Best of the Eastern Townships News

BMP Wait Time One of the Worst

2010-06-10T09:17:00.004-04:00

By Alex Roslin

Sherbrooke Record

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

If you’ve got a health emergency and you go to the Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital in Cowansville, get ready for one of the longest waits of any hospital in Quebec.

A survey has found that the BMP Hospital has the worst record of any small hospital in the province in terms of emergency-room wait times.

And the hospital’s wait times are only getting worse, with its overall grade dropping from a D to an E+ since the previous survey.

Emergency patients at the hospital wait an average of almost 25 hours before finally getting a hospital bed, being transferred to another institution or getting discharged, according to the province-wide annual survey by the newspaper La Presse.

The Quebec average is 17.5 hours. The province says it wants to reduce that average to 12 hours.

Also, 19 percent of BMP patients wind up waiting 48 hours or more—compared to a provincial average of 7.2 percent.

The culprit, say hospital workers, is a chronic lack of nurses and beds. “The lack of nurses certainly has an impact. We’ve said that for a long time,” says Carole Guillette, president of the local nurses’ union.

“The staff are really overworked, especially in the evenings. Patients are waiting in the corridors and in chairs. It’s clear there are not enough beds.”

And don’t look to the BMP Hospital’s recent expansion to solve the problems. It won’t add a single new bed to the facility, Guillette says.

In fact, since Guillette started working at the hospital in 1982, she says it has actually reduced its number of beds from 100 to less than 80. What’s more, the number of administrative staff has increased while the number of nurses has remained the same. Nurses’ caseloads have also become heavier and more complex with medical advances and the aging population.

BMP Hospital officials didn’t respond to several calls requesting comment for this story.

In an interview with another newspaper, Dr. Christian Léger, the hospital’s director of medical affairs, suggested that part of the problem is the region’s high portion of seniors.

But a similarly high ratio of seniors in Magog didn’t stop that city’s Memphrémagog Hospital Centre from having the second-best emergency wait time in Quebec.

In fact, the Magog hospital’s record is one of the few pieces of good news in the survey.

If you have the time to drive to Magog, your emergency wait time could be less than a third of your wait in Cowansville—just 7.5 hours.

And only 0.7 percent of emergency patients in Magog wait more than 48 hours. That’s a tiny fraction of the number in Cowansville.

Mayor Calls Fee Scheme "Harebrained"

2010-06-10T09:16:00.001-04:00

Concern in Mansonville and Shefford

by Alex Roslin

Brome County News

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Two neighbouring mayors are reacting with surprise and disappointment to the Town of Brome Lake’s demand for massive fee increases for non-residents who take classes at the community centre in Knowlton.

“It seems a little harebrained,” said Mansonville Mayor Jacques Marcoux.

Mansonville has eight residents who take classes in Knowlton, but it would have to cough up about $27,000 per year under TBL’s plan.

That works out about $3,400 for each of the eight Mansonville residents taking classes. “Pardon the expression, but it’s pretty crazy. Higher non-resident fees are reasonable. But from there to say you have to pay based on municipal evaluation is not the correct way to do things,” Marcoux said.

(Mansonville’s fee would probably be reduced slightly because it has community facilities of its own that Brome Lake residents may use. The actual figure demanded isn’t known yet because TBL has yet to put a request in writing.)

Meanwhile, in Shefford, Mayor Jean-Marc Desrochers was no less stunned when told of TBL’s plan.

“Tabarouette, that would be totally absurd. There would not even be a discussion,” Desrochers said.

Shefford would probably have to pay about $32,500 a year under TBL’s plan. That’s $3,250 for each of the 10 Shefford residents taking a class in Knowlton.

The reaction was similar in Brome, which would be asked for almost $16,000 a year. (It has a dozen residents taking classes in Knowlton.)

Non-residents already pay 40 percent more to take classes at the community centre. TBL Mayor Gilles Decelles says that’s not enough and doesn’t cover the town’s full costs.

But the actual cost of the programs at the community centre is not known. A review has just started to figure that out.

That didn’t stop TBL’s council from going ahead in May with a vote to ban residents of West Bolton from taking classes at the community centre if an agreement with that town isn’t reached on recreation by August 1.

TBL has asked West Bolton for $91,000 a year. West Bolton offered $3,000.

Bill Baldwin, vice-president of the board of Lac-Brome Recreation and Community Services, which runs the community centre, says he is concerned that banning so many non-residents would mean fewer classes being given. He urged both sides to be more reasonable.

“This business of banning kids entirely is absurd. There’s got to be a middle ground,” he said.

In total, TBL’s plan would demand about $150,000 from West Bolton and the three other neighbouring communities. That’s 30 percent of the community centre’s budget of $500,000.

Meanwhile, residents of those four towns make up less than 10 percent of the people who take classes at the community centre.

Officials of some of those towns say TBL’s amount is unfair because high portions of their residents are weekenders or seasonal dwellers who don’t take classes in Knowlton.

Last week, West Bolton’s town council extended an olive branch by voting to increase its offer to $15,000 a year. That amount would cover just kids under 18 and would allow them to pay the same as residents to use the community centre in Knowlton. Adults from West Bolton would pay a higher non-resident fee to take classes.

“In my opinion, adults have the choice to pay whatever Brome Lake wishes. But children do not have a choice,” said West Bolton Mayor Donald Badger.

In an interview, Badger struck a conciliatory tone. “Whatever Brome Lake decides to do, we don’t want it [the community centre] shut down for anybody. There’s got to be a solution,” he said.

In TBL, councillors were also sounding friendlier. “I think these two months will give us a chance to reflect and negotiate like two neighbours should and to treat our neighbours the same way as we want to be treated,” said TBL councillor Marta Guber Gomes. “If another town did this to us, we would be freaking out.”

Now, another town is doing just that. Waterloo Mayor Pascal Russell says his town doesn’t want to subsidize non-residents either and wants a huge increase in money from TBL and other neighbouring towns to use Waterloo’s indoor skating rink and other rec facilities.

“If we say no [to Waterloo], we will be banned,” Decelles acknowledged at a council meeting last week.

Community Centre "Ban" Has Residents up in Arms

2010-05-18T09:28:00.002-04:00

By Alex Roslin
Brome County News

May 11, 2010

Brome Lake Mayor Gilles Decelles and his town council heard an earful of concerns at a heated council meeting last week about their plan to ban residents of West Bolton from classes at the community centre.

The controversy drew a capacity crowd with most speakers opposing the decision.

Those opposed included Brome Lake grandmother Cynthia Wilkinson, a former TBL councillor. “It’s ridiculous. I think he [Decelles] is very wrong,” she said later in an interview.

West Bolton dad Eric Frendo, whose three kids take hip hop and soccer at the community centre in Knowlton, also criticized the decision.

“The last thing I want to do is have TBL taxpayers subsidize me,” he said later.

“The mayor needs to tell us what each program costs and let West Bolton residents decide whether they want to pay the unsubsidized rate.

Banning us from participating is mean-spirited and irrational.”

But Decelles said he doesn’t have specific numbers for specific classes. Instead, he presented a series of charts that he claimed prove that West Bolton residents use TBL’s community facilities without paying their fair share.

He said TBL subsidizes West Bolton residents to the tune of $91,000 a year—the amount he says West Bolton must pay for its residents to keep using the community centre.

But not everyone agreed with this figure. The $91,000 equals nearly 20 percent of the $500,000 that TBL spends on the community centre in Knowlton.

Meanwhile, West Bolton residents are much less likely to enrol at the community centre than TBL residents, according to Decelles’ presentation. They make up less than five percent of those taking classes.

The $91,000 amounts to over $2,800 for each of the 32 West Bolton residents taking classes in Knowlton.

Like other non-TBL residents, they already pay a 40-percent higher fee to take the classes.

Wilkinson expressed concern that some classes would be cancelled at the community centre with fewer participants due to the ban. The community centre has said 16 classes would have been cancelled last year without non-TBL residents.

Teachers are paid out of the entry fees, and some may not be able to offer classes if they don’t get enough sign-ups.

In an interview, Decelles said the town will maintain any classes “that are strategic and important to our citizens.”

Yet, Decelles said he wasn’t aware that teachers are paid from entry fees and may not be willing to offer classes without enough participants.
“

I know none of these details. I’ve not been able to look at what extent we subsidize what classes. We haven’t had a chance to look at all these details,” he said.

Decelles said West Bolton was singled out because it is unwilling to negotiate. He claimed other towns like Brome are open to his plan. He said Brome Mayor Thomas Selby “seemed to think it is sensible.”

Yet, in an interview, Decelles acknowledged that no formal negotiations have started with any of the other three towns whose residents use the Knowlton community centre the most aside from West Bolton.

A town official in Brome confirmed that TBL has not formally approached Brome for more money. He also said Brome is not likely pay substantial amounts to TBL.

TBL will ask Brome to pay $16,000 a year, minus a small amount because it has a skating rink and park that TBL residents can use, Decelles said.

That would amount to over $1,300 for each of Brome’s 12 residents who take classes at the community centre. As with West Bolton, the amount seems disproportionate to how much Brome residents actually use the community centre.

Brome accounts for only 1.8 percent of the people who take classes there. Meanwhile, $16,000 equals 3.2 percent of the $500,000 TBL spends on the community centre.

In an interview, Decelles acknowledged that a third town, Shefford, will probably get hit with the ban as well because he doesn’t think it will agree to the amounts demanded. Ten Shefford residents took classes at the community centre last year.

Decelles also acknowledges that 90 percent of the town’s costs for the community centre are fixed regardless of how many people take classes there.

That leaves West Bolton dad Eric Frendo scratching his head. “That leaves $50,000 in variable costs. If West Bolton residents account for 5 percent of that variable cost, then $2,500 from West Bolton would ensure that TBL taxpayers are not shouldering any of that load,” he said.

In fact, West Bolton offered TBL more than that in January—$3,000 a year. TBL never made a counter-offer before proceeding with its ban, said Carrol Kralik, director-general of West Bolton.

Kralik says it’s not true that West Bolton won’t negotiate. “That’s not fair. It’s pretty hard for us to negotiate if they don’t come back to us,” she said.

West Bolton’s offer of $3,000 was based on what the town currently pays Waterloo to access community facilities ($2,550) and figures that were thrown around in past negotiations with TBL under former mayor Richard Wisdom.

The $3,000 equals about $5 per West Bolton resident—which is the same rate per resident that TBL itself pays to Cowansville and Waterloo to access their community facilities.

In the end, the TBL council adopted an amended resolution proposed by councillor Marta Gubert Gomes to delay the ban until Aug. 1 to give more time for negotiations.

