For the past few months, our small informal group of citizens from the five poles of Abitibi-Témiscamingue have been thinking about the best way to channel and stimulate our regional feeling. A feeling that shines powerfully in each of us, but whose collective flame has been quietly extinguished since the dissolution of the Regional Conferences of Elected Officials, which we regret bitterly.
This disappearance has resulted in a weakening of our ability to act, while eliminating an important vehicle for pooling concerns and development efforts. “We have the tool, the way is missing”, sang Stéphane Lafleur.
We love the territory, but we lack the space that would allow us to share our ideals and contribute to the conscious development of our environment. Conscious rather than accidental, electoralist or reactionary.
We wish to participate actively in the concerted construction of our region, but currently, we are wasting our efforts fighting, protecting, defending our values, our territory, our biodiversity, our health.
We spend our energy managing the landing of what comes to us from above, which often misunderstands us, rather than designing the future we want for us and our children who will grow up here.
For example, who asked us what our priorities were in terms of cultural development when they decided to throw a Blue Space at us in our fragile ecosystem? Nobody.
The – increasingly rare – ministerial regional directors will testify to this: the “top-down” does not work in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. Then, conversely, our regional concerns cross La Vérendrye Park with just as much difficulty to reach the decision-makers.
This is why we were both surprised and delighted to read an opinion piece on decentralization signed by Louis Bernard on August 16, 2022 in the pages of the To have to. The author brings several very interesting elements, starting with the election of prefects by universal suffrage as well as the principle of regionalization with variable geometry, according to the realities of the regions. However, it seems to us that citizen power is sadly conspicuous by its absence in Mr. Bernard’s proposals.
citizen power
We firmly believe that the public should not be kept in the dark about the issues that affect them, for lack of mechanisms enabling them, first, to be informed, and then to speak out. This remaining democratic hole deprives elected officials of access to the concerns and collective intelligence of the citizens they represent.
We are experiencing a multitude of specific issues that deserve better regional organization to arrive at concerted solutions that stick to our vision, our values and our territorial realities: relations with the First Nations, the security of our “one and only » transportation link, protection of caribou and our eskers, air contamination by industry, to name a few.
We live the direct impacts of decisions that are made hundreds of kilometers from here. It is us and our children who breathe in toxic metal emissions. Deciding for and without us is just as outrageous as it is senseless.
Like many others in Quebec, our region is rich but complex and misunderstood. Our people are strong, bright, bold, creative. You have to use your great abilities to reflect and build your future, rather than letting it burn all its “gas” trying somehow to be heard, understood and respected.
Also signed this letter: Geneviève Aubry, Félix B. Desfossés, Jacques Baril, Marie-France Beaudry, Chloé Beaulé-Poitras, Bianca Bédard, Sébastien Bélisle, Cassiopée Bois, Amélie Brassard, Pascale Charlebois, Sonia Demontigny, Rosalie Chartier-Lacombe, Maude Labrecque-Denis, Paul -Antoine Martel, Mathieu Proulx, Guillaume Rivest.