The MRC Pontiac’s council of mayors returned from a month-long summer break on Aug. 20, voting to accept the hiring of Andrea Lafleur as the MRC’s new finance director and to award a recycling contract.
Lafleur, the current director general of Otter Lake, will take over the position Sept. 2. It has been vacant since the departure of the MRC’s longtime director Annie Vaillancourt in May.
“She brings about 15 years worth of director general experience from a municipality within the MRC, which is fantastic,” said MRC assistant director general Terry Lafleur, who bears no relation to Andrea and was not involved in the hiring process.
He said the MRC reviewed around six candidates for the position before landing on Lafleur, whose experience and relationships developed over that time made her stand out.
“She has that management experience we need because part of the finance job [is having] four individuals under them [ . . . ] there’s her accounting experience, plus knowing how to manage public funds,” he said.
He said his experience working with Andrea during his tenure as Otter Lake municipal inspector, and then again as a mayor, makes him believe she will be a good candidate.
“It’s a little bit different coming from a municipality to an MRC, we’re definitely more people in the building, but I have no doubt she’ll fit in,” he said.
Mayors award recycling contract
Also at last Wednesday’s meeting, mayors voted to award a two-year recycling storage and transportation contract to Crush Waste Management, the company that now owns the former McGrimmon dump outside Shawville, at a value of $362,369.15 plus taxes. The contract begins Jan. 1, 2026 and ends Dec. 31. 2027.
The contract will see the company provide the MRC with front-end loader containers and roll-off bins to hold collected recycling, as well collect and transport these bins to the sorting facility in Gatineau.
MRC waste coordinator Nina Digioacchino said while certain municipalities conduct their own recycling collection service while others use a transfer site, all municipalities use the front-end loader and roll-off bins.
“All municipalities have a need for some front-end loader or rolloff container servicing whether for their transfer sites, common pad drops, or for schools,” she wrote in an email.
The contract, combined with the door-to-door collection contract awarded at June’s meeting to Location Martin-Lalonde Inc., means the MRC now has all of its recycling management needs taken care of and is ready to begin door-to-door collection in a handful of municipalities starting in January.
Digioacchino said residents of certain municipalities will receive recycling bins in the coming weeks and months, but they are not to begin using them quite yet.
“A letter has to go out to all the residents that are going to be receiving bins, to tell them ‘You will be receiving a bin, but don’t use it until Jan. 1, 2026,” she said in an interview.
The province’s new producer-responsibility recycling program, started this year, saw non-profit Éco Entreprises Québec (EEQ) take over the sorting and sale of recyclable materials. The program covers all municipal costs associated with recycling collection.
“Although yes, the allocation of contracts are part of the MRC mandates, this will not incur costs to municipalities,” wrote Digioacchino.
As for the possibility of an MRC composting contract, Digioacchino said the MRC cannot make it happen before Jan. 1 because it does not currently hold the competency to make decisions on composting contracts on behalf of municipalities.
“We still legally need to wait a 90-day period before we have the competency
[ . . . ] and thus that would not leave the time for a tender document to publish,” she said.
She said municipalities now have enough information to proceed with individual collection contracts for organic materials while the MRC negotiates a local composting platform.
