STEPHEN RICCIO
MRC PONTIAC March 24, 2021
The MRC Council of Mayors gathered for a special meeting to handle affairs surrounding one aspect of the regional forestry support program, the PADF file, on March 24.
The meeting was held virtually on Zoom with Warden Jane Toller and each of the 18 mayors in attendance.
While the council gathered for monthly business a week prior, Mansfield et Pontefract Mayor Gilles Dionne and Waltham Mayor David Rochon triggered the meeting by . . .
tabling a resolution that propose to shift $50,000 from one program to another within the Sustainable Forest Development Program (PADF) program for the rest of the year. The resolution was ultimately passed narrowly, with Toller opting to vote in favour and break the nine-nine tie amongst the mayors.
The $50,000 had previously been designated to be spent on “Regional strategic use of the forest resources by supporting structural projects.” The intention of the resolution was to shift the money towards “the realization of forestry management projects on residual lands that has been delegated to the MRC,” also known as Intramunicipal Public Territory (TPI).
The portion of PADF that was boosted by the $50,000 had a previous amount of $52,057 already, according to Durand.
The reason for transferring the money at a special meeting, as Toller explained it, was because the deadline for changing the designation for the remainder of the budgeted year was March 31.
Some of the mayors who ended up voting against the resolution questioned the logic behind transferring money away from being used on structural projects in the region and instead being allocated for forestry management.
While responding to a question from Litchfield Mayor Colleen Larivière, Durand explained the type of work that would be done under the updated designation would be removing debris via scarifying, site preparation and cutting, among others.
Among the mayors who spoke out about the resolution in protest, the major concerns were the lack of discussion at plenary on the topic as well as what was described as a continuation of sending wood out of the Pontiac.
“So we would be basically cutting and hauling out trees?” Larivière asked Durand.
“Yes for sure, but like I say there can be as well some tree planting … this harvesting creates jobs, we have an entrepreneur this year that was able to work and had some other people working with him as well,” he said in response. The mayors who voted in favour of the resolution were: Carl Mayer (Danford Lake), Serge Newberry (L’Île du Grand Calumet), Debbie Laporte (Fort Coulonge), Kim Cartier-Villeneuve (Otter Lake), Gilles Dionne (Mansfield et Pontefract), Lynne Cameron (Portage du Fort), Jim Gibson (Rapides des Joachims), Karen Daly-Kelly (Thorne) and David Rochon (Waltham), with Toller exercising her right to vote to break ties following the mayors’ decisions.
Those who voted against it were: Winston Sunstrum (L’Isle aux Allumettes), Brent Orr (Bristol), Donnie Gagnon (Chichester), Maurice Beauregard (Campbell’s Bay), John Armstrong (Clarendon), Alain Gagnon (Bryson), Sandra Murray (Shawville), Doris Ranger (Sheenboro) and Larivière.
Right before the meeting closed, Beauregard questioned Toller’s decision to use her vote to break a nine-nine tie after opting not to in the previous meeting.
“You told me when it was nine versus nine, you wouldn’t vote. So why are you voting tonight?,” he asked.
Toller thanked him for the question, explaining that she chose not to vote previously because it was a resolution that was defeated by a nine-nine tie, and her vote being used against the resolution – as she said would have been the case – would have been “heavy-handed.”
She added that she used her vote this time because she was in agreement with the resolution.
“I think it’s very clear what my position is, I’m the one that raised this last August,” she said.
“I’m the one that raised my concern about so much money being spent on a consultant on a project that was moving very slowly with no investor.”
