PHOTO COURTESY DOJO PERROT SHIMA

Myriam Brazeau, at the age of 16, has become this year’s Canadian champion in the under 18 year-old category at the Elite National Judo Championship, which saw the best competitors from across the country fighting for the top spot last weekend in Montreal.

Sixteen-year-old Myriam Brazeau, who trains with the Dojo Perrot Shima Judo Club in Île-Perrot, is the new 2020 Canadian ‘Elite 8’ judo champion in the under 18 age group.

Held last weekend at the Pierre Charbonneau centre at the Olympic park in Montreal, the Elite 8 Championship is a tournament where only the eight top-ranked athletes (or judokas) in the country qualify to enter for each category. The rankings are a reflection of points earned at various other tournaments throughout the year. Also qualifying for the Elite 8 championship from the club were Alex Marineau and Ryan Proulx, both of whom unfortunately were prevented from competing due to injuries.

Brazeau has been practicing judo for about fou...

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

A Rigaud resident gestures to council as he complains about residential property tax hikes during a special session that saw the town’s 2020 budget adopted on December 16. Taxes will rise between 8.3 per cent to 13.7 per cent depending in which sector a resident resides.

Calls made for provincial inquiry into town’s management

It was standing room only as Rigaud council adopted its 2020 municipal budget to a chorus of boos and jeers as approximately 150 residents crowded into the Paul Brasseur Building on Monday, December 16 to voice their displeasure with the significant property tax hikes they will receive next year.

Calls were also made for the municipality to be put under trusteeship and for the Commission Municipale du Québec to conduct an independent investigation into how the town is managed. Property taxes will rise between 8.3 per cent to 13.7 per cent in 2020 depending on which sector residents reside.

Town should consider trusteeship

“I think it’s very obvious...

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

Saint-Lazare Treasurer Stephanie Martin presents the city’s 2020 budget during a special sitting of council on Tuesday, December 17. Property taxes for an average house evaluated at $386,000 will rise by $60 next year.

Homeowners in Saint-Lazare will see their property taxes increase by 1.9 per cent for a completely serviced residence after council unanimously adopted the city’s budget for 2020 during a special session on Tuesday evening, December 17.

Taxes for an average house evaluated at $386,000 will rise by $60 next year. “Council worked extremely hard to balance the budget and keep the increase below two per cent which is below the cost of living,” Mayor Robert Grimaudo told The Journal after the meeting.

Chaline Valley

One of the major expenditures absorbed by the town in 2019 was the reconfiguration work done to stabilize the slopes in Chaline Valley. Out of the $15 million that was earmarked for the project, $10.5 million came from a provincial government subsi...

PHOTO COURTESY PETER SCHIFKE’S OFFICE

As the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Peter Schiefke (left) begins his second term as the Member of Parliament for Vaudreuil-Soulanges with a new challenge ahead and will be working on what has become a high profile portfolio for the Liberal government.

Vaudreuil-Soulanges Member of Parliament Peter Schiefke has been appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

“It’s an honour and a privilege to be able to take on this important portfolio” said Schiefke by phone at the end of a long day that saw him meeting constituents (and giving out coffee and hot chocolate) at the train station in Vaudreuil-Dorion during the morning commuter rush, then heading off to Ottawa for six hours of briefings on the Environment and Climate Change portfolio before finally heading back home.

Schiefke, who has served over the past four years as th...

The end of the year is budget time and the town of Hudson held a special meeting on the evening of December 16 to present 2019 results, the budgetary plan for 2020, and a look ahead for spending as far as 2022. The orientation of council for this budget was to work on tax fairness and ensure that going forward taxes and budgets better reflect actual use.

Pro-Mayor Austin Rikley-Krindle opened the meeting and got straight to the business of the evening. Financial resource management consultant Pierre Charron presented the budget in French, while Rikley-Krindle followed up with an English translation for each slide.

“The budget was prepared in consultation with all of the (town’s department) directors,” said Charron, “and the reports were questioned and analyzed so that all the information in the budget is verified. This budget is balanced.”

Expense numbers to match use

The numbers on the slides showed the balance was there, but there were some major shifts in revenue and expenses as items w...

