Four women in Pontiac municipal politics gathered on Apr. 30 to discuss their experiences and answer questions from other women curious about running for local office in the next municipal elections.

The panel, called En route vers ma première campagne (En route to my first campaign), was hosted in MRC Pontiac’s Elsie Gibbons Room, and was the second in a series organized by AGIR Outaouais, a not-for-profit that advocates for women’s rights. The first panel took place in MRC Papineau the day prior.

“The objective of these panels is to encourage women in the region to make the jump into municipal politics in the upcoming elections, and more concretely to increase the number of women candidates in municipal elections,” said Riantsoa Andriamasy, communications specialist for AGIR Outaouais, in an email.

The Pontiac event featured Warden Jane Toller, Fort Coulonge mayor Christine Francoeur, Otter Lake mayor Jennifer Quaile and Alleyn and Cawood councillor and pro-mayor Sidney Squitti.

The two moderators from AGIR Outaouais asked the panelists to introduce themselves to the roughly five attendees, who attended in-person and online, and were asked to discuss their start in politics, recount challenges they have encountered along the way, as well as give their advice to women considering a start in municipal politics.

Quaile, who spent a long career working for the federal government and who ran for councillor when she moved back home to retire, said her advice would be to ask questions, even if the new vocabulary can seem daunting.

“There’s a learning curve for sure, and it was steep for me too. There was a lot that I didn’t know, and the use of jargon and acronyms. I had my hand up all the time, asking ‘What is that again?’” she said, adding that she was lucky enough to have a mentor who took the time to show her the ropes.

Squitti said her advice is to come to meetings prepared and be willing to put in the work, and gave the example of wanting to install a splash pad in the municipal park.

“To me this was the best thing we could do for the youth of our community and the new families coming in, but I faced a lot of opposition at the table with other councillors,” she said, adding that after extensive research she found a federal grant for recreational equipment that allowed the municipality to pay for the splash pad. “If there’s a will, there’s a way, you just have to work.”

Francoeur said her biggest challenges were getting used to how slowly things happen at the municipal level, and not being able to make as much change as quickly as she had hoped.

“We all have big ideas, we think, ‘I’m going to become a councillor and I’m going to change this and change that,’” she said. “It doesn’t work that way. You see the reality once you’re really in there and you see how it works.”

She also said it was challenging going from an 8-4 schedule in her previous job to needing to be available all the time as mayor, whether it be going to events on the weekend or being on call in times of emergency.

“You really have to be available seven days a week, on constantly. We have high water level problems right now, so I’m on call, and it’s like that continuously,” she said.

Attendees asked questions about the stresses of the job and how to mitigate expectations with the slow reality of the job.

Women make up slightly less than half of the MRC Pontiac’s council of mayors table, a rate Andriamasy said is above the rate of 26.6 per cent province-wide, and note there is still room to improve.

“It’s a great increase, because in 2005 it was only 13.1 per cent,” said Andriamasy. “Even though there is progress, we recognize that we are still far from parity.”

She said members of the organization are always happy to see members of the public attend the panel and ask questions, since that is the entire point of hosting them in the first place.

“We want them to be inspired and better informed. Thanks to the testimonies of elected officials, these panels offer a realistic portrait of the everyday political reality, of its challenges, but also its opportunities,” she said. “We want these panels to be a chance for participants to ask the questions they may always have wanted to ask.”

AGIR Outaouais will host two more panels on the same topic next week in Gatineau and the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais.