Minister Christian Dubé, president of the Treasury Council and the person in charge of the Monteregie region, sat down with representatives of community groups from the region on September 23.
The meeting was organized by Chateauguay MNA MarieChantal Chasse. Her goal: to inspire the government in its reflections surrounding the support of community groups. Around the table, several directors of community groups evoked the stakes of financing and manpower, mainly. The two topics were interrelated.
‘’The clientele we serve needs a ratio of one to five (one intervenor for one child),’’ illustrates Beatrice Pinot, director of the Action Decouverte movement, which offers services to people having an intellectual deficiency. ‘’But our under-financing has an impact on our capacity to offer an attractive salary,’’ she continues, ‘’and we must work with a ratio of one to seven, which also has an impact on the quality of services offered.’’
The directors of community groups in attendance also had several questions on the manner in which supplementary aid ($4 million) granted to the Monteregie groups will be split up
Mitigated welcome
This meeting with the Minister was positively welcomed by most of the people invited. Certain of those saluted the overture of the government towards the specific stakes in the region. ‘’We are very happy; this is a nice change of attitude, because before (under the preceding government), we were not able to speak to our MNA,’’ confided Martin Becotte, the director of the regional federation of the OSBLs of habitation of the Monteregie and the Estrie region.’’
Others called for more prudence, such as Gabrielle Brin D’Amour, director of the Accolade mental health organization. ‘’This is not the first time that we have had the chance to meet a minister. So we will wait and see if this get-together is really going to give us something,’’ she confided.
Increasing the envelope
The CAQ government announced on September 10 an improvement of aid granted Monteregie community groups. Recurrent financial aid of $4 million has been added to the amount of $66.6 million allowed in the context of the support program for community groups.