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

Pincourt homeowners are looking at an increase of 3.32 per cent on their 2020 tax bill which includes services including garbage collection, recycling and brown bin pickup, and payments to the Sûreté du Québec.

Homeowners in Pincourt will see their property tax bills rise by 3.32 per cent next year after council unanimously adopted its 2020 budget during a special sitting on Tuesday evening, December 17. For an average home evaluated at $299,408, the increase amounts to $91.62.

Mayor Yvan Cardinal said the overall average financial impact on residential property taxes over the past 10 years amounts to $412, including this year’s increase. The median property valuation over the same time period has increased from $196,000 to its current level at just under $300,000.

1.7 per cent annual increase over 10 years

“This means the valuation of homes has increased an average of 52 per cent while property taxes increased only by 17 per cent. Property taxes have increased 1.7 per...

PHOTO COURTESY SHUTTERSTOCK

The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) is warning the public to be more cautious about a telephone fraud scheme that affects several regions of Quebec, including Vaudreuil-Soulanges, where there have been reports of this type of fraud.

Description

A citizen receives a phone call from someone who speaks English who may claim to be a police officer. They will then ask you to validate your name, social insurance number or other personal information. In the event that the citizen refuses to give this information, the fraudster threatens that the police will come quickly to arrest him if he does not collaborate. In some cases, the fraudster adds that the citizen has been the victim of fraud and also asks him to confirm his banking information and make a transfer to a specific account to protect his money. The fraudster even asks the citizen to buy prepaid cards from various businesses and asks the victim to provide the card validation number to avoid further problems with the la...

PHOTO BY NICK ZACHARIAS

These trees are stacked at the entrance to a recently cleared road in the Place Verde development in Saint-Lazare. The lifting of the moratorium on building to the west of here on the other side of Côte Saint-Charles has some residents concerned it will mean widespread clearing of old growth forest, but Mayor Robert Grimaudo explained that a new town council resolution means they will protect “most of the trees in that area.”

The December meeting of the Saint-Lazare town council saw residents and council members touch on a number of issues primarily related to development, environmental protection, and the sustainability of potable water for the town. A key resolution was passed that touches all three of those topics, namely the lifting of the construction moratorium in the green corridor on the western end of Saint-Lazare between Côte Saint-Charles and Chemin du Fief.

Water supply for the town

As that sector serves as a recharge zone for the underground water suppl...

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

Pincourt resident Pierre Giasson watches for traffic as he crosses Boulevard Cardinal-Léger on December 11. Giasson and several other residents requested Mayor Yvan Cardinal to restore the stop signs that were removed by the town three weeks citing pedestrian safety concerns.

The Town of Pincourt has said it will not reinstall a pair of stop signs at a crosswalk on Boulevard Cardinal-Léger despite pleas made by area residents to officials that the signs should be restored for safety reasons, during the Tuesday evening council meeting held December 10.

Resident Pierre Giasson, who lives near the crosswalk on Cardinal-Léger between Avenue Monseigneur-Langlois and 8th Avenue, said he was disappointed with the town’s response. He first raised the issue during the November council session, six days before the signs were removed on November 18.

He also launched a petition that was signed by 47 residents who live on the stretch of road asking for the city to keep the stop sig...

I

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

Vaudreuil-Dorion Mayor Guy Pilon displays a copy of the city’s 2020 budget that was presented during a special session of council at city hall on Monday, December 9.

Individualized citizen portal will be implemented on city’s website

Homeowners in Vaudreuil-Dorion will see their property tax bills increase by an average of three per cent after the city’s 2020 budget was adopted during a special council session on Monday, December 9.

For a house evaluated at $324,400 – the average residential valuation – homeowners will see a $59 increase in their property tax bill next year. The mill rate for each $100 of valuation will increase from $0.6069 to $0.6251. The annual water tax rate remains the same at $275.

Despite the increase, the city says its property tax remains reasonable and is in line with the consumer price index which amounted to 2.7 per cent as of October 31. The city’s 2020 budget amounts to $86,593,802 – a 6.3 per cent increase from last year.

Quality of servi...

THE JOURNAL FILE PHOTO/JOHN JANTAK

Hudson Mayor Jamie Nicholl's (shown here earlier this year) letter to council announcing his temporary step back from his mayoralty duties was read aloud by Director General Philip Toone at the December 2 council meeting.

