By Vance Gutzman, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter North Renfrew Times
Rapides des Joachims' new mayor and council have an ambitious agenda for their coming term in office.
Municipal elections were held in Quebec November 2 and, when the dust had settled, here on the local front Roger Lafond was acclaimed as the new mayor of Swisha, succeeding Lucie Paquette, who didn't run for a second term.
Lafond is joined around the council table by Stephany Rauche, who was acclaimed to fill seat 1, and Dale Levesque, who came out on top of an election race with Noel Leclerc to fill seat 2.
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Also at the table are Anne-Marie Butler, who beat out Cassandra Burany to represent seat 3, and Kelsey Daly, who was elected by acclamation in seat 4.
"Lucie really encouraged me to run for mayor," Lafond told the NRT in an interview of his decision to enter municipal politics, adding he received support from incumbents Daley and Rauche as well.
"They said if you run, we will run."
And, just a few weeks into office, Lafond, says he understands his role as head of council.
"I don't make decisions, I make suggestions," he says.
"I did a lot of research while I was thinking of running."
And that research led Lafond to come up with some ideas for his community, including a push for the province to recognize Rapides des Joachims as a remote community.
"We're thought of as a remote community, but not recognized by Quebec City yet," the mayor says, adding official recognition would entitle the municipality to increased funding from the provincial government.
"We're all in agreement with this to go ahead," he says of the new council.
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Lafond says council will also be asking the province to allow out-of-province policing in his municipality, whether that be on a regular basis or just for special circumstances, seeing as how the Surete du Quebec has to travel a long distance from Campbell to respond to incidents in the village.
The mayor says he has already broached the subject with the Ontario Provincial Police detachment commander in Pembroke.
"He commended me for taking the safety of our citizens seriously," Lafond says.
Economic development is also top of mind for the new council, especially in light of the fact Swisha's big employer, Commonwealth Plywood, has closed its mill there again.
Lafond says he has spoken with an official from the company about the matter.
"He said all mills across the Pontiac are cutting back," Lafond says, adding the official told him it will be towards the second quarter of next year before the company decides whether or not to re-open the mill.
"He said the situation is going to evolve in the Pontiac," Lafond says.
"Every municipality is trying to re-boot their forest industry."
Economic development, the mayor went on to say, also entails attracting more residents to Rapides des Joachims in order to bolster its tax base.
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One thing standing in the way of that happening is the lack of reliable high-speed Internet that would allow newcomers the ability to work remotely.
"They ran fibre-optics here years ago, but they haven't done anything with it," he says.
"It's just there."
"We're all going to work on this together," Mayor Lafond said of council's resolve on the issue.
"How can we attract young families here without the option to work from home?"
Lafond says council would also like to see improvements to healthcare services for residents of the municipality.
"Quebec used to have the best healthcare in Canada, now it's the worst," he says.
"People are frustrated."
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