discussed the issue with MRC Director General Bernard Roy and MRC Pontiac SHQ inspector Gail Vaillancourt.
“When we meet with Bernard and Gail, Gail specified to my inspector, my [director general] and myself there was no permit needed because it was an SHQ program and there was also no permit needed because Mr. Belland was handicapped.”
Beauregard said that his inspector disagreed, and after checking with their lawyers, they found out that a permit was required regardless of the special circumstances.
While Basil was not present at the meeting, his daughter Connie Belland was there to inform the council of the situation.
Connie explained that Vaillancourt had stopped communicating with her and her father. She also told the council about how the circumstances have deteriorated her father’s mental health.
“Right now my dad is living at St. Joseph’s Manor in Campbell’s Bay, he’s doing very well there, we’re trying to build his spirits back up,” Connie said, visibly frustrated. “They’re pretty low, Mr. Beauregard saw him earlier, there’s a lot of tears because he wanted to be in his home.”
Her demands to the council were that the SHQ fully pay off the contractor and that the MRC investigate the work of the organization.
Beauregard followed up Connie’s comments with introducing a resolution that was passed by the MRC: that they perform an inquiry into all the SHQ’s work done throughout the Pontiac over the last two years. He said that he is concerned that the organization has been doing work for residents throughout the region without the required permits.
Beauregard said that he has met with Roy and Toller three times over the past seven weeks in hopes of solving the situation.
“I asked three times for Gail to meet us and a member of SHQ,” he said to the council. “The excuse I keep getting is they’re not working, they’re working from home, and COVID.”
“I don’t think it was right to leave a man like that,” he added. “Tonight when I met the man, he was crying in his chair and he’s done nothing wrong and he wants it fixed.”
Warden Jane Toller voiced her sympathy to Basil’s situation during Connie’s address to the council and afterward.
“We will treat this with urgency,” Toller said during her post-meeting scrum. “In my opinion, this gentleman has been through far more than he should have.”
“The question is how quickly can we get the funding to the contractor who did the work.”
While the SHQ is a separate body from the MRC, the MRC is the agent through which they operate in the Pontiac.
THE EQUITY contacted Vaillancourt to discuss the situation, but the MRC office responded by explaining that “the files treated within the framework of an SHQ program are strictly confidential.
Until the situation has been resolved, there will be no further comments from either the MRC staff or the SHQ program manager of the MRC Pontiac.”
