Portage-du-Fort’s council met on Aug. 5, with several important items on the agenda.
At the start of the meeting, Mayor Kevin Murphy acknowledged a conflict of interest with both the director general (DG) item on the agenda and the garbage contract, and left the room during discussion of both. His son bid on the garbage contract and a relative applied for the DG position.
The two bids received were from current contractor Mario Tremblay, at $380/week, and Murphy’s son Walker Murphy at $350/week. Tremblay was in attendance at the meeting.
There was some discussion amongst councillors about whether they were obligated to accept the lowest bid. They confirmed that Tremblay’s price included taxes, but weren’t certain about Murphy’s bid. Pro-mayor Martin Hérault said that he would like to consult with an ethics officer.
Councillor Nicole Thompson said she would go with the lowest bid, Murphy’s.
Councillor Cody Coughlin said that to his knowledge, they could consider more than just the price, and said that the optics of a conflict of interest were a factor.
“I think we also have an obligation not to just worry about conflict of interest, but for the optics of conflict of interest,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to get away from the optics of conflict of interest.”
“I agree, but we’re a small municipality, it could happen anytime for anybody,” Thompson replied.
“My belief is that we’re not obligated to go with the cheapest bid, the way it’s always been explained in prior councils is that there’s a weighted scale where you take into consideration several different things,” Coughlin added.
Councillor Kim Elliott and Dominic Bisson said that they were pleased with the job Tremblay had been doing, as rationale for accepting his bid.
Council voted to accept Tremblay’s bid at $380, with councillors Bisson, Elliott, Coughlin and Alan Farrell voting in favour, Thompson voting for Murphy’s bid and Hérault abstaining.
Former Waltham DG logged three times as many hours as predicted
The municipality hired interim DG Joanne MacDonald in May after council voted in a split decision to suspend former DG Lisa Dagenais, who resigned shortly after.
The municipality also hired former Waltham DG Fernand Roy at the June meeting, to assist with getting MacDonald up to speed. Roy resigned from the Municipality of Waltham in February 2024, where he had worked since 1985. Following his resignation, the Commission Municipale du Québec (CMQ) issued a report in August 2024 on his conduct at the municipality, detailing what it called a “serious breach of ethical and professional standards”, and “misuse of public funds”.
At the time Roy said he disagreed “with the factual findings and the conclusions included in the report.”
At Portage-du-Fort’s June meeting, council agreed to hire Roy for what was estimated to be 30 hours at a rate of $65 per hour. After questioning from Bisson, the only councillor to vote against Roy’s hiring, it was noted that Roy had actually billed the municipality for 97 hours, completing the last of his work that Monday, Aug. 3.
Murphy explained that there was a lot to do to get the office back in order following the sudden departure of the former DG.
“He said it shouldn’t take him more than 30 hours but when he started here he dug into it, there was lots of stuff that needed to be done that two people needed to be here to do, to get back up [to speed],” he said.
Coughlin said that in the future, hours should be more strictly policed.
“Going forward we need to do that a little bit differently. We need to have a contract with him for X amount of hours, and when he’s done those hours, we would have to come back to the table and agree on more [ . . . ] We can’t go back in time but we should have done that better,” he said.
The deadline for the permanent DG position closed on Aug. 4. Hérault said they had three applicants and they would be conducting interviews shortly.
Council opposed to salmon farm project
Council received two visitors, Cathy Fox and Linda Davis, who spoke about their concerns with the Samonix salmon farming project that has been proposed for the Litchfield industrial site, which sits just upstream of the village.
The Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) hosted a public information session in June and recently announced there would be another on Aug. 25 at the Campbell’s Bay RA hall, which will be simultaneously streamed online.
The Samonix project is aiming to harvest roughly 10,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon annually, with a maximum capacity of 12,000 metric tons. Company documents presented at the June meeting state that the nearly three million fish harvested every year to meet these metrics would be farmed on land in a 5.6 hectare facility. The overall project cost is estimated at $300 million USD (roughly $418 million CAD). More information on the project is available on the BAPE’s website.
Fox said she represents a group that is opposed to the project and felt that their questions about the facility’s impact on the river and surrounding environment weren’t adequately addressed at previous public hearings (see her Letter to the Editor here ).
“We know that you put in a resolution against it,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is come up with a way so that we can work together on what our concerns are. In order to do that it would be good to have a liaison, person or committee to work together.”
Council affirmed that it was opposed to the project and had passed a resolution stating as much. They agreed to hear a presentation from the group on their concerns about the project and encouraged them to raise their concerns with other councils as well.