Decelles had wanted the ban to start in May so West Bolton children couldn’t enrol in summer camp. Decelles and councillor Patrick Ouvrard voted against the resolution as amended.

The Young and the Restless

2009-10-19T11:25:00.007-04:00

TBL Mayoral Candidates Face Young Families

By Frank Nixon

The Sherbrooke Record

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Brome Lake mayoral candidates Michel Ayotte, Stanley Neil, Pierre Marchand and Gilles Decelles debated family and youth issues, for over two hours Tuesday night, before an audience of 25, at Centre Lac Brome.

Unlike the speakers’ night event, organized by the Brome Lake Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 7, the mayoral candidates spent most of their time focused on family issues, in a flexible and relaxed format.

The main topics debated were the need for affordable housing for young families, the necessity for high-speed Internet throughout TBL and the need for better playground facilities. The debate, often lively at times, was organized by ‘Brome County Families’ – a TBL advocacy group formed in August.

“One thing is clear – people are fed up of talking to town hall and not getting answers or any action,’” said Ayotte. “I have being proposing, from the beginning, a more pro-active administration. The time for studies and reports is over. It is high time that we move our tails out of the kitchen and form committee and action groups. If I am elected – and I mean this – the door is coming off my office!”

“The Internet has to be pushed at the MRC,” Ayotte continued. “All of the population will have to sign a petition to get the ball rolling. The money is there in Ottawa and in Quebec. We must go after the MRC, and if we do this, I assure you, they will move!

“As for housing, we will see what cheaper lots are available and what housing could be built at a cost that will entice young couples to move here. The present incentive plan is not what we need. If I am elected, we will get it overhauled and we will make it adaptable to our needs.”

Ayotte concluded: “We will not be able to do everything in the first weeks or months but if people give me their trust, I will lead a dynamic town hall – and if the entire population puts their shoulder to the wheel, we can achieve great things.”

Neil made a plea for young families to get involved in their community to achieve concrete results. “It would seem that a lot of parents expect the schools and the towns to be able to provide facilities and activities to keep their children occupied,” said Neil. “The schools and the towns can only help provide these services when they have parents that are willing to help by their getting involved.”

“In the mid 80s, when I was a councillor, I worked very closely with the councillor in charge of recreation to make sure that Knowlton got a community centre and that TBL took over the Fulford building, from the Davis estate, for community activities,” added Neil.

“Community services were created to make sure that if and when parents get actively involved, results can be achieved,” continued Neil. “We were able to get a lot accomplished, because we were involved. It proves that if you get involved and you can make it happen.”

As for high speed Internet, Neil said that it was vital that the town work with the MRC so that it is made available to all TBL residents. “It would help to encourage young business minded entrepreneurs to move and settle in the area,” he said.

Marchand touted his leadership credentials, as his main selling point, to young families. “My 20 years successful business experience, my experience working as a community organizer, my knowledge as a lawyer, my communication skills, my experience in managing human resources, my strong sense of community, and my full-time commitment to serve the needs of the people are what I’m offering to you as well as the rest of the population,” said Marchand. “A truck full of responsibilities has been devoted to the municipalities, making municipal politics a completely different world than it was 20 years ago.”

“For the last five years, I accepted to be engaged in the life of a small boy, born from a single mother, as a constant masculine figure and as a good father,” continued Marchand. “This, of course, has changed my life completely. My concerns as a parent are actual and not theoretical; I’m side-by-side with you and share completely your concerns.”

Marchand then turned negative and openly criticized former mayor and councillor, Gilles Decelles. “As you all know, I’m not a person searching for a retirement project,” said Marchand. “I am dynamic and I have the energy and the wish to participate full-time and actively to allow our community to adapt to the realities of today. This requires a leader that will devote his full time in this function – and not be a part-time mayor reachable by cell phone, as Mr. Decelles is offering.

Decelles chose to ignore Marchand’s criticism and proceeded to lay out his plan to attract young families to TBL.

Decelles promised that town hall would work toward making high speed Internet available to all TBL residents. “High-speed Internet is as essential as clean water,” he said.

“The town also needs to be a better place for families to live in Knowlton,” Decelles added. “People are very mobile to get a job but the rest of the environment has to be attractive.”

To make Knowlton more attractive to young families, Decelles proposed a path around Mill Pond “with swings and a playground.” He would also replace the beach house at Douglass Beach and make it the centre for a “linear path network” connecting all the districts within TBL.

As for parks, Decelles said that they need to be accessible to parents, by being “within walking distance.” He also saw the need to “validate the mission of the community centre” to maximize the use of resources, so that the needs of youth and families are met.

As for the “affordable” housing program, launched by town hall in June, Decelles said: “This program is not well thought out. The budget should only be for young families.”

Alex Roslin, a spokesperson for ‘Brome County Families’, said one the group’s initial concerns was the lack of public playgrounds in Knowlton, especially for preschoolers. “This became a bigger concern after Knowlton’s only public playground, at Lions Park, was dismantled last year,” he said.

Roslin added: “More generally, parents are also concerned about the seven per cent decline in the number of households with kids in Lac Brome, according to the last census. While the town has implemented a family policy to try to reverse that, many parents feel that the needs of families often still aren't heard.”

The debate was moderated by West Bolton resident Albert Nerenberg.

West Boltonites Seek Rec Deal With Brome Lake

2009-08-28T10:49:00.002-04:00

By Alex Roslin

Sherbrooke Record

August 5, 2009

Elina and her little brother Scott are feeling a little blue this summer. And it’s not because of all the rain.

They’d like to attend the Salamander Summer Day Camp at the Brome Lake community centre.

But they happen to live in West Bolton, and that means higher fees for out-of-towners—$840 for two kids at the full-time summer camp, compared to $240 for locals.

“It was just too much,” says their mom, Alice.

The Brome Lake Recreation and Community Services department charges non-residents the higher fees for the camp and year-round classes because 45 percent of its budget comes from the town of Brome Lake and its taxpayers.

Until last year, many instructors who gave classes at the community centre ignored the policy and charged out-of-towners the lower rate. But that changed last year when the community centre took over billing.

“The extra cost is prohibitive for many of the services in Knowlton,” says another West Bolton mom.

The change prompted some West Bolton families last summer to ask their town to try to work out a deal with Brome Lake that would allow them to pay the same as locals.

West Bolton already has such a deal with the city of Waterloo. It pays Waterloo $2,200 a year to allow residents to use Waterloo’s recreation services at the same rate as residents.

But many West Bolton residents say a deal with Knowlton makes more sense because that’s where they shop, bring kids to daycare and school and see family and friends.

“I don’t really know anyone who goes to Waterloo,” Alice says.

Alex Thibodeau, a dad of two young boys who lives in Knowlton and is building a house in West Bolton, agrees. “West Bolton residents spend almost all their money in Knowlton. We shop at the IGA and the SAQ and get our gas here. This is our town.”

Carrol Kralik, director general of the municipality of West Bolton, sympathizes. She said she contacted Brome Lake Recreation and Community Services last fall to try to work out a deal.

The response was a surprise, she said. Brome Lake asked for a $3,000 fee—36 percent more than Waterloo wanted—and still wanted to charge West Bolton residents the higher rates for services.

In other words, West Boltonites would be paying more, not less, Kralik said. “It didn’t make sense. They came back with an offer that was absolutely ridiculous.”

Brome Lake mayor Richard Wisdom said: “There is no way the town of Brome Lake is going to subsidize West Bolton. If you don’t want to build and do, you’re going to have to pay,” he said.

“West Bolton didn’t want to pay the amounts discussed. They know the rates. They have to come up to bat.”

Johanne Morin, executive director of Brome Lake Recreation and Community Services, said she supports making a deal with West Bolton. “I think it would be a great idea. It would make it a lot easier for everybody.”

But she said recreation programs are costly. For example, she said the higher non-resident fees for the summer camp do not cover the program’s full cost.

Kralik said West Bolton is still open to a deal, but not at any cost. “Waterloo is out of the way, but it’s still a heck of a lot cheaper than the extra fee of going to Brome Lake. Their non-resident charges are outrageous.”

The spat has left some parents frustrated. “There has to be a synergy between West Bolton and here,” Thibodeau said.

Another West Bolton parent agreed, saying more participants in classes in Knowlton would allow more classes to be offered for both locals and out-of-towners and more customers for Knowlton businesses. “It’s a win-win for everyone.”

TAGS: Eastern Townships, Knowlton, West Bolton

Thanks, But No Thanks, Mayor Tells Pool Donors

2009-08-28T10:47:00.002-04:00

By Alex Roslin

Brome County News

July 28, 2009

A wealthy group of benefactors offered to make a gigantic donation to the town of Brome Lake—possibly worth as much as $2.4 million—in order to build a pool near the Knowlton community centre, says mayor Richard Wisdom.

But the town turned down the offer. “I’m going to get in trouble for this, but I said, ‘no,’” Wisdom said. “Pools cost a fortune to maintain. It would be too big a hit for maintenance.”

Wisdom refused to name the donors or to reveal how much the maintenance bill might have come to. He said the donors had gone so far as to draw up plans for both indoor and outdoor pools.

The donation offer was made several months ago, but wasn’t widely publicized at the time, Wisdom said. The decision to reject it was made by “certain councilors, the mayor and community services,” he said.

Johanne Morin, executive director of the Brome Lake Recreation and Community Services department, put the annual operating cost of an outdoor pool at roughly $50,000 to $70,000—or about $9 to $12.50 per town resident. An indoor pool would cost $300,000 to $400,000 for annual upkeep, she said.

User fees and revenue from swimming classes would help defray costs, she said.

Morin said an outdoor pool would cost about $1 to $1.2 million to build or double that for an indoor facility—$2 to $2.4 million.

TAGS: Eastern Townships, Knowlton

Kids Wait for Fun in Knowlton

2009-07-15T15:35:00.002-04:00

By Alex Roslin

Brome County News

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

One weekday night in early July, the Lions Park was the place to be in Knowlton. Four soccer and baseball games and a rugby practice were under way.

The park was a beehive of activity, except for one little corner—a lone set of swings off to one side. Here, a lineup of toddlers stood waiting for a spot on the lone piece of playground equipment available for the little ones.

The swings are all that’s left after Knowlton’s only public playground for preschoolers was mostly dismantled last year. A single jungle gym was set up at the far end of the park, half a kilometre away, where it now stands by itself behind the community centre—a long walk from the sports fields.

The situation has parents talking about a lack of playground facilities in Knowlton. “I really hate to complain because Knowlton does a lot of good things for families, but giving families things to do is important,” said Shannon McGovern, mother of Jack, 6, and Allie Quinn, 2.

“In past years, it was nice because older kids at the Lions Park could play sports while the younger kids were at the playground. It’s nice to be able to take the whole family.”