Mayor Jamie Nicholls, in a surprise move, has decided to “step back temporarily” from his role as mayor of Hudson. It was a tumultuous start for the December meeting of council, already charged as it was with an oversized crowd looking for answers on divisive draft by-law 526.8 concerning wetlands. Councillor Austin Rikley-Krindle, the designated Pro-Mayor, stood from his usual seat to fill the centre position at the podium and call the meeting to order, and Director-General Philip Toone read a prepared letter (currently available in full on the town’s website) from Mayor Nicholls explaining his absence.

Specifically citing the wetland by-law, which has now been scrapped, Nicholls wrote that his public support for it has caused stress t...

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

Martin Houde, the Director General for Vaudreuil-Dorion, announced his retirement at the start of the council meeting on December 2.

Vaudreuil-Dorion Director General Martin Houde announced he’s stepping down from his duties as the city’s Director General during the Monday evening council meeting on December 2. In the interim, Houde will act as a Special Advisor on Transition and Strategic Planning for the city until his official retirement date scheduled for March, 2020.

The retirement announcement was a bittersweet moment for Houde whose experience working within municipal milieus spans three decades. “It feels good but I’m a bit emotional. It’s difficult but it was a good day for me,” Houde told The Journal during a telephone interview on December 3.

Best time in Vaudreuil-Dorion

“I worked for 10 years in Beaconsfield, 10 years in Ste. Anne de Bellevue and 10 years here. For sure my best time has been in Vaudreuil-Dorion. It’s a big city and very fast paced. I had a...

PHOTO COURTESY RYAN YOUNG

Green Party Member of Parliament (MP) Elizabeth May rallied students to take a more active role in the climate crisis by writing letters to their MPs and to newspapers during a presentation at John Abbott College last Friday, November 29.

Former federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May encouraged young people to take a more active role in getting the government to adopt more serious strategies to combat the global climate crisis.  

May, a long-time environmental activist herself who recently was re-elected for the third consecutive time as Member of Parliament (MP) in her British Columbia riding of Saanich–Gulf Islands in British Columbia in October, brought her message of activism to John Abbott College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue last Friday, November 29.

Canada lacks climate change leadership

Her stance took on added impetus for action due to the rapidly evolving climate crisis and its increasing negative impact on the global community. She added that Canada hasn’t...

PHOTO BY JOHN JANTAK

Vaudreuil-Dorion’s new aquatic centre, city hall and library will be built as part of a municipal hub on vacant land on the south side of Rue Émile-Bouchard in close proximity to the Centre Multisports, the EXO commuter train station and municipal bus terminus.

Vaudreuil-Dorion is preparing to submit a request for financial support to the provincial government for the construction of its new aquatic centre project that will a part of the city’s new municipal hub.

The city’s request will be submitted by February, 2020 as part of the provincial call for projects under the Programme d’aide financière aux infrastructures récréatives et sportives (PAFIRS) that was announced by Quebec on November 8.

Financial assistance program

The purpose of PAFIRS – which translates into Financial Assistance Program for Recreational and Sports Infrastructure – is to support the presence of recreational and sports infrastructures in good condition throughout the province.

PAFIRS also aims to...

PHOTO BY MICHAEL GREEN

Treasure Island takes on a whole new twist in an upcoming presentation at the Hudson Village Theatre, where the crowd is encouraged to boo, hiss, cheer and “arrrrr” to their hearts’ delight. This marks the 19th year for the cherished Hudson tradition of the Christmas Pantomime where local characters young and old get to sing, dance and cavort on stage and the audience is part of the fun. Pictured above are Paul Richardson (Billy Bones), Frey Sheridan (Patty Lugg), Willow Farkas (Ben Gunn) and Beatrice Johnson (Kittie the Maid) - just four of a 60-strong cast that is ready to bring the theatre to life starting December 13.

In a tradition going back nearly two decades, Christmas means it’s once again Panto time at The Hudson Village Theatre. The seasonal pantomime has long been a fixture of the British stage and in fact dates back to 16th century Italian street theatre, but some would argue that nowhere does it come alive quite so magically as in the converted train...