A few months before the municipal elections, new candidacies and unprecedented political struggles are appearing across Quebec. The duty continues its series of articles on those worth watching.
After no less than nine terms at the head of Baie-Saint-Paul, Mayor Jean Fortin gives way to an apparent clash between two generations. However, the reality is more grizzled.
Michaël Pilote, 27, is one of the youngest municipal councilors to be elected in Quebec in 2017. This nurse clinician from the Baie-Saint-Paul hospital sits on the youth committee of the Fédération québécoise des municipalities. (FQM)
The second candidate, Luc A. Goudreau, is a former Kruger executive with two terms as a municipal councilor. Now retired from the private sector, he got his start in politics alongside Mayor Lucien Paiement in Laval in the early 1980s.
“Michaël Pilote represents the next generation in an elderly political world in the whole of Charlevoix”, wrote the Web media Mon Charlevoix about him in a portrait last year.
It must be said that this mayoral race is a reflection of what is happening in the districts. With the exception of Mr. Pilote, all elected officials are retirees and this year, three of them are facing, for the first time, young candidates in their twenties and thirties.
Everyone has the right to expect a wow, something that will define the next few years
At the same time, Michaël Pilote counts among his allies two elected officials of the municipal council, including the veteran Gaston Duchesne. In addition, his positions and those of Mr. Goudreau are very similar. The two present themselves as unites at the service of all generations. In this context, age could emerge as the easiest way to distinguish them, if nothing else.
It must be said that the MRC where Baie-Saint-Paul is located has an aging population. Almost a third of its inhabitants are over 65 and the median age (53) is almost ten years higher than in the rest of the Capitale-Nationale region.
With events such as the Festif, the image of the city of some 7000 inhabitants has however much rejuvenated. Even among seniors not very keen on emerging music, the initial skepticism – because of the noise, the feasibility – seems almost gone.
There is no real conflict between generations, believes the vice-president of the Association of business people of Baie-Saint-Paul, Sophie Brisson. “There is a beautiful cohabitation. Precisely, during the Festif, we saw that many volunteers are older people who take pleasure in doing so. We also note that, more and more, retired people are returning to the labor market part-time. “
Thus, the adopted land of René Richard, long known for its painters, now stands out as much for his concerts in the fields in the early morning.
This year, local dairy farmer Nicol Simard hosted a Festif show on one of his lands. “They came to one of our fields to make a room. They think about these things and then people like it and it brings a lot of people to the area. “
Host the workforce
If Baie-Saint-Paul has proven that it can attract young tourists, it must now attract new residents, pleads everyone. The case is less easy than it seems, but the story of Pierre-Laurent Salin de l’Étoile shows that it is possible. The 37-year-old entrepreneur of Montreal origin settled in Baie-Saint-Paul last year, after several years spent in Nice, France. The click occurred during a visit to the Festif in the summer of 2019, he says. The atmosphere seduced him and left him with the impression that “anything was possible in Baie-Saint-Paul,” he recalls. “Whenever I met someone from the city or a business owner, people were very accessible and interested. It was very human, very horizontal. “
Today coordinator of the Business People’s Association, he says he was lucky to have found accommodation at the time. Because, like Percé or the Magdalen Islands, Baie-Saint-Paul lacks housing to accommodate its workers and the new residents it seeks so much to attract.
This summer, the Association overcame the problem by creating a turnkey program offering tourism workers a stay including a room at Maison Mère. With its former dormitories, the former convent of the Little Franciscans of Mary bought by the city in 2017 is located in the city center.
The investments in this project have earned Mayor Fortin a lot of criticism during the last term – especially from Councilor Pilote. But the success of the business people program and the government’s decision to implement a million dollar Blue Space there seem to have confused most skeptics.
The end of the “Fortin era”
Like others, Pierre-Laurent Salin de l’Étoile hopes that the new mayor will allow the city to continue its momentum. A few years ago, the atmosphere was rather gloomy in the region, where the Massif project in Petite-Rivière-Saint-François was seen as a real lifeline. However, more and more voices are now being raised to say that the economy of Baie-Saint-Paul must instead diversify and depend less on tourism.
What do the candidates say? For now, little is known about their ideas, deplores Dave Kidd, a well-known radio host in the region and resident of Baie-Saint-Paul.
“Five months before the elections, we still do not know which vision the two defend,” he said. “Everyone has the right to expect a wow, something that will define the next few years. “
Why ? Because the mayor’s departure marks the end of an era, he insists. Elected for the first time in the former parish of Baie-Saint-Paul, Jean Fortin left after no less than nine terms. Consensual figure, he leaves in particular as a legacy the replacement of the hospital, which was located in a seismic zone, and the burying of the wires on the rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the commercial artery where tourists converge.
« Jean [Fortin] he’s a great good guy, but the Fortin era is over. There is a new cycle starting in Baie-Saint-Paul. While rumors circulate on his entry on scene as third candidate, Mr. Kidd specifies however that “it is very flattering but no thank you”.
There is still a lot to do, he says. During the summer, downtown is so congested that a simple grocery run becomes “an ordeal”. “I’m going to buy myself a pint of milk at the IGA; I arrive home, it’s sour cream. […] Something must absolutely happen there. “
Another file to watch: the new commercial hub in the golf sector and real estate developments towards the neighboring municipality of Saint-Urbain, he said. On its own scale, Baie-Saint-Paul is experiencing a sort of “urban sprawl” towards the outskirts, notes Mr. Kidd.
In recent months, land in the region has sold at record speed. It remains to be seen whether the buyers are vacationers or residents.
“We must keep all that we have green around the city center,” said Nicol Simard. “I hope they won’t fill the mountains with roofs that will break the little cachet we have,” says this native of the city who owns the last dairy farm in the valley. “There has been a lot of real estate development in recent years, and I hope that the parts that have not been affected, we will keep them. “
Watch video
–