Other parents agree. “Now, when there is rugby or soccer in the Lions Park, if people bring little kids, there’s nothing for them to do,” said Sarah Lenz, mother of Phoenix, 4, and Hunter, 3.

Some parents say the lack of playground equipment runs counter to the town’s efforts to attract and retain young families. Brome Lake launched a family policy last December in an attempt to reverse a seven-percent decline in the number of households with kids between 2001 and 2006.

The decline has prompted concern about plummeting school enrollment and “psychosocial problems among youth,” the policy said.

Parents praised the policy, but many said a key problem remains—the town lacks kid-friendly areas where families can meet and hang out, like public playgrounds. They said one spot with a lot of potential, Coldbrook Park, is often underused, in part because it lacks facilities.

“One of the best things the town could do would be to promote a little more child-friendliness in the village,” said Shannon Brown, mom of Jane Marlo, 3. “The very best place where you could see a lot of people meeting is Coldbrook Park.”

Lenz agreed: “They should do more to get families to come downtown and shop. There’s room in the corner of the park for a little playground.”

The problems extend to some events planned in the village, which often don’t include a kids’ component like face-painting or games, Lenz said. “It wouldn’t take much to add a little kids’ fun.”

Last March, the Brome Lake Recreation and Community Services department got the town council’s okay to spend a $45,000 surplus on playground equipment in the Lions Park. But the department says that’s not enough for three new pieces of equipment it is considering adding by year’s end—swings, a climbing apparatus and preschooler games.

However, Jambette Playground Equipment, one of Canada’s leading playground equipment makers, says $40,000 would be enough for swings ($2,400), a climbing apparatus ($12,300) and games like a tether ball, seesaw and a half-dozen animal-themed spring rockers, including delivery, installation, landscaping with kid-friendly woodchips and taxes.

There’d even be money left over for a new jungle gym at the other end of the park, nearer to the sports fields, especially if the town chips in its own employees to reduce landscaping costs.

Parents interested in working on park issues and family events can email BromeCountyFamilies@hotmail.com.

Park Facilities Vital: Officials

Business leaders and other prominent community members say Knowlton needs more kid-friendly facilities if it hopes to attract young families.

Parents are pressing the town to set up more playground facilities where families can meet up.

“Of course such facilities are needed,” said Jacques Lecours, a retired urban planner who is president of Brome Lake’s Rues Principales committee, which is working on revitalizing Knowlton and neighbouring villages. “If the town is serious about attracting young families, it has to develop such facilities.”

Joëlle Chartrand, general manager of the Brome Lake Chamber of Commerce, praised the town’s community services department for its “good work,” but said its new playground behind the community centre is in an area that is “a little less accessible and visible.”

“There is a lack of recreational spaces for young families,” said Pierre Marchand, a business owner in Knowlton who plans to run for mayor in the coming Nov. 1 election. “To encourage young families to come, we need spaces like this.”

Marchand said he grew up in Thetford Mines, where the town “didn’t do much for young families. It’s a town that is dying.”

Marchand called Coldbrook Park the “heart of the village,” but he said it is “underused.” He said a citizens’ committee could be formed to consider ways to do more with the park to make it more of a meeting place for families.

“It should be developed so it will naturally encourage people to go there. This will help the merchants.”

Shannon McGovern, a parent and teacher in Knowlton, said families “do have tremendous support in this town. I’m sure if we did some interesting fundraising [for park equipment], people would make donations. I don’t think it would be a huge undertaking.” - A.R.

Frustration Over Knowlton Park Delays

2009-07-14T13:58:00.003-04:00

By Alex Roslin

Brome County News

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Bill Watson’s daughters spent so much time at the old playground in the Knowlton Lion’s Park, it was almost a second backyard. The Watsons went there regularly for family outings and to walk their dog Winston. They celebrated birthdays there.

When Bill or his older daughter came to play soccer in the park, his wife could tag along with their younger girl and hang out by the swings and jungle gym.

The Watsons were heartbroken last year when the playground was dismantled as part of a plan to create a new play area behind the Centre Lac Brome community centre half a kilometre away.

“We were really sad when they dismantled it. I told the kids, ‘Don’t worry, they’re going to put it back,’” Watson said.

They’re still waiting.

A year later, the new playground behind the community centre still features only a lone jungle gym in a large open field dotted with several short saplings and a few scattered picnic tables.

Knowlton’s only public playground for preschoolers has no swings, teeter-totter, climbing apparatus, sitting benches or drinking fountain.

And that has parents like Watson frustrated. “It’s ironic that the town has this family policy, but there’s nowhere for kids to go now,” he said.

Some parents are talking about forming a group to seek better park facilities, raise funds for equipment and ask questions during this fall’s municipal election.

“When my daughter and I go to the new playground, there are hardly ever other children there,” said one of the parents, Shannon Brown.

“Having more games would bring more kids. I would love to see swings, trees that give some shade, a wading pool. Every park has swings.”

Back in March, the Lac Brome Recreation and Community Services department got approval from the town council to spend a $45,000 surplus on playground equipment at the new site. But those plans have been delayed by preparations for summer camp and the opening of Douglass Beach, said Johanne Morin, the department’s executive director.

The facilities are also on hold while the department works out a long-term plan for the entire park. The department has a “very rough” plan for the park for the next five years or so, but specific details need to be worked out, Morin said. “We realize it’s a priority for families.”

Morin would like to use the $45,000 for swings, a climbing apparatus or extra equipment for preschoolers, but she said the amount isn’t enough for all three elements.

And it’s still not clear when any of it would go up. “I’m hoping by the end of the year,” Morin said. She said the old playground was dismantled because most of the equipment was out-of-date.

But with another summer well under way, the slow progress is provoking frustration. “By the time they finish the park, our kids will be too old to use it,” Watson says. “If they weren’t going to do something at the new site, why didn’t they just leave the old equipment there?”

Knowlton dad Chris Pagé hopes to be able to contribute in a small way. This weekend, he and another father, Matt Willey, are organizing a ball hockey tournament at the skating rink, with proceeds going to the community centre for the park.

“There is a lot of potential for the park,” Pagé said. “But my daughter is getting to be the age where she is enjoying the park, and it would be nice to see more facilities there for her.”

Parents interested in working on park issues and family events can email BromeCountyFamilies@hotmail.com.

Tasting the Townships

2009-04-09T13:25:00.021-04:00

Gastronomic Tourism in Quebec's Eastern Townships

BY ALEX ROSLIN

WINE ACCESS

April/May 2009

[Read the original story here]

The man credited with inventing ice cider is taking a leisurely stroll through his grape vines and apple orchard in Quebec's Eastern Townships with a song in his heart and a large Tibetan mastiff named Nanga bounding about nearby.

That's because Christian Barthomeuf is finally creating his dream vineyard here, just outside the charming historic village of Frelighsburg, nestled in the side of Mount Pinnacle, with a stunning view of Vermont's Mount Washington and Cold Hollow Mountain to the south.

It's a quirky project - more like a mission - in which Barthomeuf is going completely green: no pesticides, fertilizers or other chemicals; no tractors or heavy equipment to trample the narrow rows of his grapevines.

Horses pull his Amish-made plow at the Clos Saragnat vineyard, and he carefully dresses each grapevine in a felt coat for the winter. He is even contemplating getting a scythe.

It's all in the pursuit of the noblest, finest, most subtle expression of le terroir - which can be loosely translated as "the taste of the place," or perhaps just "bottled earth." Le terroir, you see, is Barthomeuf's calling. "The vine is a philosophy," he says. "It's not corn."

Barthomeuf's winemaking skills, which in January 2008 earned him the international cider industry's highest award - the annual prize of Spain's Fundación de la Sidra - as well as a commendation from Canada's own House of Commons in April 2008, helped spark a viticultural renaissance in Quebec and have drawn attention to the gastronomic jewels of one of the province's prettiest regions: the Eastern Townships.

This 10,000-square-kilometre area of quaint Loyalist-era villages, horse farms and strawberry patches - just an hour's drive southeast of Montreal - is the kind of place where terroir is in the bones of the locals. The Townships have long cultivated a rich tradition of homestead and artisanal farms that have supplied the prized secret ingredients of many of Montreal's most famous chefs and gourmet kitchens.

Visitors to the Townships are going to the source of a lot of that tasty food and drink. Until recently, many of the most interesting gastronomic attractions here have gotten little outside attention. But that is changing.

In 2003, the Townships inaugurated a 132-kilometre Wine Route that allows visitors to sniff, sip and swirl their way through the region's beautiful landscapes while visiting 11 vineyards. They offer guided visits, tastings and, in some cases, fine dining.

Intersecting with the wine tour is a series of other organized routes, including five "agro-tourism" tours that highlight the Townships' artisanal farmers and Quebec's 4,000-kilometre Green Route, which the National Geographic Society named one of the top 10 bike routes in the world.

A very cool launching pad to explore the Townships and get into the right relaxed zone is the spectacular Missisquoi River Valley. This otherwordly, little-known area sandwiched between the Sutton mountain range and Vermont's Green Mountains is known as Quebec's Little Switzerland.

Townshippers whisper about this magical, quirky valley, which has drawn landscape painters since the 1800s, in reverent tones. "You want to whistle The Sound of Music, its so beautiful here," says local real-estate agent Peter Reindler, who visited from Montreal 30 years ago and never left.

Typical of the offbeat establishments here is the celebrated organic Chapelle Ste. Agnès Vineyard, which Barthomeuf helped set up in 1997. (He still serves as the chapelle's winemaker.) In its first entry in a wine competition in 2006 - London's prestigious International Wine and Spirit Competition - the Ste. Agnès vineyard took silver for its 2002 Gewürztraminer Icewine and bronze for its 2002 Vidal Icewine.

The site also features a striking Roman-esque stone chapel that owner Henrietta Antony had built by European stonemasons in recollection of her native Czech Republic.

Lodging in this neck of the woods is available at the Au Diable Vert Mountain Station, located on the south slope of Mount Sutton, one the area's many ski hills. Said to be one of Quebec's best places to watch the autumn colours, this 200-acre establishment won the 2000 Quebec Tourism Grand Prix for outdoor adventure attractions. It features a breathtaking view of the Appalachians, a fine restaurant, its own organic, milk-fed Highland beef farm, workshops on mushrooms and edible plants, guided snowshoe expeditions and lodging that ranges from prospector tents to luxury suites and winterized treehouses for four, tucked up amid the maples.

From the Missisquoi Valley, it's a five-minute drive to one of the Townships' most celebrated bakeries, Abercorn Boulangerie & Croissanterie. Here, just a breath from the U.S. border, load up on fresh croissants, cookies and breads before heading west 15 kilometres to the Townships' ice cider heartland, around Frelighsburg and Dunham.

