Gatineau council hears pleas on housing, school buses and safety

Tashi Farmilo

Gatineau’s municipal council met at the Maison du citoyen on October 20. The meeting opened with updates on development, regional partnerships and community life, much of it centred on Aylmer. Residents then used question period to raise four concerns: the removal of trailers used as homes on city land, possible cuts to school bus service, broken streetlights and pedestrian safety on Boulevard Alexandre-Taché. Council adopted every resolution put to a vote. One planning item was withdrawn, and two others passed over dissent.

Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonnette began with the “Espace promoteur”, a single point of contact for developers launched the previous week. She said developers will now get direction on their projects within 30 days. She argued that quicker reviews lower the carrying costs that push up housing prices, and that they let the city favour projects in areas already served by roads and pipes. She also presented two regional agreements, funded mainly by Quebec, with the Outaouais regional county municipalities. One aims to link the region’s bike paths into a single network, and the other aims to expand the region’s supply of clean energy.

Vincent Roy, the Aylmer councillor who presides over council, said the Vieux-Aylmer public market had wrapped up its season the previous weekend with a festive closing market in the commemorative park. The Christmas market opens November 27. He also invited residents to the guinguette at the Aylmer marina, a community gathering spot run by local non-profits with the city, which is staying open into the fall for the first time.

Deschênes councillor Caroline Murray announced the next round of public consultation on the Chemin Vanier project, which she said west-end residents have long awaited. The city will hold an online information session on October 28 at 7 pm, and residents must register on the city’s website to get the link. An online questionnaire will be open from October 28 to November 15, and an in-person workshop will take place on November 10 at 7 pm.

Other councillors flagged community dates. In Limbour, a fall festival runs October 24 from 10:30 am to 4 pm, and La Saga youth centre holds a spaghetti supper on November 14 from 6 pm to 8 pm. Steve Moran, who chairs the executive committee, announced that Cirque du Soleil will return to the Place des Festivals Zibi with a new show from September 5 to October 17, 2027.

General ticket sales open October 26. Mitigomijokan councillor Rachel Deslauriers paid tribute to bird conservationist Ted Cheskey, who died on September 22, and council observed a moment of silence for the soldiers killed in the October 17 fire at CFB Wainwright in Alberta.

Question period opened with people living in trailers on city land, most visibly in the parking lot near Lac-Leamy, who have been told to leave by November 3 or have their vehicles towed. A city bylaw now bars trailers from all municipal property. The original September 15 deadline was extended once already. A sheet metal worker with more than four decades in the heating and ventilation trade told council he lost his apartment of nine years after falling behind on rent and has since lived in a trailer on city land with his two cats. On a fixed income, he said, he cannot pay to store the trailer and does not know where he will go.

Another resident, who said his late daughter had also lived through homelessness, asked the city to wait until spring rather than displace people as winter approaches. He also asked the city to bring the municipal, provincial and federal governments together with community groups. He said demand at a local food bank had risen 40 to 45 per cent over last year. Three women read an anonymous letter from a person without housing, crediting street workers with saving the author’s life and urging council not to let their funding be cut. A homelessness advocate added that tents are appearing in every part of the city. He asked for more designated sites with basic access to water and toilets, citing a regional bulletin that he said shows homelessness in the Outaouais has grown by about a third.

Homelessness commissioner Sonia Ben-Arfa said the decision on Lac-Leamy, taken in July, had not been easy. She had no new measures to announce, she said, but talks were continuing on how the removals will be carried out, including efforts to keep anyone’s home from being hauled to the impound lot. She said hidden homelessness is a serious problem in Buckingham and Aylmer, and that the city intends to back solutions designed by those communities rather than reproduce the Guertin site there. Chloé Bourgeois, the Gatineau Ensemble councillor for Bellevue, asked whether a second supervised site might help, and she invited the trailer residents to send her their concerns by email.

Marquis-Bissonnette acknowledged the tension in the city’s approach. Gatineau is among the few Quebec municipalities that refuse to dismantle tent encampments, yet the trailer ban has been criticized for leaving some residents to choose between moving on and sleeping in a tent.

She said that is not the intent. The goal, she said, is to move people living in isolated trailers closer to services and, eventually, into permanent housing, because staying far from support tends to entrench homelessness. She told the trailer resident directly that the city hopes to see him in a real home with his animals, not in a tent, and she conceded that not everyone in the community sector agrees with the decision. She also said the new premier’s commitment to cut homelessness in half within four years gives her some hope. Under the city’s winter plan, the new proximity centre at the Guertin site in Hull is open around the clock, with showers, laundry and rest space for up to 40 people. Réhabex expects to open overnight space for about 30 people in Vieux-Gatineau by November 15.

