One year out from the next municipal election, scheduled for Nov. 2, 2025, THE EQUITY checked in with the 20 people who have been voted in to lead the communities from Luskville to Rapides des Joachims, including the MRC Pontiac warden.
Over the course of the next six weeks, we will be publishing these interviews to offer readers a sense of what these local leaders feel they’ve accomplished since their term began, and what they hope to do with the last year before their seat is once again up for grabs. We will publish three interviews each week, working our way through the Pontiac from east to west.
Each interview asks the same set of questions, and each mayor’s answers are limited to a total of 700 words. For this reason, answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Roger Larose — Pontiac
Interview by Sophie Kuijper Dickson
When you ran for mayor three years ago, what were your main priorities?
My main priorities were to try to put this municipality on the map, get our parks fixed, and try to do some repair of roads because we had lots of roads in bad shape. We’ve got two big parks here in the municipality – one in Quyon and one in Luskville – and our goal was to know what the people want to do with parks.
How much of this have you achieved?
With the roads, we did a big change this year. We took over some contracts. For example, with Murray Road in Quyon, we repaved it ourselves and we saved a pile of money and did all the work with our own guys. And we went ahead and paved Kawartha [Road]. That was another road that was in bad shape and we did it with our own guys and saved a pile of money.
In terms of putting Pontiac on the map, we brought lots of people out here, we worked with lots of housing developers this year and got lots of projects opening up, and we noticed over the last couple of years we’ve gotten lots of people trying to move into the Pontiac.
With the parks, we did a big study on it, and just got the report back, and will present it to the people, probably in early November.
What do you think has been your greatest accomplishment this term so far?
What I’m proud of is the garbage pick up. We took over the garbage pick up to save a pile of money and so far the citizens themselves are happy because the service is a lot better, and for us, we get a lot less complaints. The other thing is we took over the snow plough contract in Quyon. That saved a bunch of money. It’s little things like this.
The other thing I’m proud of too is we signed two new union contracts. One with the blue collar and the white collar, and the other one is for the firemen. It’s two different contracts. That’s something that was on the table for years, was the union contracts, especially for the fire department.
What do you believe are your municipality’s greatest needs?
A big challenge right now is Therien Road. Since the July 15th [rainstorm] we’re working on it, trying to get an OK to go ahead and do the work [from the federal government]. I’m asking the government to give us an exemption to the law because if I’ve got to wait on them to count all of the fish it’s going to take us months. The winter is coming and that road needs to be fixed.
[Beyond the culvert] every time I talk to people, the problem here is the municipality was left gone for too long. The branches are overgrowing on the roads. The farmers were having a hard time getting through some of the roads with their equipment. We took that as a priority.
What are the challenges in meeting these needs?
The big part of the challenge is always the money.
What do you hope to accomplish in this last year before the next municipal election?
I’ve got a big project coming up on Braun Road. If everything goes good next year it will be paved. Especially lately with all the big storms we’ve gotten, there’s still lots of work. It never stops here. Roads are one of the big priorities. Roads and the parks, because people use them.
What do you believe your MRC des Collines should be doing to support the Municipality of Pontiac, after three years of sitting at that table?
The MRC [des Collines] does support lots in the Municipality of Pontiac. They have programs for entrepreneurs, they’re in charge of the watercourse and we work together on this, and like I said they have money for us, we just need to apply for it with the right plan.
We still have the issue that we don’t belong [in the MRC des Collines]. Now it’s to get the council and the MRC to really want to change that, but that’s going to be really hard to do because the mayors, they’re not willing, at the MRC level, to let me go. And I need their support. But we’ll continue working together and see from there.
Brent Orr — Bristol
Interview by Sophie Kuijper Dickson
When you ran for mayor three years ago, what were your main priorities?
Well I was the mayor prior to that so just to continue on with what we had already established budgetary-wise and improving our infrastructure as we went.
We had the city centre improvement in the works. We did it in phases, with a sidewalk, and streetlights, and we wanted to continue on by building the [beach] chalet. That was one of the things. And just steady road improvements.
How much of this have you achieved?
So we accomplished [building the beach building] this term. The firehall was another big infrastructure improvement that we tackled this term as well. We doubled its size. It’s still in progress right now. The [Norway Bay] pier wasn’t a big concern until we got the inspection done and then they said we should close it for liability. Now it’s one of the main drivers for our next few years. We have another firm that hopes to finish their assessment in November. They thought there might be some other options than the rock revetment that we had first planned to do. So we’re eagerly awaiting them to do this next assessment and hoping there will be a less costly approach to it.
What do you think has been your greatest accomplishment this term so far?
I guess the biggest accomplishment that is noticed by ratepayers across our municipality would be the chalet building and the beach improvements.