This is where Barthomeuf helped pioneer the region's viticulture industry, opening his first vineyard in 1970 and, in 1989, inventing the current process for making apple ice cider, a product that has exploded into an international phenomenon. Today, the product accounts for 70 per cent of sales in the Quebec liquor board's local products section, and sales growth nationwide is outpacing that of wine and beer.

Barthomeuf has had a hand in the success of some of the most renowned local vineyards - including Frelighsburg's Domaine Pinnacle, Dunham's Domaine des Côtes d'Ardoise and La Face Cachée de la Pomme in Hemmingford.

For Barthomeuf, the secret of the cider invention was listening to the terroir. After growing frustrated with Quebec's poor wine-growing conditions, he had a flash: instead of fighting the terroir, why not enlist the omnipresent apples and even the cold weather to his side?

Ice cider uses late-harvest apples picked only after they have frozen on their trees in winter, in a process similar to that for icewine. The result is "a taste of Quebec in a bottle - warm apple pie and cold winter, all in one," says François Pouliot, founder of La Face Cachée de la Pomme.

Now working for himself with his partner, Louise Dupuis, at his 3,500-vine Clos Saragnat winery, Barthomeuf is trying to get as much of that Quebec taste into the bottle as possible.

Hence, his decision to stop using tractors to plow the soil between his grapevines - a growing trend in Europe. The idea is to avoid compacting the soil, which kills beneficial microorganisms and affects the flavour of the final product. It's a little more work, but Barthomeuf says its more fun and relaxing.

"I prefer brushing a horse to changing the oil of a tractor," he says.

In Barthomeuf's Clos Saragnat boutique, he lovingly pours out samples for a tasting - an ice cider, a cider aperitif, an icewine and a straw wine (made from grapes left to dry on straw to concentrate their juice). His hard work with the horses has paid off: the elixirs are divine and complex, each one a pageant of the varied possibilities of the gorgeous land all around.

Where to drink, eat and stay

Drink

CLOS SARAGNAT: Christian Barthomeuf and his partner, Louise Dupuis's ice cider and icewine outfit near Frelighsburg. www.saragnat.com

L'ORPAILLEUR: Award-winning Dunham vineyard offers a full range of wines and fine dining on a lovely terrace, featuring renowned local duck.www.orpailleur.ca

DOMAINE DES CÔTES D'ARDOISE: Dunham's oldest vineyard also offers fine dining. www.cotesdardoise.com

TOWNSHIPS WINE ROUTE: Sip your way through the Townships with this 132-kilometre tour of 11 vineyards. www.laroutedesvins.ca

Eat

LA GIRONDINE: Where does viticultural legend Christian Barthomeuf like to dine out? At Frelighsburg's La Girondine restaurant, where exacting owners Sylvie Campbell and François Desautels serve duck, lamb and rabbit from their own farm. www.lagirondine.ca

CHIAPPUTO ELK FARM: Pick up insanely delicious elk sausages, steaks and pies to prepare yourself for ultimate gastronomic pleasure, or stop in for a bite at the weekend summer barbecues. www.chiapputoelkfarm.com

CABANE À SUCRE DU PIC BOISE: Wine isn't the only thing that benefits from terroir. Traditional Brigham syrup producer André Pollender will blow you away with his refined maple syrups and related products (butter, vinaigrette, pie).www.cabanedupicbois.co

CAFÉ MASSAWIPPI: This charming little fine-dining establishment in the cute village of North Hatley is a must. www.cafemassawippi.com

Stay

AU DIABLE VERT: Lodgings here in the breathtaking Missisquoi Valley range from luxurious mountain-view suite to winterized tree house and rustic prospector tent.www.audiablevert.qc.ca

MANOIR HOVEY: This five-star country inn and restaurant is the only property in Eastern Canada to make the Condé Nast Traveller gold list last year.www.manoirhovey.com

Crude Pipeline Pump Station Okayed in Dunham: Report

2008-11-26T10:40:00.003-05:00

A plan to bring crude oil from Canada to Maine through the Townships has gotten a green light from Quebec's agriculture commission, says this report in the Voix de l'Est. The 67-year-old, 380-kilometre pipeline, built to bring crude to Canada during World War Two by skirting the U-boat-infested waters of the Atlantic, may soon be reworked to pump oil in the other direction, from Montreal to Portland. The pipeline runs three feet below the surfare of the ground.

A pumping station near Dunham was just approved by the agriculture commission. Maine Today has reported on the project in this story. More information is available from the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line company website here.

Dunham Old-Growth Forest Cut Without Permit: Report

2008-11-26T10:29:00.007-05:00

Hundreds of old-growth trees near Dunham have been chopped without a permit, says this Voix de l'Est story. (Also covered in this La Presse story.) Dunham mayor Marcel Poirier is said to have told the Voix de l'Est that the cutting was done without a municipal permit, but he refused to call it a violation of town regulations, describing the forestry activity as a "lack of communication." The company involved is now said to be seeking a permit.

Amazing Recovery After Accident At Dangerous Corner

2008-11-25T12:44:00.008-05:00

Albert Nerenberg, a writer and filmmaker in West Bolton, writes in this moving Montreal Gazette feature about Alexa Tremblay, his friend and researcher, and her remarkable recovery from a coma after a car accident at a dangerous corner where Route 104 (Knowlton Rd.) meets Route 215 (the road from Bromont to Sutton). Albert says Alexa's story shows the brain's amazing power to heal.

Folks, please be super-careful at this intersection, especially as conditions deteriorate in winter. Just a week after Alexa's accident, I came across an older woman being cared for by paramedics after she was hit on her bike by an SUV at exactly the same spot. Friends tell us of lots of other accidents there, too.

Lac Brome Stirs Up Algae

2008-09-05T09:46:00.000-04:00

[From the website of Renaissance Lac Brome]

Que se passe-t-il cette semaine à RLB ?

Nouvelles

Renaissance Lac Brome s'oppose à la permanentisation de 2 tracés de ski nautique

Renaissance Lac Brome a récemment pris position ferme relativement à la permanentisation de 2 tracés de ski sur le lac Brome. Rappelons qu'une demande a été faite par un groupe de plaisanciers pour que 2 ouvrages de tracés de ski soient autorisés sur le lac, l'un au sud du lac, près du marais, l'autre face aux condos Inverness.

Compte tenu des grands efforts qui sont actuellement faits pour la restauration du lac et compte tenu des impacts environnementaux de ce projet, RLB estime qu'il est inapproprié de permettre un tracé de ski dérogeant à la réglementation en vigueur, tracé situé à environ 50 mètres du milieu humide et à moins de 2 mètres de profondeur d'eau.

Il apparaît beaucoup plus cohérent de surseoir pour le moment à ce type de demande et de l'intégrer dans la démarche de préservation du lac et de ses affluents impliquant une réflexion globale sur l'activité nautique au lac Brome.

Dans le même dossier, la Ville, par voie de résolution unanime du Conseil, a déclaré ne pas s'opposer à la demande pour autant que des "balises sévères et rigoureuses soient fixées quant à l'exploitation des tracés de ski concernés". Le comité d'environnement de la Ville s'était préalablement opposé à l'autorisation du tracé de ski à proximité du milieu humide. L'ACA a également émis un avis défavorable.

Rappelons que c'est le gouvernement fédéral qui a juridiction sur la navigation et que la sécurité nautique et le droit public à la navigation constituent ses critères d'évaluation face à ce type de demande. Les questions environnementales ne sont pas de son ressort ce qui risque de créer un malheureux dénouement.

Rappelons finalement que le lac Brome et son bassin versant sont de plus en plus le point de mire du Québec et que les comportements écologiquement responsables de tous les citoyens sont essentiels au succès.

Doing the Bromont Hustle

2008-08-26T12:33:00.004-04:00

While stagnation mars the wellbeing of many small communities, one Quebec town is in the midst of a boom. Some say it's not the best way to spark a revival

By Alex Roslin
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Montreal Gazette
[original story]

Amid the historic Loyalist villages of the Eastern Townships, the fast-growing town of Bromont is the brash young upstart that the old-timers like to complain about. But the complaints are increasingly mixed with grudging respect.

That's because in a region that's experienced a long, grinding economic decline and loss of its young to Montreal, Bromont is a boom town. Nestled in the side of the Appalachian ski hill of the same name, the town of 6,000 is a veritable Quebec boom town.

Founded 45 years ago out of cow pastures and forests by Roland Désourdy, patriarch of the Désourdy construction dynasty, Bromont was conceived as an idyllic village kissed by nature and a high-tech hub that, in Désourdy's words, would be no less than "one of the most prestigious places in the world."

While manufacturers flee other Townships communities due to a soaring loonie, Bromont has expanded employment at its high-tech industrial park to 5,000 and has drawn marquee names like IBM, with 2,800 workers at its 850,000-square-foot plant, General Electric and Quebecor World.

The town's New England-style outdoor mall has attracted over a dozen boutiques and restaurants and is slated to balloon in size, while Ski Bromont is now Canada's biggest night-ski destination and the Bromont Olympic Horse Park is the province's leading equestrian venue.

With a population that's doubled since 1991, Bromont now finds itself with a Montreal-style traffic disaster during rush hour. The newcomers, including many young families, are so plentiful that Bromont, rather than wait for funds from the provincial education ministry, is itself building an expansion annex at the elementary school, which, like the town's new library, will use an environmentally friendly design.

Bromont is, in fact, the only community in the regional school board where the student population is still growing.

The community's success stands in sharp contrast to a growing malaise in much of the rest of the Townships and many other farflung regions of the province. A soaring loonie and slowing global economy have pole-axed many towns reliant on forestry, manufacturing or tourism. Out-migration of young people, already a well-established trend, threatens to turn into an exodus.

Forty-five kilometres east of Bromont along Highway 10, the ski town of Magog has been rocked by manufacturing-plant closings that have cost 2,000 jobs in the past three years.

And now, one of the pillars of the Townships economy, skiing, is being menaced by global warming. The ski season in southern Quebec is expected to fall from four months to two by 2040 because of climate change, two Université de Montréal geographers, Bhawan Singh and Christopher Bryant, reported in a study last February.

Does all this spell doom for the small towns of Quebec? What makes some communities like Bromont thrive, while others wither? Is there some secret other villages can duplicate?

The debate isn't new, but it's taken on a new urgency amid today's economic upheavals. Complicating the question is the fact that small-town residents often have competing visions for their development. In fact, not everyone thinks Bromont's quick growth is a good thing at all. "We don't want to become another Bromont," is a common refrain in much of the Townships.

The question is, how can small towns survive without sacrificing their smallness and distinctive charm? Or should country folk cut their losses and start practicing how to parallel park in the big city?

