I had to bite my tongue at the January 22 MRC meeting when Warden Jane Toller read the resolution to take legal action against Alleyn-et-Cawood (AC). One of the smallest, most impoverished municipalities in the MRC, fighting for its survival, and the MRC’s response is to come down with an iron fist? Dear Council of Mayors, you are dead wrong.
In the 2024 budget, AC’s shares were calculated at $289,148—nearly double what they should have been. Why? A flawed evaluation system. Vacant lots in AC were sold for more than two to three times their actual value, artificially inflating property values across the municipality. The MRC then calculated AC’s shares based on this hyperinflated evaluation, leading to a gross overcharge.
So, is the MRC going to make it right? No, they are going to sue the municipality instead for not paying the overcharge. Why? “Because that’s the amount that was budgeted and approved by council, so that’s the amount that has to be paid. Accurate or not.”
Imagine being charged $150 extra on your cell phone bill for services that you did not order and did not receive. When you complain, your cell provider acknowledges there was a problem with the charge and recalculates your bill. AC’s global evaluation has since been revised to a more reasonable total, bringing their shares down to $150,656. Back to your cell provider – imagine that rather than accepting your payment for the correct total, they insist that you must pay the overcharge, because “that’s what was printed on your bill”.
Pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?
Now if your cell provider pulled this stunt, I bet you’d be looking for a new provider, wouldn’t you? But what if you are a small municipality and your MRC pulls this stunt? Maybe AC needs to look for a new MRC. “Hello? Gatineau Valley?”
Warden Toller suggests AC pay the inflated amount and try to recoup it from the Ministry
of Municipal Affairs (MAMH), which oversees the evaluation framework. That’s like a cell company blaming its billing software and telling you to pay the overcharge, then sue the software company. It’s not the ministry demanding close to $300,000 from AC
—it’s the MRC.
To act in good faith and solidarity, the MRC should take the overcharge from its $1.2 million surplus. Warden Toller claims they can’t, citing auditors’ advice to keep $2 million in the surplus. But yet the warden and the majority of council had no problem taking $100,000 from the surplus to pay for the Energy-from-Waste business plan. They can touch the surplus; they just have to want to. Let the MRC absorb the overcharge, and they can go after MAMH for the money.Council of Mayors, do the right thing. Drop the legal action
and be a good neighbour. AC doesn’t need lawsuits—it needs fairness.
Published January 29, 2025.