CALEB NICKERSON
PONTIAC May 30, 2018
The Parti Vert du Quebec have announced that local activist and Chief of the Fort Coulonge Off-Reserve Algonquins, Roger Fleury, will be their candidate in the Pontiac riding for the upcoming provincial election this fall.
Fleury is no stranger to the campaign trail, as he was the Green candidate for Hull-Aylmer in the 2011 and 2015 federal elections and also ran for mayor of Gatineau in 2009.
Incumbent Liberal André Fortin is currently the only other candidate registered in the Pontiac region, though the candidate nominations won’t close until September 15.
Fleury grew up in the Pontiac and is retired from teaching history at Polyvalente Nicolas in Gatineau. In 2014, he led a group of protesters that occupied a construction site in Gatineau for 34 days, after a number of ancient Indigenous artifacts were discovered during excavation.
“I fought against the destruction of a historical site in Gatineau,” he said. “We were 43 days with two teepees out there.”
When the police evicted the protesters, they arrested Fleury on charges he calls unjust.
He said he chose to run for the Greens because their stance on environmental issues aligns closely with his. He voiced strong opposition to the proposed near surface disposal facility for low-level nuclear waste upstream at Chalk River Laboratories.
“I’ve been at several [rallies] up there. It’s an accident waiting to happen,” he said. “There’s already too much stuff going in the Ottawa [River].”
Another one of Fleury’s priorities was the timber leaving the region for processing.
“The forestry products are going out of the Pontiac to Maniwaki and Gatineau,” he said, asserting that Fortin was prioritizing the interests of urban voters over those in the Pontiac. “If I have two children sitting at the table and put food on one plate and not the other, I’m not representing my second child.”
He was also concerned that current forestry regulations lead to many trees being felled and then left to rot in the skidways.
“You can’t have a policy of wasting. If you’re not going to use it, leave it standing,” he said.
Fleury is also very much in favour of light-rail public transit, having formed a coalition on the subject during his time in Gatineau politics.
“When I started that, they told me forget it. Now we see it changing,” he said, referring to a recent pledge by provincial Liberals in Ontario to use the Prince of Wales Bridge to connect Gatineau to the Ottawa LRT line. “My point of view is … we have to bring the rails back. There’s no reason we can’t have decent public transportation and it would be all around helping the Pontiac.”
He said that though the old rail lines had been removed from the region – and in the case of the Municipality of Pontiac, no longer managed by local government – he would push for rail transit to return to the area.
“We had the rail beds lost, but we might just take them back,” he said. “That’s a minor detail, that has to be done … Imagine if the rail line still went to Waltham?”
Fleury said that one of the early reasons for his entry into politics was to fight for healthcare access for his son Jean-Pierre.
“I had a handicapped son and I was fighting the healthcare services,” he said. “The Pontiac has services that they are trying to mine and take to Hull. Unfortunately, they’re pretty poorly managed in Hull and they’re cannibalizing what’s going well in Shawville, so I find that sad.”
He was critical of the paid parking policy being imposed at local healthcare facilities.
“All hospital parking should be free,” he said. “Who comes up with this? At the casino it costs you nothing.”
Currently, polls have the Coalition Avenir Quebec leading Liberals across the province with a little over 30 per cent of the vote, with the Parti Québécois and Quebec solidaire trailing at around 20 and 10 per cent respectively. The election is tentatively scheduled for October 1.
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