***

Twenty-five kilometres southeast of Bromont, the hard times hitting the Townships have even hurt the tony enclave of Knowlton. While Bromont's sidewalks and shops are jammed, Knowlton is bedeviled by several vacant storefronts.

Much of the summer, Knowlton's downtown strip of historic buildings and quaint little stores has been nearly as quiet as Deadwood before a gunfight. Wintertime is quieter still.

The decline is all the more remarkable considering Knowlton boasts the region's most expensive real estate - and thus plenty of local shopping power - and is a fixture on tourism brochures.

Yet, Knowlton retailers have been hurting because of the drop-off in American tourism and newly opened box stores in nearby Cowansville. Winter tourism was further smacked down by the closing of the Glen Mountain ski resort in 2004.

"Tourism is a very, very fickle industry," says Natacha Racicot of the local 150-member Chamber of Commerce. "Many years ago, Knowlton was booming. Now it's gone downhill."

The situation is so dire that, last year, Knowlton called in the small-town mayor's version of the paramedics - the Fondation Rues Principales.

This 20-year-old Quebec City-based nonprofit helps hard-luck communities get back on their feet and has worked in 200 towns - and even some big-city neighbourhoods - on revitalization projects, many of them in beleaguered regions like the Gaspé and Abitibi.

Racicot is the co-ordinator of Knowlton's involvement with the project.

The foundation's course of treatment, which typically lasts three years, starts with getting residents talking about the problems and possible solutions. Those can be little things like downtown beautification with flowers, attractive signage, nicer parks and wider sidewalks to more profound changes like diversifying the local economy.

Often, getting everyone talking is the hardest step - and the most important. A common theme in many struggling small towns is internal conflict and a lack of community participation, said Jean-Yves Bernard, the foundation's project coordinator for Knowlton.

"Villages often come when they're in crisis. When we arrive, there's often an impasse. They're tried everything, but it's not working. They say, 'It's just you who can help us,'" he said.

The answer: mobilizing the community to save itself.

The poster child for this approach is Murdochville, a village of 1,000 in the hinterland of the Gaspé. When local copper mining operations shut down in 2002, the community held a referendum in which 65 percent of residents voted to close the town and leave.

But some refused. They called in the Fondation Rues Principales, and Bernard was dispatched to see what he could do. It was like being sent to a war zone. Violence had erupted between the two sides because shutting the town meant residents would be entitled to compensation payments.

"People were crying at our meetings," Bernard said.

His task for the project's first year: just getting the community to put aside the bitterness over its fate and talk. It started with little events-a community barbecue, a Christmas party, a celebration to mark the town's 50th anniversary. The events reminded people about the sense of community they had enjoyed and rekindled hope.

Residents organized a local news bulletin to encourage involvement in village life and refurbished their downtown. Today, Murdochville has transformed itself from beaten-down mining town to greenie mecca, complete with vibrant outdoor tourism activities and one of Canada's most efficient wind-power parks.

"Some [struggling] municipalities will use traditional means to get help, like lobbying governments," Bernard said. "Other take the democratic route and try to mobilize the riches of the population."

That formula also paid off for Burlington, Vt. Its story was typical of many Canadian and U.S. small towns. A new suburban mall was sapping its downtown, where historic buildings had already been blemished by misguided urban-renewed policies of the 1950s and 1960s. Despite a beautiful view of Lake Champlain, Burlington's waterfront was a dilapidated eyesore.

So Vermont's largest city called in the organization that helped inspire Bernard's foundation-the Main Street Program of the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The program, created in the 1970s, has found that for every $1 invested in measures like building façade improvement, marketing, nicer signs and energy conservation, communities get back $25 in economic activity.

In Burlington, the program helped spark a downtown renewal that included a four-block walking mall focused on independent retailers and renovating the waterfront with a park and science centre.

Burlington's efforts won it national recognition, including the Main Street Program's 1997 award for revitalization and, in 2007, being named the "Best Green Place to Live in America" by Country Home Magazine and "One of the Best Places to Retire Young" by CNNMoney.com.

Also last year, Burlington took the top place in a survey of 17 small-town downtowns in southern Quebec and Vermont by the Fondation Rues Principales.

Back in the Townships, Pauline Quinlan, the mayor of Bromont, has had a hectic few months. In May, the town held its annual Fête du Chocolat, followed by national and international horse competitions at the equestrian park, an art festival and a series of Sunday-in-the-park musical and dance performances.

The events are one of the secrets of Bromont's success, said Quinlan. "We want to create life in this village."

Also key has been preserving the town's natural and built heritage. That has meant leaving plenty of big trees to shade the downtown strip and requiring real-estate projects to preserve 40 percent or more of the area as a nature preserve.

And in order to attract telecommuters and the self-employed, the town has expanded high-speed internet access to 90 percent of its households.

In other parts of the Townships, some residents pin revival hopes on an influx of babyboomers. Demographers say boomers are quitting big cities as they approach retirement and moving to the countryside.

"This is a great opportunity for our region," said Peter Stastny, a former economic-development official who now works as a manager of Construction Iron Hill, based in Knowlton.

"Communities that provide boomers with the environment they want will thrive."

Others say it's vital to help young people stay in rural areas and attract new young families. That means offering a vibrant cultural life, work, good schools, environmentally conscious policies and affordable housing.

"There are people who say, 'We don't have a problem. We are a retirement community,'" said Jacques Lecours, a retired urban planner who is president of Knowlton's Rues Principales committee.

"Personally, I think to have a community that is healthy and vibrant, it is essential to have young families and young people."

TAGS: Eastern Townships, Knowlton, Bromont, Magog

LINKS:

Fondation Rues Principales

Main Street Program (of the National Trust for Historic Preservation)

Green Dream Comes True

2008-06-23T11:01:00.003-04:00

LEED Comes to Canada

Townships house is a prototype of environmentally friendly homes of the future

Alex Roslin

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Montreal Gazette

Alexandre Thibodeau takes in the spectacular view of the lush green, mist-shrouded Glen Valley below his mountainside home in the Eastern Townships. A series of Applachian peaks cascade to the south into Vermont.

Thibodeau doesn't know their names. He'll figure that out when life slows down a little for him and his partner, Marie-Eve Cloutier.

They've had two children, Léopol and Mirek, and, when Mirek was just a month old in early 2006, they moved here to the hamlet of West Bolton from Montreal in order to oversee work on their green dream home.

The 2,200-square-foot home nestled among tall maples and birch will include features like straw bail insulation, passive solar heat from a bank of windows, concrete floors to store heat and a custom combo of geothermal piping and an ultra-efficient masonry heater.

After two years, the house is almost ready to be lived in, with the custom-made, super-insulated windows to be installed in coming weeks.

It's been an amazing journey for the first Canadian home to be accepted under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building standard of the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council, the most stringent certification process of its kind in North America.

Thibodeau, who has a bachelor's degree in architecture, designed the house himself to achieve a LEED platinum rating, the council's highest level of certification.

Conceived in 1998 by the Natural Resources Defense Council and ecologically minded building professionals, LEED has quickly become the most widely recognized green-building standard in Canada and the U.S.

Projects get points for reducing energy consumption with solar or geothermal heating and good insulation, lowering water intake and using recycled or sustainably produced building materials that don't emit chemicals like formaldehyde.

It's all part of one of the fast-growing areas of combating climate change -a revolution in the building industry.

The U.S. market for green building jumped from $7 billion in 2005 to $12 billion last year and is projected to rise to $60 billion by 2010, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Over 11,000 projects totaling 330 square kilometres of floor space are LEED-certified or working through the certification process in the U.S.

The stakes for the environment are huge. Putting up and maintaining buildings and homes accounts for 70 per cent of U.S. electricity consumption and 39 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.

In Canada, where LEED was first implemented in 2004, interest has exploded, too. Nine square kilometres of building floor space have been LEED certified in Canada or are working toward that goal.

Municipalities like Vancouver, Calgary, Kingston and Ottawa have pledged to build some of all of their facilities to LEED standards, as have the provincial governments of British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba.

At the Canadian Green Building Council's first national convention last week in Toronto, interest was so great that the exhibitors' floor space had to be expanded three times to accommodate participants, said Nancy Grenier, spokeswoman for the council, which has 1,600 member companies and nearly 5,000 individual members in its eight chapters-mostly architects and other building professionals.

Much of the demand is motivated by the most pragmatic of reasons: building green makes sense financially.

A 2003 study of LEED commercial buildings for the state of California found that while they cost 2 per cent more upfront than conventional construction, the investment begets long-term savings of 12 to 16 times that amount due to lower energy, water and maintenance bills and improved worker productivity and health from better indoor air quality.

¶¶¶

So far, however, LEED has mostly been applied in large commercial, industrial and government buildings.

Thibodeau's project in West Bolton was the first in Canada to be accepted into a new U.S. LEED pilot project for the residential sector, which is intended to spread green building to home construction.

Since Thibodeau signed on in 2006, about 100 other Canadian residential projects have been accepted.

Bowing to the demand, the Canadian Green Building Council, which adapts LEED standards to this country's harsher climate, announced earlier this year it would start work on a unique "LEED Canada for Homes" standard specifically intended for residential construction. It's to be launched in spring 2009.

The council's goal is to use LEED to inspire changes in the broader construction industry and reduce the environmental footprint of 1 million new and existing Canadian homes and 100,000 other buildings by 2015.

In Montreal, Emmanuel Blain-Cosgrove is delighted. "After 10 years of screaming in the dark, it's nice to see the field taking off," he said.

Blain-Cosgrove is the owner of Écohabitation, a Montreal ecological-building consulting firm. He sits on the committee that is designing the made-in-Canada LEED standard.

He also helped pioneer green residential building in Canada with his renovation of a Mile End house to U.S. LEED standards in 2006.

He got the idea from Thibodeau. Blain-Cosgrove, who comes from a family of carpenters and building professionals, was already renovating the house using an environmentally-friendly design.

Thibodeau heard about the project and called Blain-Cosgrove up, saying he had just managed to convince the U.S. Green Building Council to accept his West Bolton house in into LEED.

At first, the U.S. council had hesitated about taking in a Canadian house because it felt the Canadian Green Building Council should certify projects in this country. At the time, however, the nascent Canadian body had its hands full just trying to get LEED going in the industrial and commercial sectors.

Thibodeau persisted and won the U.S. council over, opening the door for other Canadians.

"(Thibodeau) is the original one to put the pieces together in Canada," said Blain-Cosgrove.

In April, Blain-Cosgrove was chosen as Quebec's first LEED-certification inspector for residential projects by the U.S. Green Building Council. Builders here will no longer have to pay for an inspector to come from Vermont to certify that a project complies with LEED standards.

