Chris Lowrey
MUNICIPALITY OF PONTIAC Nov. 7, 2018
Municipality of Pontiac Mayor Joanne Labadie said that municipal staff were surprised by the $612,393 price tag for repairs to Alary Road.
A massive chunk of the road was washed out last October during a torrential downpour. A 15-foot-deep gap – at least 20 feet wide – separates the remainder of the road.
“It certainly surprised us,” Labadie said of the dollar figure attached to the repairs. “We had costed it out at about half that price.”

Labadie said that when the lowest bid came in at over $600,000 it was sent back to the municipality’s engineers – as well as a third party engineer – to make sure everything was above board.
Labadie said they all agreed that the cost was right, and it was due to several factors.
One major factor is a labour shortage in the province; as a result, costs have gone up.
The main issue was the type of culvert required by the Ministry of Transport of Quebec (MTQ).
“The MTQ said in 2017 that 60 per cent of the culverts in the province of Quebec were significantly undersized,” Labadie said.
Labadie said that the municipality could have opted to install a similar size culvert as before, but it would restrict the compensation it would receive from the province.
“It had to meet the standards that they want for this new reality of climate change,” she said. “The water that went through [the culvert] was exceptional, but it’s being considered the new norm.”
If the municipality installed the same culvert that was there before and the road washed out again, it wouldn’t receive any funding from the province for future repairs.
As it stands, Labadie said the province will cover 75 per cent of the costs.
Labadie said she’s also aware of the impacts the year long wait has had on local residents.
“A year is an awful long time to wait for a culvert to be replaced,” she said.
Although the plan was to start work in July, environmental studies coupled with the municipality double-checking the figures led to the delays.