CALEB NICKERSON

CAMPBELL’S BAY Feb. 19, 2020

Pontiac MRC held their monthly council of mayors meeting on Feb. 19 at their office in Campbell’s Bay.

The municipalities of Calumet Island, Portage du Fort and Thorne had no representatives at the . . .

meeting and the municipalities of Campbell’s Bay, Waltham, Mansfield et Pontefract, Chichester and Sheenboro were represented by their respective pro-mayors. Warden Jane Toller attended a forestry meeting in Quebec City that day and returned mid-way through the evening, with Pro-Warden Kim Cartier-Villeneuve taking the head of the table in her absence.

Skiing and cycling presentations

After a brief meeting on the non-organized territories (TNO), the MRC’s regular meeting got underway with a presentation from Guillaume Lavoie-Harvey, who gave a rundown of the Ski at School program as well as the upcoming ski trek to parliament that local high-schoolers were about to embark on. He also showed a brief clip from the documentary film they shot on last year’s ski trip.

Harvey was followed by Lynne Lavery of Les Amis du Cycloparc PPJ, who listed off the non-profit group’s plans for the upcoming cycling season. They will be continuing their regular group rides along the trail in Campbell’s Bay, Shawville and Waltham, as well as publishing their PPJ business directory for another year, and this time it will include a map of the trail.

Lavery also highlighted their efforts to attract cyclists from outside the region to take a spin on the PPJ, by contacting cycling clubs in Ottawa and Pembroke and highlighting local spots of interest like the Tap and Cork route. She spoke about the possibility of hosting a cycling race in the future, added that they had been contacted by a race organizer about a gravel cycling event coming up on June 20.

She concluded her presentation with a pointed question to the council over the MRC’s PPJ committee and their goals. The committee was formed in April to look at sections of the PPJ trail that could be shared with motorized off-road vehicles, which brought about several heated discussions at previous meetings.

“There’s a lot of energy and enthusiasm in our group, we’re looking forward to linking with other people,” she said. “But there’s also a big concern, because before we commit a lot of hours to create some of these events, we need some assurance. We need assurance that the debate over the Cycloparc PPJ will be finalized.”

Fort Coulonge Mayor and committee member Gaston Allard said that the committee was still in the “preliminary phases” of their assessment of the trail and the possibility of ATVs. Lavery pointed out that the committee had been formed nearly a year ago and asked Allard if the committee would have a decision to present in the next month or two, to which he replied “definitely not.”

Lavery concluded by telling the mayors she hoped they realized the value of the PPJ as it currently stands.

Finance, public safety and territory management

After a short in-camera session, council announced that they had hired a new Economic Development Director, Cyndy Phillips.

The council voted to allocate $25,000 from the MRC’s surplus to promote the Ottawa River waterway. In previous years, there was a service that would transport boats heading upstream around the many dams and obstacles on the river. The Warden and Chichester Mayor Donald Gagnon recently presented their idea to coordinate promotion of the waterway to the Pembroke council, though Toller noted after the meeting that they still had yet to receive a commitment from Pembroke.

“This allows us to have a system, for people who have boats who want to travel a good distance and see a lot, they’re going to be able to do that,” she said. “We believe it’s going to help businesses.”

Toller added that the goal was to allow access from Fitzroy Harbour to Pembroke or even Deep River, but eventually they hoped to have a route from Aylmer to Temiscaming.

Public Safety Coordinator Julien Gagnon presented several resolutions, one of which was a request to the local school boards to have the Firefighter 1 training course integrated into local school’s extracurricular activities, as a way to boost the recruitment of the local departments.

Council moved a resolution to accept a service offer from the Observatoire du développement de l’Outaouais (ODO) to study the lakes of MRC Pontiac to identify the ones most sensitive to eutrophication with high nutrient inputs.

They also passed the draft strategic vision statement for the MRC, which was presented to council by MRC land planner Alexandre Savoie-Perron. The document identifies nine themes, from quality of living to tourism and agriculture, and assesses the regions strengths, weaknesses and goals.

Economic development and engineer’s report

Phillips started off the economic development portion of the meeting with a resolution regarding Coopérative Houblon Pontiac, reversing a clause that barred them from seeking additional funding after receiving a $140,000 grant for a pelletizing machine.

“Given the amount of time that’s passed since then, being almost five years ago now and the many advancements that have been made by the co-op and the importance of the product to our agricultural sector here in the Pontiac, we’ve put forward a resolution that would allow the co-op to apply for funding in the same manner as any other organization,” Phillips said.

Council then passed a resolution approving a request of just over $22,000 for the co-op from the territory development fund (FDT).

After approving a slew of small donations to various community organizations, council allocated $50,000 of FDT funds to be put towards research into the feasibility of the energy from waste project.

MRC engineer Kim Lesage put forward a resolution to apply for $450,000 over several years to finance upgrades and continued maintenance of the PPJ trail. She also presented a resolution in support of changing the engineers act to raise the monetary thresholds for infrastructure work requiring an engineer’s report. Currently, any work on a road over $3,000 and any work on water systems over $1,000 require an engineer’s plans.

“These amounts were set into law in 1963, and are therefore outdated and can have a big impact on your municipal budgets,” she explained. “We’ve received some resolutions, looking for support, from other MRCs that would like to revisit these amounts.”

Lesage also announced a project by local students at Carrefour Jeunesse to install cycling repair stations along the PPJ trail.

Health care, warden’s report

Near the end of the meeting, council passed a resolution requesting a special status for health care centres in the region, due to the lack of local nurses and the significant wage gap between Quebec and Ontario. Speaking after the meeting, Toller said she was alarmed by the frequency of closures at the Pontiac Community Hospital’s obstetrics unit.

“The heart and soul of a hospital should be being able to deliver babies, and we shouldn’t put anyone in a position where they have to travel such a distance, they might not have time to do that,” she said. “I’m going to continue to keep in touch with them and follow this closely.”

She said she had a productive meeting with CISSSO Director General Josée Filion in recent weeks, and said the special status was a potential solution they were advocating for.

She also spoke positively about her trip to Quebec City and the possibility of reinvigorating the local forestry industry in the wake of the closure of the Fortress Mill in Thurso.

“You know the Pontiac is really a force now, we are attending the meetings, we’re speaking with all the forestry people, we’re involved in this committee of the crisis which started in Thurso,” she said. “They are very aware that we are making it a priority to have at least one forestry operation open this year.”

She spoke highly of the Energy Davidson project, which would include a cogeneration facility and sawmill, but noted that they needed to ensure there was enough wood allocated f or the project.

“We are feeling very positive about Energy Davidson, it is moving forward well,” she said. “We hope that we will see some announcement, but these things take time.”

She noted also that she is continuing to advocate for a community forest for the Pontiac, which would enhance local control of the region’s timber resources. She added that if they were denied control, they would follow through on previous threats made by local foresters to block the roads to outside logging companies.

“We were concerned that the wood supply is reaching a critical level and if we do not get cooperation, … if we are not given the cutting rights that we need to have a successful forestry business, then we are going to carry though on our demand of a moratorium and we will have to self-inflict it by blocking the roads,” she said.