¶¶¶

Back in West Bolton, Thibodeau has fired up his high-performance brick masonry heater to take the edge off a cool rainy day in early June. The heater burns wood that he plans to harvest from his five-acre lot in order-another way to reduce the home's reliance on outside energy.

The heat will radiate through the house from a stylish round two-storey brick-and-lime chimney that Thibodeau and Cloutier have just finished building.

It's part of an innovative system of energy efficiency that Thibodeau estimated will reduce the house's heating bill by 70 percent and eliminate the need for air conditioning.

Also involved is an adapted geothermal air-exchange system-70 metres of pipes embedded in the ground behind the house that will draw in warm air during winter and cool air in summer. Heat during the winter will also come from a solar-heated wall-a black-painted steel siding on the roof that the sun will warm to as much as 74 degrees Celsius.

An automated control system will control the house's temperature by tapping into the various heating and cooling systems through an elaborate system of ducts, fans and shutters.

"This house is supposed to be able to take care of itself," Thibodeau said. "I always dreamed when I had a family that we'd live in a home that was a little crazy."

Thibodeau's heating system has attracted the interest of Hydro-Quebec, which will consider funding a study of how it performs under its technical innovation program.

Also bringing down the heating bill is a ridiculous amount of insulation. The roof will achieve an R60 insulation rating (R30 is the industry standard for new homes in Quebec), while straw bails in the walls will insulate them to R30 (R15 is the standard).

The house will also use dramatically less water because rainwater will be collected in underground cisterns for washing clothes and watering the four-terrace, 820-square-foot garden on the house's "green roof."

Some of the features were challenges because so few homes have been built according to LEED standards, especially in Canada. One was getting an environmentally friendly source of lumber for the houseframe.

Thibodeau spent weeks contacting suppliers to try to find lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as having been harvested in a sustainable manner. No luck. The companies with FSC-certified woodlots were using it for paper products, not lumber.

The one Quebec company able to provide FSC-stamped lumber ordinarily sold its entire supply in Germany and didn't have any in stock, so the wait would have been three months.

In the end, he found a farmer in the Townships who harvested the needed trees from his woodlot in a sustainable way.

Thibodeau hopes LEED's spread will help spark a market for suppliers of green-friendly wood and other construction material.

"The first contractor to call up and ask for FSC wood is going to pay top dollar. But if large developers begin ordering it in quantity, lumber companies are going to start fighting for that market."

Ultimately, he hopes small projects like his will help convince the mass real-estate market to embrace environmentally-friendly design. "Building yourself is difficult. We're not the typical project."

Blain-Cosgrove agreed. "The whole purpose (of LEED) is market transformation. Certification is not the end. That's just a means to greening the industry."

Yet, he said homebuilding and renovation aren't likely to change very quickly without much larger government incentives for going greening. Research shows such incentives are among the most efficient uses of government subsidies to cut overall greenhouse-gas emissions, he said.

"Where we live changes how we live," Thibodeau said. "If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be in architecture."

SIDEBAR: What Makes a House Green

- Hot heat: Heating bills will be cut an estimated 70 percent by a combination of a high-performance brick masonry heater, passive solar heating from a huge bank of south-facing windows, a geothermal air-exchange system and a solar-heated wall on the roof. The geothermal system will also bring in cooler air in summer, eliminating the need for air conditioning.

- Smart controls: The futuristic house has an automated control system to regulate interior temperature by tapping into the various heating and cooling systems through an elaborate system of ducts, fans and shutters.

- Insane insulation: Piles of insulation will give the roof an R60 insulation rating (R30 is the industry standard for new homes in Quebec), while straw bail walls will achieve R30 (R15 is the standard).

- Green wood: Wood for the houseframe comes from a sustainably cut, local woodlot.

- Non-polluting materials: Interior materials were chosen that don’t emit toxic chemicals like formaldehyde.

- Water: Rainwater will be collected in underground cisterns for washing clothes and watering the four-terrace, 820-square-foot garden on the house’s “green roof.”

For more information:

- Alexandre and Marie-Eve's website

[TAGS: Eastern Townships]

Knowlton Declares War on Yard Sales

2008-05-12T10:11:00.002-04:00

Staple of summer in the Eastern Townships threatened by new bylaw restricting garage sales that aims to keep community from looking “junky”

Alex Roslin
Sunday, May 11, 2008
The Montreal Gazette

As the mercury soars and hockey season draws nearer to an end, Canadians are getting ready for that other great national pastime: the garage sale.

Perhaps nowhere has that tradition been stronger than the Eastern Townships village of Knowlton, a favourite destination of antiquing tourists hoping for that rare find because of the many old farms and sprawling estates.

But now, residents say the tradition is threatened by a new town bylaw restricting the sales in an effort to keep the community from looking “junky,” in the words of Richard Wisdom, the mayor of Lac Brome, the amalgamated municipality that encompasses Knowlton.

The bylaw has sharply divided this ordinarily tranquil, mostly rural municipality of 6,000, where country friendliness has suddenly been replaced by bitter recriminations.

The debate, for some, highlights a rich-poor divide in this tony enclave that used to be the weekend retreat of Montreal’s blue-blooded anglo elite but now has a more diverse population and is struggling to revive its flagging economic base and attract young families and new businesses.

The dispute started in January when the town announced it would adopt a bylaw limiting yard sales to two weekends each year—in May and September—with a permit required to put on a sale and hefty fines for scofflaws.

Wisdom said the bylaw was motivated by “numerous” complaints from a “silent majority” of residents and that the town was merely mimicking other Townships communities like Magog and Bromont that have restricted yard sales, too.

“We’ve got to clean up,” he said.

“We want Knowlton to be a nice place where people can walk around without poles being littered with crap.”

He said some residents had sales every weekend and were essentially operating unofficial flea markets, while failing to remove signs from community hydro poles.

“The town would be peppered (with posters). Sometimes, there would be three on a post,” he said.

“We were getting criticism of how junky the town was looking.”

While many residents agree the posters were getting out of hand, the proposed bylaw provoked an angry response in an area where yard sales are a popular seasonal ritual—a time to drop in on neighbours, bump into friends and renew community bonds after a long winter.

The tradition is so engrained some aficionados get together to visit several sales as a group, plotting optimal routes to maximize browsing time.

Even the colourful signs for the sales have a quirky tradition of their own, often adorned with glitter and balloons.

“Yawd Friggin’ Sale Knowlton,” reads a poster for one sale in a photo published on the DestinationKnowlton.com website.

June Call, a lifelong Knowlton resident and health-care giver at a local seniors’ home, said the sales help poorer people pick up items they need and that the town could have responded with fines for errant posterers, instead of restricting everyone.

“It just made me think this isn’t right; it’s not fair,” she said.

“The whole community is super-angry about this,” said Sonia Fréchette, who moved to Knowlton four years ago to open the Brocante Casa antique store.

“I never heard a complaint. To the contrary, it seems to be part of the culture,” she said.

“My first reaction was: ‘What the #%^&!’” resident David Milligan wrote in a post on his DestinationKnowlton.com website.

While Milligan agreed some yard sales are “downright creepy” and offer only “the most questionable of junk,” he called the bylaw “draconian.”

“With tourism hitting all time lows in Lac Brome, how could someone have thought it would be a good idea to make a great Canadian cultural event practically illegal?” he asked in his post.

“Are they trying to launch a death-blow to Lac Brome?... Knowlton is more than just wealthy estate owners in a land of gated domains after all!”

The yard sale clamp-down prompted dozens of angry residents to attend a town council meeting in March. Before they could voice their opinions, Wisdom announced the town had backed down and would revise the bylaw.

“We have listened to you,” he said, promising to propose a new bylaw at the next council meeting in May.

What happened next stoked even more controversy. In April, the town put up notices saying it would adopt a revised version of the bylaw at a special meeting the following day.

Bylaw opponents scrambled to mobilize residents to attend the meeting, and about 30 showed up, already suspicious because of the short notice. A shouting match erupted when details of the new bylaw were announced.

The new rules would allow yard sales on five specific weekends between May and September. If it rains, residents would have to wait until the next designated weekend.

They would also be allowed to put up a single poster on their property and up to two others on neighbours’ properties, if they have permission.

Violators of the bylaw would face fines of $300 to $1,000. The new bylaw was adopted by the town council despite protests from residents, who said the restrictions were still too onerous and made it difficult for those living on isolated roads to attract customers.

“We were furious,” said Michele Brunt-Martel, a local daycare owner who has lived in Knowlton five years.

“People were yelling ‘dictator’ and ‘referendum.’ There was shouting, but there was reason for it.”

Brunt-Martel said she had wanted to hold a yard sale this summer to earn some needed pocket money and get rid of a few unwanted things.

But she said the restriction on postering means she’s unlikely to get much traffic on her isolated street, where she typically sees half a dozen cars pass in an entire day.

June Call is in the same position, living on a road with few passers-by. She said she rarely has garage sales herself, but doesn’t want to lose the ability to have one. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

Other critics said the bylaw will hurt tourism in a community already struggling with a decline in visitors after the recent construction of large box stores in nearby Bromont and Cowansville drew traffic from Knowlton’s smaller boutiques.

The town is studying how to revitalize its downtown, which is marred by several shuttered storefronts.

Fréchette, the antique store coowner, said the bylaw won’t help. “It will reduce tourism. Tourists like the sales. Knowlton is renowned for that,” she said.

She said the town would do better to focus on revitalizing. “Empty businesses dissuade tourists more than garage sales do.”

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

2008-05-12T10:03:00.004-04:00

Tasting maple syrup is all in a day’s work for sensory analyst working on grading system

Alex Roslin
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Montreal Gazette

Jacinthe Fortin has a dream job for anyone with a sweet tooth—tasting maple syrups. She is a sensory analyst at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Food Research Centre in St-Hyacinthe, and she has smacked her lips on lots of syrup in order to study differences in their flavours.

Her conclusion: syrups have almost as much variety of tastes as wine. “It’s almost scandalous to sell syrup in a can. It has notes that resemble cognac or scotch. There are almost as many different subtleties and interesting notes as wine,” she said.

Now, Fortin’s cavity-inducing research is helping pave the way for a major North American-wide reform of the grading system for maple syrup.

The current grades, in place for decades, are based on the colour of the syrup, with the lightest, most uniform product considered the best. Some producers say that system doesn’t reflect the full variety of syrups and reduces the incentive to create more flavourful, premium varieties.

The revision effort could include a wide range of new syrup classifications based on flavour and artisanal production methods, like the old-fashioned approach of evaporating sap under a wood fire.

“When someone uses a very artisanal approach, the taste is certainly more refined,” said Bernard Perreault, marketing director at the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers’ Federation.

