If you ask the Table régionale des organismes communautaires autonomes de l’Outaouais (TROCAO), volunteer organizations in the Pontiac and elsewhere in the Outaouais need more funding.
That’s one of the messages the organization is trying to push as it completes a tour of the Outaouais region to meet elected officials, including at its stop in Campbell’s Bay on Monday afternoon.
TROCAO representatives, flanked by Jardin Éducatif du Pontiac director Martin Riopel and Bouffe Pontiac director Kim Laroche, invited MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller and MNA André Fortin to meet with their member organizations to learn their needs and secure additional funding.
TROCAO estimated in 2024 that the organization’s 180 members in the Outaouais needed an additional $57 million to properly offer their services, in addition to the $54 million they already received. Earlier this year, TROCAO decried the amount of money given to community groups in Quebec’s provincial budget after it had protested to demand more money for groups across the province.
Director general Daniel Cayley-Daoust said the goal of the tour is to make elected officials aware of the impact of community organizations, as well as their need for funding at a time when the cost of living crisis and other issues are affecting many people in the Outaouais.
“We wanted to do the tour to see new people and establish connections and see how we can help each other. At the provincial level, [ . . . ] there is a budget coming, it’s also the year before an election, so we want to encourage concrete engagement to try to get out of our social crises that we are living in right now.”
He said the goal is to start a dialogue with those elected officials on what different levels of government can do to help their organizations, which help people in need of food, housing, mental health counselling, and many more.
“We’re talking about community organizations, the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis that affects people every day, and what the role is that they can play as elected officials and what the role of those organizations is.”
Riopel and Laroche said their organizations are always aiming to have funding in their general pot that is not directly linked to a particular project. Laroche said relying on grant money tied to specific projects makes it harder for her organization to pay for more everyday expenses.
“That [general] money can help to pay salaries, pay rent, pay for renovations in the building. The projects are very specific, and often the amounts we receive are not enough to pay employees,” she said.
Riopel said while the Jardin Éducatif receives $350,000 in general funding, he estimates it would need $750,000 to $850,000 and a couple more job positions to operate as it should.
He said the goal is to operate in both official languages “with a full team, offering services year-round in all elementary and high schools, and to offer our summer camp,” but said their present funding makes it hard to do this.
Bouffe Pontiac currently receives only $204,000 a year into its general funding pot. Laroche said with this amount, she only employs four full-time employees despite needing six to make operations run smoothly.
“It’s not ideal. They don’t have the best conditions. For everything to be optimal, we need to have at least six employees,” she said.
Cayley-Daoust estimates that $57 million is missing from the over 100 organizations in the Outaouais that are members of the TROCAO, money that would better pay and retain employees and cover basic services.
“It is much of the same reality in other regions of the Outaouais, being able to retain personnel, being able to pay an adequate salary, and also being able to offer services that need to be offered,” he said.
Riopel said the issue of employment affects his organization, since it can be hard to find employees at the best of times, a process that is made even harder when the funding is inconsistent.
“It’s hard to retain employees, it’s hard to find employees [ . . . ] Paying someone on a one-year contract, not knowing if we are going to be able to hire them again next year, time and again, and sometimes the contracts are shorter than that,” he said.
Cayley-Daoust said while there are only three Pontiac organizations that are members of the TROCAO, they are constantly working with other organizations, and many of the organizations operate across the Outaouais including the Pontiac. TROCAO’s list of member organizations is available here.
