Non-profit group the Regional Association of West Quebecers (RAWQ) is in transition after terminating its acting executive director Alina Holmes earlier this month (see our Mar. 11 edition) and having several board members step down. The organization, which is primarily funded by the federal heritage department, has a mission statement to support and connect the English-speaking community of the Outaouais.
RAWQ president Chad Bean declined THE EQUITY’s request for comment. Nikki Buechler, the organization’s secretary, spoke with THE EQUITY and said that they had a change in their funding source, which prompted a shift in the group’s mission towards more advocacy, as opposed to community support and activities. She did not clarify the exact funding source or its requirements. Buechler also said that two members of the board have also left the organization since February: treasurer Jacqueline Busby and vice-president Alex Hays.
THE EQUITY made several attempts to get further clarity from the organization on its new direction, including sending a followup list of questions to Buechler, but received no response in time for print.
Holmes disputed this characterization of the organization’s direction, stating that it had recently been approved for $111,000 from the Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation (CEDEC), for an employment services program. She said that she was in the process of hiring an Employment Assistance Services Agent to assist with the initiative, but that job posting first posted in February has since been taken down.
Despite the fact that Holmes was referred to as Executive Director on the RAWQ’s website, and also listed as such on her termination email, Buechler said the board hadn’t formally approved her taking on the position, as she was originally hired as a program coordinator.
“Having a program coordinator, when we’re not really going to be having the same kind of programming, didn’t seem to make sense at the moment,” she said. “As far as we’re concerned, we have no hard feelings for Alina and we wish her all the best. It’s just a change in direction.“
Holmes told THE EQUITY that though her initial contract expired in Nov. 2025, she had continued with the organization as executive director under an informal verbal agreement made during the summer.
She told THE EQUITY earlier this month that she was dumbfounded by the move.
“Unfortunately they decided to make this decision and not divulge why they were doing it or that they were doing it, so I really have no information to share as far as their reasoning,” she said.
This isn’t the first time the organization has attempted to chart a new direction. In an interview with CHIP 101.9 back in 2024, then-RAWQ President David Gillespie said that the organization would be focusing more on community support and activities and steering away from advocacy, which he said was more the purview of the Quebec Community Groups Network, an umbrella group of Anglophone groups across the province (which now goes by the acronym TALQ).
“We’re going to work in conjunction with them. We’re not going to use our resources . . . because [the QCGN is] already there,” he said at the time.
“We’d rather focus on things that we can do that the QCGN will not be able to do here because, you know, they represent all of Quebec. And so it’s up to each region to do what they want to do that serves best the English community.”
Bean took over the presidency from Gillespie in 2025.