The new classifications will likely draw on a Maple Syrup Flavour Wheel that Fortin helped develop, which identifies 13 “flavour families” for syrups like vanilla, floral and fruity, plus 91 sub-categories, including firewood, roasted dandelion root, marshmallow, butter and honey.

Consumer taste-tasting to identify the best new flavour categories is expected to start this fall, with new classifications possibly ready by next year, said Perreault.

The reform is also aimed at creating a single grading system for Canada and the U.S. At present, different classifications are in place in Quebec, the rest of Canada and various U.S. states.

The reforms are being spearheaded by the Syrup Research, Development and Technology Transfer Centre, which is affiliated with the provincial agriculture and natural-resources ministries.

TAGS: Eastern Townships, maple syrup, sugar shack

Sap Season Not So Sweet

2008-05-12T09:59:00.005-04:00

Maple Syrup
Harvest in Quebec this spring is suffering from weather extremes

Alex Roslin
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Montreal Gazette

The sunny days of spring might be a happy time for most Quebecers, but André Pollander is glum.

The weather has changed too fast from winter cold to spring warm, and Pollander’s sugar bush in the Eastern Townships has just about given up the ghost for the season.

Pollander’s 500 maple trees on his 20-acre farm have produced just one-third of their usual production this year before the sap has stopped flowing.

The cupboards are nearly bare of syrup in the boutique of his log-cabin-style Cabane à Sucre Pic Bois, nestled in the forest in Brigham. The harvest is so poor he won’t have a single jug to sell to retail customers after he sets aside what he needs for his restaurant and family.

The story is the same across most of Quebec, which produces 76 percent of the world’s maple syrup.

Spring temperatures must hover around freezing for a few weeks for the sap to run best, ideally alternating between 6 degrees Celsius during the day and -6 degrees at night.

The period when that happened this year was cut short by an extra-long winter and the quick rise of the mercury in April. Quebec’s 7,500 producers were also hurt by a massive winter snowfall that left some areas inaccessible, while ice storms froze the ground and tree roots, reducing sap flow.

Dianne Rhicard, coowner of the Owl Hoot Maple Farm in Stanbridge East, said production at her operation was only 470 gallons of syrup this year, instead of the usual 600.

It’s the same sour story at the Gaby-Pierre Maple Farm in Sutton, where coowner Gabrielle Tanguay said the harvest is 30 percent below the usual 1,500 gallons.

After an equally miserable harvest in 2007—one of the worst in 40 years—Pollander has a radical solution he thinks could help solve the industry’s misfortunes: recognizing hand-made, old-fashioned syrups like his own as a special brand.

He advocates a new industry-accepted “hand-made” or “produit du terroir” label to meet a fast-growing demand for premium maple syrup and related products like maple butter and pie.

Pollander said his own sales of such products have grown 20 to 25 percent annually for the past eight years, and such labeling would encourage many other small maple farmers now producing for personal consumption to sell their wares on the market and make up the supply shortfall.

Go to most large maple syrup farms across the province, and you’ll see long plastic tubes crisscrossing the forest to collect sap from thousands of maple trees. The sap is filtered and distilled by high-tech devices like reverse osmosis membranes and microfilters in order to boost the sugar content from two or three percent at the outset to 67 percent in final syrup form.

Mostly gone are the days when maple farmers would lug pails full of sap and stoke wood fires to evaporate it.

But some hardy souls stick to the old, labour-intensive method, and they say it pays off dramatically in taste.

“People who have never tried it say, ‘Wow, wow. What about that!’” Pollander said.

Indeed, his product has a light body with hints of flowers and almonds, while a store-bought brand is distinctly thicker and has a sharp, smoky taste. “The real maple flavour has been lost,” he said of syrups produced by the modern method.

Pollander is a fifth-generation maple farmer whose great-great-grandfather settled in the Eastern Townships in 1813. His sugar shack was named second-best in the province in a La Presse review.

He said maple syrups can come in as many different flavours as wine, influenced by region, climate, rainfall, soil conditions, type of maple tree, even the direction the tree is facing. Pollander thinks producers can benefit by promoting those differences.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Quebec’s agriculture ministry agree. They sponsored a study of syrup flavours by “sensory evaluation experts” and came out with a Flavour Wheel for Maple Products. It identifies 13 “flavour families” like vanilla, floral and fruity, plus 91 sub-categories, including firewood, roasted dandelion root, marshmallow, butter and honey.

The wheel also offers tasting tips akin to those for wine aficionados: “First, smell the syrup by taking three quick sniffs.” It advises a “small sip,” swirling the syrup in the mouth and concentrating for “about a minute” on the full range of flavours.

“It’s very similar to wine,” said Roger de Winter, an organic maple farmer in Sutton. “(The flavour variety) is just incredible.”

Pollander said today’s mass-production method depletes syrup of much of its flavour. Reverse osmosis, for example, is used in order to save energy costs by drawing out water before distillation is completed in oil-fired evaporators.

Some producers believe the process affects the flavour. “Osmosis removes the taste. The product doesn’t taste like anything,” Pollander said.

De Winter, who uses osmosis himself, agreed it “probably changes the flavour” if used too much on a batch of sap. “But with the cost of energy, I don’t think people have much choice if they are a large operation.”

Also affecting the flavour, Pollander said, is the widespread use of tubes to bring sap from trees—another labour-saving technique. He said the tubes are difficult to clean, and residue from past seasons and soap sometimes remains.

Pollander acknowledges his idea of premium labels is likely to be a tough sell to the handful of large producers that supply most of the Quebec’s swelling export market—worth $217 million last year. They buy and blend syrup from dozens of smaller farms and aren’t likely to be interested in a more complex classification system, he said.

At present, syrup in Quebec is graded only by its colour—with the clearest “extra-light” syrup qualifying as highest grade and commanding the top price.

The lightest syrup is generally produced early in the spring when sugar content in the sap is highest, which means it doesn’t need to be boiled as much to bring the ratio up to the required 67 percent.

Sap tapped later in the season can have 50 percent less sugar, which means extra boiling is needed. That, in turn, tends to leave the syrup darker and more caramelized, Pollander said.

Yet, he said many new customers prefer the lower-grade, darker variety because it has a more pronounced flavour, but he explains that taste is actually caramelized sugar, not maple. “They don’t know what they’re tasting,” he said.

Will Pollander’s idea catch on? De Winter said industry recognition of old-fashioned production techniques would be “very difficult to manage,” but he agreed the present system is flawed.

“That’s what mass production is. It lowers the cost but at the expense of quality.”

[TAGS: Maple syrup, Eastern Townships, André Pollander, cabane à sucre]

Magog’s World Crumbles

2008-05-12T09:54:00.001-04:00

Bitterness and recrimination follow when Quebecor World closes down the town’s most important job provider

Alex Roslin
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Montreal Gazette

Pierre Goulet had a feeling something was up when he went to work at the Quebecor World printing plant in Magog on Monday, March 31.

He never imagined the bright chilly spring day was his last working at the plant where he had been hired 27 years before as a lift operator at age 16—the first and only job he had ever had.

Instead, what he expected was the beginning of bargaining season on a proposal a new union contract. The existing contract was set to expire in June, and Goulet, the husky 43-year-old president of the plant’s union, was the man who had to negotiate a new one on behalf of the plant’s 380 employees.

To say things were up in the air was an understatement. Quebecor World had filed for bankruptcy in the midst of a financing crunch, the slowing U.S. economy and a soaring loonie.

What’s more, the company had just lost a big contract with Rogers Communications Inc. involving 70 titles like Chatelaine and Maclean’s.

The math was simple, and Goulet was under no illusions. “There is less product to print, and we had too many printing presses. We know that,” he said over a beer in a café in the community of 24,000, which sits on the shore of picturesque Lac Memphrémagog at the foot of the Mont Orford ski hill.

Just the same, Goulet was hopeful the contract talks would go well. The lost printing jobs weren’t handled at Magog, and the last two contracts in 2001 and 2006 had been negotiated amicably, he said.

In fact, the Magog plant was anything but a hotbed of union-management strife. It was widely known in the community that labour relations at the plant were excellent. The union rarely filed official grievances, and everyone seemed to get along like family.

In many cases, family is exactly what they were. Goulet’s wife worked at the plant 25 years as a press feeder. His two brothers had gotten jobs there after being laid off at other plants in the region that had closed in recent years—part of a wave of 2,000 manufacturing job losses to hit the community of 24,000 in the past three years.

A dozen other members of Goulet’s extended family also worked there. “Almost everyone was the same. It was a family at Quebecor World Magog.”

Many employees had been at the plant since the beginning in 1971, when Quebecor Inc.’s founder, the late Pierre Péladeau, built the ultramodern Magog facility, enabling his then-fledging firm to land its first U.S. magazine printing contracts and helping to launch the company as a media conglomerate.

With good salaries by standards in the region—averaging $17 to $18 an hour—Goulet said, “It was the job in Magog. We would tell people, ‘Hey, I work at Quebecor.’”

That Monday morning at the plant, Goulet sensed something was wrong right away. The normally cordial managers seemed to be avoiding him.

Finally, he was invited into a room where senior Quebecor World executives told him the plant was closing. “When?” he asked. “Immediately. We’re in the middle of stopping the equipment.”

Goulet headed to the cafeteria, where the rest of the employees had been gathered and told the news. Some came up to him later and wept, he said. “It was a very painful day to see people 50, 55 years old come to your office and cry.”

The news hit Magog like an avalanche. “They had good salaries,” said Yvan Morin, a Magog electrician whose father used to work for the plant as a subcontractor.

“People are talking about it a lot, especially with what’s happened lately with the other closings. It just doesn’t end.”

Luc Lepage, a vice-president at the Magog Ford dealership, said one of his employees has two kids who lost their jobs at the plant and 30 to 40 of his clients worked there. “It’s hard for them to stay in the region and find a similar job,” he said.

“It affects us much more than the closing of a tourist operation, where there are a lot of minimum-wage jobs. We need something else to support the economy or we will transform slowly into a town only for retirees, which is already what’s happening.”

At a Subway restaurant neighbouring the plant, where many employees were regulars, employee Jonathan Leclerc said only a handful have popped in since the closing. “I know some people are disappointed and others are angry because the company didn’t give any notice. People learned about it that morning,” he said.

The next day, Magog Mayor Marc Poulin held an emotional press conference at which he said he was “extremely frustrated” with the company. He said the Memphrémagog regional development centre, of which he is president, had tried unsuccessfully to meet Quebecor prior to the closing in order to discuss ways to help the plant financially. He said the offer had been rebuffed.

“Pierre Péladeau, who believed in Magog, today must be turning in his grave and crying,” he said.

