Canada/Municipal economic development in the face of climate challenges
"Forest fires have brought us challenges, and we need to see how we can protect our territories, our citizens and urban areas, among others," says Normand Lagrange, Director General of the MRC d'Abitibi-Ouest.
It was in the eye of the storm in the summer of 2023, when forest fires swept through Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Nord-du-Québec.
Normétal and Saint-Lambert, two municipalities with few administrative resources, were quickly backed up by the MRC to coordinate evacuations, emergency lodging, communications to citizens and fire-fighting efforts on the ground.
As the flames closed in on communities, trenches were hastily dug to act as buffer zones and slow the progression of the flames. These corridors will have to be maintained, which represents an additional cost for the towns.
As a citizen, Marc Nantel witnessed this episode up close.
I think these areas will have to be preserved and developed in the years to come. And having lived through it, seeing the smoke coming from it, I think there's a lot of thinking to be done in our municipalities," says Mr. Nantel.Nantel, who is also spokesperson for the Regroupement vigilance mines de l'Abitibi et du Témiscamingue (REVIMAT).
The round table on democracy will be broadcast on the programÇa vaut le retour,on Tuesday 21October.
For Olivier Proulx, a doctoral student at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the challenge of reconciling the environment and economic development goes beyond land protection.
Forests aren't just used to produce two-by-fours," he says. We use it for non-timber forest products, whose collective and economic value we are increasingly discovering, but also for the well-being of the population. It acts as a carbon sink, with immense ecosystem benefits that help mitigate temperature variations and the risks associated with climate change.
Sébastien Richard, President of the Val-d'Or Chamber of Commerce, believes that opportunities are emerging.
In my opinion, we can have confidence in our long-established industries. We're seeing actions to perpetuate facilities, particularly in the mining sector. It's an economic opportunity to sit down with them [the industries], then include them in the game plan to develop our regional society and support them financially.
However, trust is fragile when it comes to land use and the search for additional revenues for municipalities.
They [elected officials] are prisoners, then play the growth game and try to find a company to pay more taxes, then with these taxes expand, make more streets, have more houses. They're in this logic of an ever-expanding economy," says Marc Nantel of REVIMAT.
For his part, entrepreneur Sébastien Richard replies that he is more than in favor of diversifying activities.
I'm an entrepreneur at heart, and I'm looking to diversify my economy and be an agent of change here.
A quote from Sébastien Richard
Balancing development aspirations with the imperatives of safeguarding and protecting the environment remains a difficult balancing act for MRC Director General Normand Lagrange.
It's not easy... As general manager, we have a vision, we make recommendations, but the decision rests with the elected representatives. You have to convince them with scientific support to get them to make informed decisions, which isn't easy.
After eight years in office, Claire Bolduc, the outgoing prefect of the Témiscamingue region, deplores the lack of consistency in the requests made to municipalities.
We have to deal with environmental measures on a daily basis. There's no longer any consistency between all the orders we issue to municipalities, whether on the environment, public land or agricultural land, even though towns have more and more needs. If we brought the ability to decide back to where decisions are made and lived, we'd already have fewer issues," insists Claire Bolduc.
In conclusion, doctoral student Guillaume Proulx believes that we need to rethink communities to make them more resilient.
Society is becoming more complex, and so are the problems. Elected municipal officials and RCMs have a role to play in adapting and taking the lead in this context. Municipalities can support small social economy projects, cooperative projects, so as not simply to extract and export, but to decide to diversify services to the population, and then support these initiatives.
Source: ici.radio-canada.ca/
