The Châteauguay City Council meeting on July 6 was emotionally charged as many residents affected by sewer backups and flooding on June 20 voiced their anger and distress. Mayor Eric Allard highlighted the various ongoing investments to upgrade infrastructure and try to limit damage during heavy rains.
Some distraught residents reported having experienced flooding for the third or fourth time in just a few years and said they’ve had enough. Louise Prudhomme, a resident of Sainte-Marguerite Boulevard, has dealt with four instances of water damage since 2012. After the first three incidents and the death of her husband in 2025, she decided to put her house up for sale. “After 15 showings, I finally got an offer. I accepted it even though my agent told me to keep looking, because I just wanted some peace of mind. I was worried every time it rained,” she said, visibly moved.
She was supposed to go to the notary on June 29, but in the end, the buyers backed out after seeing the water damage from June 22. She now finds herself having to pay for both her house and the apartment she has already moved into. She wonders when the city will take action, since she lives in constant fear of another downpour.
Upcoming Work in Certain Areas
Mayor Eric Allard had announced earlier in the session that the City is in the process of issuing a call for bids to carry out targeted repairs in the areas of Sainte-Marguerite Boulevard, Craik Street, and Dunver Street. Following the 2024 floods, the city commissioned an analysis of the area and is now ready to proceed with the work. “Despite being denied $4.6 million in financial assistance, we have chosen to move forward with the $10 million borrowing by-law,” said Mr. Allard. Work could begin by the end of the summer.
In fact, most of the residents who spoke on Monday during the three-hour meeting lived in the Laramée Street area, near Sainte-Marguerite Boulevard.
Like many mayors in Quebec, Eric Allard criticized the lack of assistance from higher levels of government to cover the significant infrastructure expenses required.
He noted that numerous investments to upgrade infrastructure are currently underway. The city must separate stormwater and sanitary sewers along the equivalent of 16 kilometers of streets. To date, three kilometers have been completed, and the work has made a difference, according to him. He cited as examples the work on d’Anjou Boulevard, the Thibert area, and the Elmridge Street area. The latter used to be affected after almost every rainstorm but was spared this time.
Calls for Emergency Aid
Several residents have called on the municipality to provide emergency financial assistance. “If we start acting like an insurance company and paying out compensation, that compensation will end up on your tax bill as well,” the mayor explained. “The City’s only source of revenue is taxes.”
The City Council reminded residents that government programs exist to assist citizens affected by flooding. The city has also established a grant program to upgrade its sanitary facilities. To date, it has reimbursed the equivalent of $17,000. It has allocated a budget of $100,000 for this program.
Tensions rose at one point during the meeting. Several police officers were on site, and one resident was removed from the meeting for disrupting the proceedings.
Other residents, experiencing flooding for the first time, are questioning the condition and maintenance of municipal infrastructure. Patrick Vachon, a resident of Rue des Satellites, asked whether the development of the industrial park and the work at the Rodrigue-Caron station could have an impact on the flooding.
“If nothing happened in 37 years, and nothing happened in 2024 [during Hurricane Debby], what explains why, two years later—under roughly the same conditions—we went from zero inches of water to more than two feet of water in the basements along most of the street?”
Eric Allard cited the weather in the preceding days as a possible explanation for the flooding. “When that storm hit, we’d just had several days of rain. Everyone’s yards were saturated with water, as were the water tables. […] Those heavy rains put us in a bind, and our drainage system isn’t capable of handling that much rain all at once,” said the mayor.
Châteauguay isn’t the only city in the region to have been hit hard by the June 20 storm. Areas of Delson, Sainte-Catherine, and Saint-Constant suffered significant damage.
