Led by Leisure Development Agent with the LSO, Normand Veillette, the consultation was about pin-pointing the community’s recreational needs by seeking out opinions from a wide range of locals.

“The idea is to have the autonomy to implement services for the population and to prioritize infrastructure,” he said.

The event kicked off with a word of welcome from Mayor Kim Cartier-Villeneuve. She thanked everyone for attending and highlighted the importance of consulting the community at large when it comes to making changes or additions to its leisure services.

Veillette carried on with the presentation by explaining LSO’s role in helping the town subsidize leisure projects.

He explained that, last summer, the municipality sent an online, four-question survey to its residents, which received a total of 67 responses (seven per cent of the town’s population). Nearly 70 per cent of respondents were between the ages of 25 and 60.

Among other things, the survey’s findings noted that residents are mostly interested in implementing a splash pad to the local playground, an outdoor cinema and possibly a summer festival.

He followed up by presenting a sociodemographic portrait of the municipality, which most notably showed the town’s aging population as more than 52 per cent of residents are 50 years-old and over.

Veillette believes the town’s leisure services should be designed to serve the local senior population. However, he noted that it needs to provide services for young families as well in order to keep them in town while drawing more of them to settle there.

“We don’t have a choice to install services to attract young families,” he said. “When young families find a place to live, it’s not because the roads are nice, not because the sewer system works. It’s because it’s an interesting environment where parents and children will have services for their needs.”

The session continued with an outline of the municipality’s financial capabilities.

Veillette explained that, with a debt ratio of around 70 per cent lower than the average for municipalities of roughly the same size, Otter Lake is in a particularly positive position to invest in the improvement of its recreational infrastructure and services.

Then, Veillette spoke about the town’s budget dedicated to sports, leisure and culture. He noted that Otter Lake spends around 48 per cent less than the average municipalities spend per resident on sports, recreation and leisure.

After the presentation, attendees participated in another survey where they had to address two subjects: water games and improvement of recreational activities and events offered in the municipality.

Spread out over three tables, participants had to answer three questions per topic, where each participant spoke for about three minutes. After around an hour of discussion, participants took a short break before moving to another table to discuss the second topic.

Veillette encouraged the participants to speak their minds and that there were no wrong answers or bad ideas.

“Talk with your heart,” he said. “Leisure is about dreaming.”

Veillette said that after the consultation, the LSO will work with municipal council to put together a report with the data they’ve compiled.

Then, the LSO will seek out grants from various organizations to ensure that the municipality won’t have to shoulder the entire weight of the expenses.

“It’s about finding financial help at the provincial, regional, and federal levels,” he said.

Last September, the municipality approached the LSO with intentions of putting together a four-year plan to respond to its population’s recreational needs, most notably its senior and youth populations.

“It will be a lever to not only keep a population, but to attract another one,” he said.

According to Cartier-Villeneuve, working with the LSO was about finding an organization qualified to lead the municipality in the right direction to improve its recreational services.

“They have good ideas for us and they share them with us,” she said. “They’ve helped us follow the path to get to where we are today.”

Cartier-Villeneuve explained that, while the local playground is already in pretty good shape and quite popular among locals, it can still be expanded and improved to better suit the resident’s needs.

For Cartier-Villeneuve the consultation is all about including the town’s residents in the discussion instead of only having it within members of municipal council.

“We’re looking to see what the people really want,” she said. “This is what we want. It’s okay for council to make a decision. But it’s a community decision. So, it’s good to have their input. They feel like they’re part of it and that they are part of the community.”

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