Big issues confront candidates
Cost, location change and lack of public tenders among reasons for opposition
When Gatineau voters head to the polls on Sunday, their choices for mayor will include a selfproclaimed outsider who says residents should be getting better services, an incumbent who bets voters will rally behind his new arena plan, and a trio of challengers who object to a $79-million project being put out without public tender.
And if that’s not enough to galvanize the electorate, there is the matter of devastating floods that ravaged low-lying areas last May.
Many residents — one of them a mayoral candidate — are still awaiting decisions on provincial compensation, reconstruction and future protection.
As the race gets down to brass tacks, the Citizen is following the issues and the contenders for the top job in the city across the river that faces many of the same challenges confronting Ottawa: growth, infrastructure and social services.
There were cheers and applause last February when Gatineau finally unveiled its new hockey arena plan, a $79-million project still known only as the “future Guertin.” But not everyone was happy. The sticking points: Why did the city only offer the work to one developer, Vision Multisports Outaouais? And why not stay in the old location?
After a decade of planning, the new arena would be set beside the Rapibus corridor. It would have parking for 1,560 cars, compared to fewer than 900 at today’s arena.
“It’s an excellent project,” Mayor Maxime Pednead-Jobin said when he unveiled it.
“We keep our Olympiques (major junior hockey team) for at least 25 years,” while capping the public expense and getting three rinks for community teams.
“Nothing can beat this project.”
Opposition didn’t wait for an election campaign before surfacing.
Councillors Sylvie Goneau and Denis Tassé, perhaps already looking forward to their current runs for the mayor’s job, denounced it right away, as did some other councillors. Opponents are challenging a provincial bill that allows Gatineau to proceed without public tenders, but a decision on that challenge won’t come until a month after the election.
Tassé, who didn’t respond to a request for an interview, has said in the past that the costs have risen too high, and he has asked the Quebec government to block the deal.
Goneau opposes both the solesource aspect and the new location.
More than 20 Canadian cities have built multi-rink facilities and they have all gone through tendering processes, she said.
“I think that if they had gone to tender then the (current) Guertin site would have been a viable piece of land,” she said in an interview.
“I don’t think that the value that land can bring was sufficiently represented. So we didn’t maximize the opportunities there because we stayed with only one organization.”
She also doesn’t want four ice surfaces in a single location in central Gatineau, especially in a city that now sprawls from Buckingham to Aylmer.
She would like one hockey rink and one speed-skating oval in the current Guertin location — along with a basketball court.
The newest challenger for the mayor’s job, Clément Bélanger, says he isn’t thrilled with the decision but he considers it a done deal.
“If I’m elected, mayor I’ll let it go ahead with the project as it stands,” he said.
“We’ve spent over a decade trying to figure out what we are going to do with this old arena.”
Even though the old location is more convenient for his family — his daughter practises there — “at this point I’m not going to go back on that (council) decision. We’re going to go forward.”
“I work in procurement. I don’t think it was the best way to go about it, but it did prove that if there was political will you can achieve results,” he said.
Bélanger wants the site of the old arena to become a Quebec heritage museum.
“I want Gatineau to become a tourist destination. I want it to become the gateway to Quebec, and that site will be instrumental in bringing people into the city.”
The new location has only lukewarm support from voters.
Overall, only 46 per cent approve while 36 per cent oppose it and the rest don’t care, according to a poll commissioned by Le Droit and 104.7 Outaouais.
East-enders were most likely to support the new location — 66 per cent of people polled in Buckingham and 58 per cent in the Gatineau sector are in favour. Hull residents were opposed — only 27 per cent support the move.
The poll of 654 adults by Segma Research is considered accurate within 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.