Quebec small towns debate downsizing councils amid recruitment challenges Achi-News

MONTREAL – Some small municipalities in Quebec are considering reducing the size of their city councils because of the challenges of recruiting candidates to run for office.

Quebec recently adopted a rule that allows communities of fewer than 2,000 people to reduce the number of their city councilors from six to four after next year’s elections.

The president of the Fédération québécoise des municipalités says the rule change has been a “common” request from some towns that have struggled with persistent vacancies on the city council or even for mayor.

Jacques Demers says it has become more difficult for small towns to recruit candidates because of low wages, the challenges of the job and a general lack of time and enthusiasm for community involvement.

“When we look at volunteers for recreation, volunteers for culture, volunteers for festivals, for exhibitions, all this is becoming more and more difficult to recruit people,” he said in a telephone interview.

Corina Lupu, the mayor of the small community of Lac-des-Seize-Îles in the Laurentians, north of Montreal, says her council will discuss the issue at the next meeting before making a decision.

“In small municipalities you don’t have a population of 20,000 to choose from,” he said in a phone interview. “Sometimes you have a population of 1,000 or 500.”

Although it is not a problem in her community, she believes that it is also becoming more difficult to get people to run for their jobs because of the hostile climate that elected officials are increasingly facing.

“Some politicians are a bit abused,” he said. “It’s not really a pleasant environment.”

Vacancies are an ongoing problem at the municipal level in Quebec. Around 120 mayoral and councilor positions went unfilled during the last municipal elections in 2021, while almost 5,000 candidates were elected unopposed.

Lupu and Demers say the very low salaries paid to small town councilors are also a problem.

“In our small communities, civic participation is almost volunteer work as many people earn $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 a year for their participation,” Demers said.

While Lupu says wages in her community are higher than that, it doesn’t equal much per hour when considering the scope of the job, noting that the province has increasingly offloaded responsibilities to municipalities over time.

“We’re a small municipality, but we still have to fill out the same paperwork as a large municipality,” he said. “It’s the same bureaucracy, but for fewer people.”

Chantal Richer, director general of the town of 168 people Val St-Gilles in the Abitibi region, said her community will consider reducing the size of the council.

“It would be easier to find candidates and we could divide the money that is saved between the four, which would increase their salaries a little more,” said Richer, adding that the matter will have be discussed at the next council meeting.

The mayors of Barkmere and Lac-Tremblant-Nord, both in the Laurentians, said they felt maintaining a six-person council was better for democracy, despite their small population bases.

“By reducing to four councillors, we could have a quorum of three people at council meetings,” Barkmere Mayor Luc Trépanier said in an email. “We don’t believe that only three people should decide for an entire municipality.”

Lupu says moving from six to four councilors would allow towns like hers to save some money on salaries, which can be a consideration in places with very small tax bases.

However, she also worries that four-person councils in general could allow strong personalities to dominate and make decisions harder. Despite having fewer than 200 year-round residents, her lakeside community has never had a council vacancy as far as she can remember, and she struggles to imagine a council without any of its members. present on it.

“I think I got a lot of value from having six advisors, six opinions, six perspectives,” he said.

Boroughs that want to reduce the size of the council after the 2025 elections have until the end of December this year to make a decision to that effect. Demers says about 700 municipalities are eligible to make the change, but he believes most will stick with the current six-plus-member mayor format.

This report was first published by The Canadian Press on September 29. 2024.