Three people want to be mayor in The Nation Municipality. Incumbent Mayor François St-Amour is hoping to serve another four years. St-Amour has been mayor since 2010 and has served on council since 2003. He is also the 2018 Warden of the United Counties of Prescott and Russell. He highlighted economic development and improvements to municipal services as his signature achievements and reasons he should again have the confidence of voters. Those include the Carrefour Santé and new municipal garage in Limoges, and new libraries in St-Albert and St-Isidore.
“There’s been a big boom in agricultural capital investment,” said St-Amour, saying several large, new poultry barns have been built in the municipality during the past four years. He credited the “efficient” operations of The Nation’s building department at making those projects possible.
Former Mayor Denis Pommainville is attempting to return to municipal politics on a reform platform. He said there is a “Lack of vision, lack of action, lack of participation” currently in the municipality and he wants to change that. He said taxes are too high and noted that when he was last mayor in 2010, there was a six per cent difference between Russell Township and The Nation in property taxes and now the difference is 38 per cent. He said commercial growth is needed to increase tax revenue. Pommainville said focus groups are needed to find out exactly what residents want. He said he would create a special fund for certain economic and community development projects. He said businesses and organizations need to have confidence that the municipality will back their efforts.
Pommainville said the current council has been too slow or indecisive on some issues. He used efforts to bring watermains to Limoges as an example. He also said there are too many closed session council meetings and that information should not be kept from the public.
Danika Bourgeois-Desnoyers served on council from 2010 to 2014 and wants to make a return. “Our municipality does not have the programs to help and support young families” she said, saying her career experience at La Cité college as a project manager for entrepreneurship has put her in a good position to lead the municipality. She said local businesses need help to retain staff before any more efforts are made to attract more businesses to The Nation, stating, “A strong labour force will improve the economy
Bourgeois-Desnoyers said there is too much divisiveness and discontent between the wards of The Nation and she wants to better represent the 4,200 residents who are between the ages of 20 and 45. She wants recreation programming to better reflect that age group and for various groups and sections of the municipal government to stop working in “silos” and start cooperating on a regional basis.
“She said local businesses need help to retain staff before any more efforts are made to attract more businesses to The Nation, stating, “A strong labour force will improve the economy“
Nope.
Residential taxes can’t sustain the municipal budget anymore. We NEED to attract a lot more commercial business.
This in turn would allow the current workforce to be more competitive and give the labour force a chance at career improvement.
Recreation programming? How does she intend to pay for this recreation programming? Residential ratepayers cannot bear more increases, and the only solution is increased commercial development to relieve overtaxed homeowners. There are areas of the municipality – including the most populated area – that don’t even have a place to properly host recreation programming. Bourgeois-Desnoyers is trying to buy off voters aged 20-45 with promises that she can’t deliver on – or worse, promises they’ll end up paying for out of their own wallets in the form of further increased property taxes. No – taxes are already too high.