The decision, announced to the MRC Pontiac’s Council of Mayors, Oct 6, that the MRC-wide waste management committee is to be abolished, sends multiple wrong signals to the Pontiac. Basically, it runs exactly counter to the “all hands on deck” spirit of today’s efforts to manage humanity’s waste. We’re talking profound problems: polluted water tables, plastic-bag flooded seas.
First, why cut out any functioning management effort on so important an initiative (even if the Pontiac’s committee was hardly recognized, too passive on its part, and its leadership often appeared to be absent)?
Second, in today’s skeptical public attitude about any government’s value, is it wise to shut the door on any public participation? This decision seems a perfect example of “lack of transparency” and of “backroom decision-making”.
Third, for the new director – with Council’s leadership – to dismiss public involvement and adopt a “leave it to the experts” attitude – what? Did the experts not learn the first
lesson of the garbage incinerator fiasco?
Our territory is huge, with our population both concentrated and thinly scattered, and this gives us an extra burden and cost. One way is to create voluntary government outlets and projects – everywhere. All to make it easier for our scattered populations to work together, building their own sense of community. Open more doors, not fewer.
Today’s waste crisis has many causes, but an aggressive and positive attitude by the public toward waste management would go a long way in helping the MRC’s technical experts achieve their goals with the province. The disbanded committee was a non-bureaucratic arm of our local government. It flew below Québec’s radar, we can assume, just because the Pontiac is so lightly populated. These are positive things: non-bureaucracy, and local control, and, from what I can see, the Committee was not an expense to the MRC.
Warden Toller notes that this committee had lost its purpose – so isn’t this the opportunity for updating and redefining? The MRC’s new waste management director feels she can work better with the mayors and DGs, not with councillors or the public. Isn’t this a stereotypic example of bureaucratization? What exactly was this committee not attending to . . . or what were the actual problems that arose with a “civilian” committee?
The fact is, the committee began with a mandate different from today’s waste-
management needs; it did not evolve, or even follow the issues, as they changed, we’re told.
And it may be that these concerns have now been dealt with . . . but if this is the case, there is at least a breakdown in public communication on the part of the Council. And not its first.
Would a mayor or someone from the MRC care to comment publicly on any of these points?