On streetlights, a longtime resident said the light on his busy street near an elementary school had been out for 90 days. He asked whether the city ranks repairs by urgency and whether older equipment could be used until new lights arrive. Councillors said the plan council adopted that evening sets out priorities. The city will use about $400,000 left in an existing repair contract to fix roughly 30 more lights each week, with schools, parks, major roads and streets with several dark lights first in line. Moran said the plan adds no new spending and supplements the five in-house crews already assigned to streetlight repairs. He said about 3 per cent of the city’s lights fail in a typical year and replacement parts for the old fixtures are scarce, and that a two-year project to convert roughly 16,000 lights to LED should begin in about six months. Bourgeois said the city has about 1,000 open 311 requests for streetlights. Moran encouraged residents facing unusually long waits to contact their councillor, since a delay that long may point to an error in handling the request.

A 12-year-old student at Collège Nouvelles-Frontières and Jocelyn Blondin, a former councillor and school board chair, spoke against possible cuts to the Société de transport de l’Outaouais’s integrated school routes. The student said losing them would crowd young riders onto regular buses and could lead many to stop buying passes. Blondin, who helped create the service in 2001, questioned whether yellow bus carriers have the vehicles or drivers to replace it, and he urged council to seek money from Quebec instead. The routes carry about 4,000 students a day at nine high schools, and the STO is facing a $10-million gap. STO chair Edmond Leclerc said nothing would be announced before the board presents its budget on October 29. Timmy Jutras of Gatineau Ensemble argued that council should openly review the transit service standards it can afford rather than cut popular services. Bourgeois said the city’s youth commission will discuss the issue at a public meeting on November 14 and invited students to attend.

On Boulevard Alexandre-Taché, two residents representing neighbourhood groups asked for safer crossings between Saint-Joseph and Montcalm. They noted that a pedestrian was hit at the Hadley intersection in June, close to an elementary school, and that drivers also use nearby residential streets as shortcuts. Moran recalled that a 2023 petition to lower the speed limit to 40 km/h did not succeed. He tabled a study by the mobility group Mobi-O that recommends changes at three intersections, and he said he will ask the administration either to commit to a schedule or to explain in writing why the work cannot go ahead.

Council then turned to its agenda. Along with the streetlight plan, which passed in a version amended during a preparatory caucus, council approved the first steps toward an independent public participation office to run major consultations. Roy and two other councillors will sit on the committee choosing its head, joined by the president of Longueuil’s equivalent office. In Aylmer, council approved permits for exterior renovations at 10 Rue Principale and for two semi-detached multi-unit buildings at 11 Rue Sims.

Council also approved zoning that allows deposit return centres in the Plateau and Rivière-Blanche districts and a mandate to negotiate turning the city’s biogas into renewable natural gas. It approved a $1.98-million loan, supported by a provincial grant, for a synthetic playing field at Parc Ernest-Gaboury, to be repaid over 20 years through a citywide tax. It also set property tax subcategories and sectors ahead of the 2027 to 2029 assessment roll.

Leclerc voted against the interim appointment of a director to run the recreation, sports and community development department. The post opened when Sébastien Vallée left Gatineau on October 16 to take a similar job in Laval. The appointee was not named aloud, and Leclerc did not explain his vote. He and Pointe-Gatineau councillor Marc Carrière also opposed new funding agreements with merchants’ associations for 2027 to 2029. Both items passed by majority.

Council also named an interim finance director and treasurer, without dissent, as finance director Richard Kouamé prepares to leave for Laval as well. One planning item was pulled from the agenda before the meeting began. Council also ruled on a request to review a demolition decision for 349 Boulevard Alexandre-Taché, but the outcome was not read aloud.

Councillors gave notice of three bylaws to come: new rules on sewer connections and stormwater, a $478,507 increase in the city’s share of renovations to low-rental housing, and changes to traffic and parking rules, including parking for people with disabilities.

Council proclaimed October 24 the launch of the Poppy Campaign, which runs to November 11 in the Royal Canadian Legion’s centennial year, with a flag flying at the commemorative park. It also proclaimed November 17 to 23 a week dedicated to young children and November 2 the Day of the Dead. Throughout November, Rue Eddy will carry the honorary name rue de l’économie sociale.