The following is one in a series of articles tracking the progress in the 19 municipalities of the Pontiac since the 2017 elections.

Stephen riccio

Mun. of Pontiac July 7, 2021

Working as a member of a council that represents nearly 6,000 residents across a municipality including over 350 kms of public roads typically comes with its trials and tribulations in a normal electoral term.

With adversity in the shape of several natural disasters, a backlog of public infrastructure work required and a worldwide pandemic all occurring in one term, members of the Municipality of Pontiac (MoP) council since late 2017 have had their work cut out for them.

“It’s been a challenging four years … our council had to face more disasters than any other municipal council previous to us, and emergency situations,” said Mayor Joanne Labadie.

Labadie said that one of her priorities upon being elected mayor in 2017 was restructuring and reorganizing the municipality’s policies towards employee retention and recruitment.

Within the first year, a study was carried out on the MoP’s internal pay structure for employees, and the council was able to sign collective agreements with employees that had been on hold for nearly three and a half years, according to Labadie.

“It is a very highly competitive job market and being able to attract and retain personnel … that was a huge accomplishment I believe moving forward,” she said.

Infrastructure

Another major goal for the MoP was securing grant funding to assist with the major projects that were required, especially pertaining to overdue infrastructure work that the municipality had been behind on for some time.

Labadie said that thanks to an administrative team in Director General Pierre Said, Assistant Director General Geneviève Latulippe and others, the municipality was able to obtain $6.959 million in grants over the last four years.

“That’s substantial because that’s equivalent to the full municipal budget of 2017, and that’s important moving forward because $6.9 million would be a huge tax burden on borrowing bylaws on our residents, so we’ve accomplished a lot in that,” she added.

A significant portion of that amount, $2,606,225, was secured to assist in road infrastructure work, with $1.4 million assisting in the multi-million-dollar chemin de la Montagne repairs and $1.2 million for the ongoing rehabilitation of chemin Tremblay.

Given the MoP’s vast territory, the council is responsible for maintaining a public road network of 360 kms, something that Labadie said is a consistent challenge.

“The biggest [complaint] that we get from our residents … is the condition of roads, and so we know that it is the priority of small local governments to maintain a safe road network,” she said.

The MoP was also able to use the gasoline tax and Canada contribution program (TECQ), a provincial-federal gas tax credit, to secure over $2 million to assist with infrastructure projects.

A large chunk of the TECQ contribution came from the 2014-2018 version of the credit and went toward the summer 2020 water line work done on rue Saint John and rue Saint Andrew in Quyon.

Councillor Scott McDonald is the representative for the municipality’s fourth district, and he said that one of the accomplishments he is most proud of as a member of council was completing the resurfacing of roughly 2 km of chemin des Pères Dominicains, which is within his district, in 2018.

According to Labadie, this project received $100,000 in grant funding.

“That was a long time coming, since I’ve been out here 18 years, it always is in really bad shape, they did little patch jobs and things,” McDonald said. “It’s probably one of the worst roads in the municipality, so very happy that we got that done.”

 The council was also responsible for following up on a 2016 report that identified that roughly 100 of the territory’s 300 culverts needed repair within the next few years. Labadie said that all those repairs were completed by last year, except for the culverts being replaced in the rehabilitation of chemin Tremblay, which is taking place this summer.

Challenges

Soon after members of council took office in late 2017, the string of catastrophic events began for the municipality.

Labadie said that the spring flooding in 2018 constituted a 20-year flood, and it also brought with it damaging winds. Months later, in September 2018, a tornado hit Breckenridge and the surrounding area. 

The flooding in the spring of 2019 was even more catastrophic, most notably causing a washout which resulted in the death of a 72-year old Louise Séguin Lortie of Quyon. The death was found preventable by a recent Quebec Coroner’s Office report, with the coroner finding that both the emergency dispatcher and the municipality’s department of public works could have responded more effectively to avoid the tragedy. This development was covered in recent editions of THE EQUITY.

Labadie shared some details that highlighted how damaging the flooding in 2019 was to the community:

• 230,000 sandbags were distributed.
• Dozens of public roads permanently closed.
• 500 people evacuated; several people housed by Red Cross.
• Roughly 70 primary residences have been demolished, not including cottage owners who were unable to receive compensation and were forced to abandon residences.

In addition to the grant funding that assisted with infrastructure projects, Labadie said that the MoP secured $1,436,267 in public security funds, most of which was compensation for flood expenses.

After all of that, the municipality had less than a year to take stock before the entire world was thrust into dealing with COVID-19 and a pandemic that began in March 2020 and still persists today.

“The pandemic is certainly not unique to us, it was a global pandemic, but it certainly had an impact on how we were able to operate and move forward with planning,” explained Labadie. “Because it wasn’t just us in a pandemic, it meant that every single government agency and government body that we were working with and suppliers, etc., were all affected by the pandemic, costs went up. There were so many factors dealing with the pandemic.”

She said that while council continued to operate virtually and municipal employees continued to work either in-person with personal protective equipment or virtually, efficiency was inevitably impacted throughout the past year.

She noted that while many are ready for things to return to normal, the municipality will continue to follow provincial health and safety guidelines.

“I think that people are ready to get back to work, and they’re very anxious. We will bring people back once we know it is safe to do that, and the Government of Quebec gives us the directive to do so.”

Parks

The MoP received an additional $292,724 in grant funding for its parks, with most of that amount stemming from a Toronto Blue Jays foundation grant for the Luskville Recreational Park ball field lighting system.

McDonald said that he was pleased to see the ball lighting replacement beginning to take place, adding that he hopes the lighting will be in place sometime in July or August.

“I was talking to one of the guys that usually does a lot of organizing of the baseball and he’s really overjoyed about that, to get the teams up and running again so we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Being a first-term councillor, McDonald said that it was a challenging experience at times yet still worthwhile.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for anybody to jump into, you don’t have to be qualified BA or any sort of university degree, you just need your experience,” he said. “That’s the big thing, experience and common sense and being able to work with a group.”