What do you believe are your municipality’s greatest needs?
A big thing, now I don’t know if all the ratepayers see it the same way, but up at the MRC we’re talking about recycling and garbage pick-up throughout the MRC, so that’s a big need. And for a lot of our services we group in with Shawville so we don’t have any stand alone facilities really. It would be nice to see a store again for our area in Norway Bay. It’s missed big time, in the summertime.
What are the challenges in meeting these needs?
In terms of the store, it’s competing with the big box store pricing. It’s so expensive, and the manpower to keep the store open . . . you have to pay staff, and the availability of staff is also a challenge.
What do you hope to accomplish in this last year before the next municipal election?
We hope to finish the firehall, have it completed, and we have some roads that need attention. We’ll talk about it at budget time next month. And also the pier. That’s probably number one on the list. It depends on permitting, but we’re hoping to at least have the plans in place for how we’re going to repair it, and we should know that early next year. We’ll put a nice sized budgetary item for the pier.
After three years as a member of the MRC Pontiac’s Council of Mayors, what do you believe Pontiac leaders should be prioritizing to improve the quality of life for the people who live here?
We should prioritize attracting professionals and retaining them. I think housing is the big thing. That’s the biggest thing is making it more attractive for people to come. But tourism and that is working hard too to make it a destination for people to come and visit, and hopefully come back and live. That’s a big thing we should be working on as a united group at the MRC.
Bill McCleary — Shawville
Interview by Sophie Kuijper Dickson
When you ran for mayor three years ago, what were your main priorities?
I was just hoping to keep things running smoothly without making any major changes because as we all know in this day and age there’s no money to do anything major. I wanted to try to bring some jobs to the area through the MRC level, the provincial and federal level. We need things for our youth. There’s nothing. Both my boys are in the trades and they both have to drive to the city for work. I thought maybe as a mayor I could convince the higher-ups to help us, but it’s not working.
How much of this have you achieved?
Very little. We’ve kept the town running without major increases to our taxes, and I think that alone is an accomplishment. The town is actually growing. You’re seeing all these new buildings going up. Any people you can bring into the town is a bonus. It’s going to help our tax base.
In terms of jobs, I asked them [the higher-ups] occasionally if they could get us something that would give us 10 or 15 jobs but I guess we’re not a squeaky enough voice to make it worthwhile.
What do you think has been your greatest accomplishment this term so far?
I don’t think I have anything to brag about, other than that we’ve worked with these people that are building these new units to increase our available housing and hopefully increase our population. Not everybody likes that. Some people want to keep things old and slow. But you have to grow, to a certain extent, just to keep up with the expense of things. It’s two different ways of thinking. Some people like the way it is. I would prefer to see a little bit of growth and some job creation. [ . . . ] We also put in the new steps on the town hall. That needed to be replaced.
What do you believe are your municipality’s greatest needs?
I don’t really know what the answer is to that. The hospital needs the provincial government to step up and start matching nurses salaries with those across the river. And I just wish there was more opportunity for young people to not have to travel away for work. And we need more activities for young people.
We’ve made quite a few improvements to our parks. We’re trying to make improvements at the arena. But that’s tough because the municipality doesn’t own the arena, which makes it difficult to get grants.
What are the challenges in meeting these needs?
The agricultural society owns the [arena] building. We lease it from them for 11 months of the year. And it’s a major, major, major expense. The electricity alone for that ice is fifty some thousand dollars a year. And when you start looking at the ice rentals, with the revenue they bring in, you start seeing this isn’t working. But it’s a service we have to provide. And unfortunately other than Clarendon, none of the other municipalities have really stepped up to help us.
As for jobs, [the MRC] keeps saying tourism is the answer but I don’t know, there’s a lot of potential here for tourism but not much place to house the people that come.
What do you hope to accomplish in this last year before the next municipal election?
We have two semi-major projects. One we’re working on right now is the two pumping stations. They’re old mechanical things with dangerous electrical systems where when they break down you have to climb down into a hole to look at them. So we’re moving the electrical up. We have to have this done by the end of 2024.
The other project we’re looking at is we put a booster pump on Rectory Road three-ish years ago. It serves two purposes. One was for fire protection to give us the volume we needed on all the fire hydrants. The other was to boost the pressure for the residents in that area. But we need a bigger line to supply it. Which would be down King street to Rectory Road. [ . . . ] So we’ve submitted our plan.
After three years as a member of the MRC Pontiac’s Council of Mayors, what do you believe Pontiac leaders should be prioritizing to improve the quality of life for the people who live here?
If there were jobs, everything else should fall into line. But how do we create these jobs? I don’t have the answer.
