CHRIS LOWREY
MUN. OF PONTIAC July 10, 2018
Councillors with the Municipality of Pontiac decided to remove a motion from the July 10 council meeting that would have granted Mayor Joanne Labadie the mandate to negotiate a new tourism trail with the National Capital Commission (NCC).
The motion on the agenda would have given the mayor and the director general the mandate to enter into negotiations with the NCC to establish a recreational-tourism trail along the Eardley-Masham Road.
The tourism trail would be open to bikes, walkers and equestrian riders in the summer months, as well as snowshoers, cross country skiers and snowmobilers in the winter months.
The project would also see an additional investment in the Luskville Falls Park.

The goal is to have the trail link up with the others in the MRC des Collines.
But before the motion could be moved and voted on, Councillor Nancy Draper Maxsom asked that the motion be removed so that council could discuss the issue further.
“We need to discuss it at caucus,” Draper Maxsom said.
“We discussed it at caucus,” Labadie replied.
Ultimately, the motion was removed and councillors will discuss the issue further in advance of next month’s council meeting.
The issue of a new tourist trail exploded in the municipality last week when the Pontiac Snowmobile Drivers’ Association (PSDA) – who had been working with the NCC – got an email from the NCC on July 3 informing them that, after meeting with Labadie and Deputy Assistant Director General Dominic Labrie, the snowmobile trail on Curley Lake Road will be closed permanently.
The PSDA currently uses Curley Lake Road as a trail to connect with Masham from the Municipality of Pontiac. The NCC has made it known that it would like to close the trail eventually because of the fact that it is an environmentally vulnerable area.
Labadie said that Curley Lake Road was abandoned by the municipality years ago and described it as a “goat track.” She also said the area is used by off-road vehicles as well as teenagers for bush parties.
The email goes on to say that the NCC didn’t receive any feedback from the PSDA about the new route and that if the group wanted to be included in the negotiations going forward, it would have to get in contact with the Ministry of Transportation of Quebec (MTQ), otherwise, “no progress will be made [and] there may be no alternative this winter.”
PSDA president Alain Goulet said he was unable to respond to the NCC promptly because he has a full-time job as well as a family, which take priority.
After receiving the email informing them of the imminent closure, the PSDA posted it on social media where a barrage of negative and derogatory comments directed at the mayor forced the group to remove the post.
The PSDA is concerned that the snowmobiling community will be further isolated from the surrounding regions.
Alain Goulet said that if Curley Lake Road is removed without a replacement, the only way for Municipality of Pontiac snowmobilers to get to Masham would be to travel through Shawville.
He also said that the level of trust between the residents of the municipality and the NCC isn’t overly healthy.
“There’s precedent for this,” Goulet said. “They’ve done this before.”
Goulet said that, years ago, the municipality sold a snowmobile trail linking it with La Pêche. The next year, the NCC eliminated the trail.
“So the NCC has decimated [snowmobiling in the Pontiac] over the last 15 years,” Goulet said.
Labadie also agrees with Goulet about the NCC’s relationship with residents.
“There’s a long culture of mistrust with the NCC,” Labadie said. “And I understand that. We have a very complicated and difficult history with the NCC. They will admit to that, they don’t have a great history with landowners in the area but that’s the past and we can’t change the past.”
Labadie did manage to negotiate a one-year moratorium on the closure of Curley Lake Road, meaning it will remain open this winter.
“I think it’s time we changed that culture, we come to the table like other municipalities like La Pêche and Chelsea and begin working with the NCC to ensure that we in the Municipality of Pontiac get our fair share of access to Gatineau Park and that includes this trail for the snowmobile club,” said Labadie.
She said that the municipality has several partners willing to participate in the recreation and tourism trail, including the MTQ, the NCC, local school boards, local equestrian schools as well as snowmobile clubs from the region.
But the level of trust between the snowmobilers and Mayor Labadie isn’t much better than it is with the NCC.
Goulet said that Labadie has a conflict of interest because the investments at the Luskville Falls Park could impact her winery located on Hwy. 148.
When it was suggested at the council meeting that Labadie recuse herself from negotiations with the NCC, she suggested it would be helpful for Goulet to also state any conflicts of interest. Goulet then admitted he has an ongoing court case with the municipality over his eviction after the 2017 floods.
Goulet said that he is currently waiting on the ruling from a judge and the proceedings are not relevant and have no impact on his concerns.
“She’s just trying to discredit me personally,” Goulet said.
Labadie said she would be transparent going forward, but did not commit to recusing herself from negotiations.
In the past, the PSDA had to get permits each year from the NCC to carry out work on the trail to get it into shape for winter. The PSDA wanted to negotiate an open-ended agreement with the NCC but were refused.
Labadie said that the NCC wanted a tangible plan for a replacement for the Curley Lake Road Trail.
“Mr. Goulet has already done much of the groundwork [for the new trail],” she said. “So what the NCC has said [to the PSDA] is ‘show us that you’re going to come to the table to continue to work with us as partners and we’ll continue to negotiate.’”
As for the future of the trail, Labadie said there are no plans beyond the one-year moratorium.
“[The NCC] wants an alternate route and they want to know that all partners are going to work in good faith,” Labadie said.
Transferring the land to the NCC would be complicated and involve passing the land off to the province and then eventually to the federal government.
But Labadie also admitted at the council meeting that the NCC could take measures to expropriate the land, which limits the municipality’s options.
She said that while the NCC doesn’t have the funding to buy the land outright from the municipality, it can invest money in the development of the new trail and Luskville Falls Park in lieu of a land transfer.
The NCC gave $300,000 to the municipality of Chelsea for a cycling trail along Notch Road, which has been used as a comparable to the investment the Municipality of Pontiac can expect.
But Goulet said that this won’t cover the cost of the project.
He said that, based on his experience building trails at Camp Fortune, the cost could be anywhere from $1.5 to $2.5 million.
While Labadie agreed that $300,000 wouldn’t cover the cost of the project, she said that partners like the municipality, MTQ, school boards and the PSDA could chip in to cover the remaining costs.