CALEB NICKERSON
CAMPBELL’S BAY
Oct. 17, 2018
The monthly council of mayors meeting took place at the MRC Pontiac office on Oct. 17, with a wide variety of subjects on the agenda. Unlike the past several meetings, the public viewing area was filled with a handful of local residents.
One of the topics on the agenda was the beginning of a new meeting schedule, starting at the next set of MRC meetings on Nov. 28.
“In the last term, before I was warden, [the mayors] were coming three times a month,” explained Pontiac Warden Jane Toller. “They were doing committee meetings one week, planning meeting, then the council. What they found was that it was a lot of travelling and for some people, a lot of time out of their municipalities. So what we did was twice a month, which was committee meetings one day, and then two weeks later the planning meeting going right into the council meeting.”

She said that they would be now meeting once a month, which would result in a savings, in terms of travel expense.
“I think it’s going to work well,” Toller said.
The subject of cannabis legalization was brought up. It was decided unanimously by the mayors that any bylaws regarding cannabis would be MRC-wide, to simplify enforcement. It was resolved that Assistant Director General Gabriel Lance would review the region’s bylaws with local police.
“Quebec already has taken a stand as a province to be more restrictive than, say, Ontario,” Toller said following the meeting. “We have been advised that it would be best to work closely with the police, with the SQ, and we need to wait and see what’s going to happen with the new provincial government.”
It was announced that the MRC has found a new economic development director, Danielle Newman, to replace Émilie Chazelas, who resigned on May 28.
“We have a group of people that haven’t had a director for several months now,” said Toller. “We took our time and we found an excellent candidate. You’ll be able to meet her, perhaps, by December. Just tonight we approved it. It’s still to be decided when she’s starting but I would think sometime in December.”
Toller added that Newman owns property in the Pontiac and works in the federal government. Newman’s LinkedIn profile lists her as a trade policy professional, serving as the deputy director of the softwood lumber division at Global Affairs Canada since January 2018.
Toller added that they were considering candidates to fill the communications director position, left vacant by Danielle Bélec in June 2018, and would likely make an announcement in the coming weeks.
“There’s a good chance that there will be somebody in the MRC that we would be able to appoint to that position,” she said.
Toller said she was happy about the upcoming budget discussions, her first as warden.
“We have made an effort to protect the budgets of the 18 municipalities by keeping the amount per hundred dollars of assessment at 14 cents, as it was last year,” she said, noting that the council would be meeting on the issue in the next few weeks.
Toller also announced that they would be taking steps to improve transparency at the MRC and municipal level.
“We think that it’s very important, at the beginning of every meeting to ask if there are any declarations of conflict of interest,” she said. “This is important to show transparency. We realised that there might be some clarity needed.”
She added that on Nov. 8, local officials would be provided with expert advice.
“We have an ethics lawyer that’s going to be giving us this training, we’re going to be starting with the council of mayors,” she said. “I think it’s a step in the right direction and it’s another way to show the public that the MRC is conducting business properly.”