“The first reaction was a feeling of desolation and eventually frustration toward the company,” said Denis Roy, a retired RCMP officer who is interim president of the 400-member Magog-Orford Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“They didn’t respond to the community.”

Two days after the mayor’s press conference came a sharp retort from Pierre Karl Péladeau, the son of the Quebecor patriarch and currently president of Quebecor Inc.

In an open letter to the mayor published in the Sherbrooke Tribune newspaper, “I was surprised to read and hear your comments,” he wrote. “Your references to my father are in bad taste.”

Péladeau went on to blame the closing on the plant’s union. The company had approached it in 2004 and 2005 in order to renegotiate the union contract. In exchange for upgrading an older printing press, he wrote that the company had wanted to cut the number of operators at the plant’s four printing presses.

“The union didn’t want to hear about it. Faced with this refusal, the managers of the company decided to make the investment elsewhere where it would be profitable,” he said.

“You would have rendered a much greater service to your community if you had used the prestige and influence of your office to denounce the organizations that render it impossible to make the investments essential to the survival of our businesses.”

Péladeau also said it wasn’t true that the company had ignored the community, noting that the plant’s director, Patrice Asselin, had indeed met the head of the regional development centre, Ghislain Goulet, to discuss the community’s suggestions.

Péladeau’s missive set off another bomb in the region. Ghislain Goulet (no relation to the union boss) retorted that the company didn’t respond to any of the community’s proposals.

“They didn’t look at solutions before closing the plant. The plant hadn’t seen much investment in years. We were open to discussing technological assistance, tax credits, acquiring the building and renting it back to Quebecor World,” he said.

“Both sides—management and the union—told us labour relations were very good. That’s why we were so surprised by Mr. Péladeau’s letter.”

Back at the union, Pierre Goulet said he was devastated. He said the company hadn’t needed the union’s permission for the proposed layoffs.

As well, he said other Quebecor plants that had attempted to reduce the number of operators on the printing presses had found themselves with manpower shortages.

“Because they couldn’t lay off a few people, they laid off nearly 380?” Goulet asked in disbelief. “They needed an excuse.”

What also irked Goulet was media coverage suggesting the Magog plant had been inefficient and aging.

In fact, he said, only one of the plant’s four presses needed an upgrade, while low employee turnover over three decades had honed a skilled workforce. Many employees had been proud to share their knowledge within the company, he said, with 20 percent joining various workplace committees devoted to improving operations.

“The company’s most productive plant in Quebec is Magog, even with our older equipment,” he said.

“If they had said it was the economic situation, that would have been fine. But what makes people in Magog feel bad was to hear we were unproductive and obsolete. If they are bankrupt, it’s not because of the workers. The management is responsible for keeping the company afloat, and they didn’t have the vision.”

Quebecor World spokesman Tony Ross refused to comment on the Magog plant’s productivity level, saying only that the closing wasn’t related to productivity or any lost printing contracts. “It was part of a retooling and restructuring program that was started three years ago.”

He also praised the plant’s employees. “It was a very good workforce at the Magog facility. If there are openings at other Quebecor World facilities, we will consider hiring them.”

Ross wouldn’t say whether other plants will be closed as part of the restructuring, but noted the process will be completed this year.

After Péladeau’s letter, Goulet called an assembly of the plant’s union members. Now, he didn’t know if the close-knit town would pin the closing on him. “I have to see them every time I go outside in Magog,” he said. “My whole family lost their jobs. That’s a lot of pressure.

Nervous, he arrived at the community hall two hours early in order to prepare his speech. “I wanted them to be proud of what they had done, so they could walk with their heads high.” He said the meeting went well. “Working for these people was my honour.”

Meanwhile, the Quebec government has responded with a $1-million fund to help the local economy.

But days later, there was more bad news for the community when reports suggested CSBS, a 100-employee bed linen manufacturer in Magog that is also under bankruptcy protection, was now unlikely to reopen.

Goulet said he is optimistic employees have the skills to find new jobs. But most will have to leave Magog to find decent salaries, he said.

Goulet, who has been appointed to a local “revival” committee exploring ways to revive the region’s economy, is himself thinking of moving to Montreal with his wife and three kids to find work.

“I don’t know what will happen with the village of Magog.”

[TAGS: Magog, Quebecor, Eastern Townships, Pierre Péladeau]

Green Dream Home

2008-05-01T12:27:00.003-04:00

CHECKERSPOT
Spring/Summer 2008
[original story]

Photo: Marie-Eve Cloutier

shelter

MONTREALERS Alexandre Thibodeau and Marie-Ève Cloutier never imagined the yo-yo ride their life would become when they set out in 2006 to build their environmentally friendly dream home on a mountainside in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.

They had fallen in love with the site’s breathtaking view of the Appalachians and optimistically figured construction would take six months, and then they would move into the house with their children, twoyear- old Léopol and newborn Mirek. But countless unforeseen challenges brought delays and budget overruns.

Thibodeau, who has a bachelor’s degree in architecture, designed the house to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the most stringent green-building standard in North America — applied so far mostly to large commercial and industrial buildings. His was the first house in Canada to be part of a LEED residential pilot program.

The first hurdle was building an access road up the steep mountain to the two-hectare site. Cost: $12,000, nearly double the contractor’s quote.

Finding “green” wood for the house frame also proved tougher than the couple thought: Thibodeau spent six weeks researching sources before he chanced on a local farmer who cuts trees in a sustainable way. Then, there was the problem of getting the large timbers up that mountain. Thibodeau’s solution: an elaborate set of pullies and cables hung from trees.

The 2,200-square-foot house, complete with creative touches like a two-storey kids’ bedroom and four rooftop garden terraces, will be heated with customized geothermal piping and an ultra-efficient masonry heater, fed with wood from their own lot. It will also feature straw-bale insulation, passive solar heat from a wall of south-facing windows, concrete floors to trap heat, and virtually no interior walls blocking heat flows.

As of January 2008, the young family had been staying with friends for nearly two years, but Thibodeau says they are finally close to moving in. Then, the inside finishing work will last another year. “It’s taken everything we have to get this far,” he says. “It’s taken all our capital — moral and financial.”

Despite their troubles, Thibodeau and Cloutier’s eyes light up during a tour of their green dreamhome-to-be. “Where we live changes how we live,” says Thibodeau. “I wanted to have an impact on the environment. It’s close to my heart.”

Looking for something 'awesome'?; Townships blog's a good start

2008-04-02T12:45:00.002-04:00

Friday, March 7, 2008
By Claire Biddiscombe
Sherbrooke Record

When Alex Roslin first moved to the Townships with his wife and two young daughters last June, he wanted to find the local treasures that the area has to offer. As many people would do, the former resident of Montreal, who now calls Knowlton home, turned to the Internet.

What he found was not quite what he had hoped for.

"It was almost like the Yellow Pages," Roslin said, citing lack of description as the biggest problem with the directories he found.

Roslin, a freelance writer, and wife Rhonda, a translator and copywriter, first toyed with the idea of creating a biannual directory of places in the Townships that were off the beaten track, but scrapped the idea for logistical reasons. They settled instead on a blog, as a medium that could be easily updated, easily found by others and allowed for readers to participate in building the site.

Now, Roslin regularly gets emails from locals who send suggestions and photos of places to add to his listings. He admits though that his site is very much a work in progress.

"We've scratched the surface of finding stuff just around the corner from here," he said, adding that the site lists a "disproportionate" number of businesses from the Knowlton end of the Townships.

"It's just an example of some of the places that stick out for me," he said.

Many of the places listed on "Best of the Eastern Townships," Roslin has visited himself, and has rated as "Very Good," or even "Awesome!"

Among his recent favourites are an Eastern European grocery store in Mansonville that he described as "better than anything in Montreal," and Amis de la Terre du Voisinage de Waterloo, a service that allows buyers to pick and choose from among hundreds of local farm-fresh products.

"People from Montreal who want really good food -- not gourmet, but good, fresh food -- where do they go? They go to the Townships," Roslin said.

He and his family initially chose the Townships not for the food, however, but to mirror the feeling of their former neighbourhood in Montreal. As much as they loved the city, they needed a larger home for their family to grow.

"Where we lived, it was pretty much like Sesame Street," he said. "We really wanted to find somewhere like that, but a community."

After looking in the Sutton area, they found their current home on the outskirts of Knowlton, which Roslin describes as a "slice of paradise."

Being away from the centre of everything in the big city has not affected his ability to work, Roslin said. He still writes for the publications that he worked with before the move, and added that he can now bring them new story ideas, based on happenings in the Townships.

"It's a great place for a writer to be," he said.

Roslin's blog can be found online at www.bestoftheeasterntown ships.blogspot.com.

Illustration:
• Photo: Alex Roslin is looking for cool spots from readers, so he can then share their great finds.

[TAGS: Eastern Townships, Knowlton, Sutton]

Moving to the Country

2008-03-31T21:40:00.004-04:00

Had enough of the big city? Head for the hills!

By Alex Roslin
Good Times
April 2008

Harry Yates calls himself a city boy “from top to bottom.” Born to the crammed streets of Glasgow, he has lived in some of the world’s major metropolises—London, Paris, Munich, Bangkok—and worked as an ad writer in the pressure cooker of New York’s Madison Avenue.

The last thing this self-described “nature hater” ever thought he’d do was give it all up at age 68 and move to a drowsy village of barely 5,000 souls tucked away amid the cow pies, braying horses and dirt backroads of Quebec’s Eastern Townships. But after years of gentle cajoling from his wife, Monique, a Quebecer born in the province’s northerly Abitibi region, he agreed to move to the country. Monique’s goal, he says, was “creating a field of memory that will forever sustain our children and grandchildren with an abiding sense of place.” It sounded charming, but Yates was dubious.

Yet, after finding a beauty of a house (Yates describes it as “walking into a hug”) on a wooded 4.5-hectare (11-acre) lot near picturesque Lake Brome and the charming historic village of Knowlton, he quickly warm to life as a country squire.

The first thing he did after the movers left was head to a local pub, where he met a plasma physicist, a wild boar farmer, an airline pilot, a maple syrup mogul, a fashion model, and numerous locals, all “swapping fascinating yarns about the right way to install septic tanks,” he writes in a book he wrote about his experiences, Knowlton Chronicles: How My Wife Made Me Move to the Country Even Though I Hate Nature.

The book, which came out last fall, is a look at “the good and the bad, the sour and the sublime,” as he puts it, of moving to the “sticks,” written for the cavalcade of babyboomers and retired Canadians contemplating the same journey.

It’s a Trend

Yates is part of a country-wide renaissance of back-to-the-landers who are transforming rural Canada. They’re 50 years and up, and they’ve had it with the bad air, noise, and traffic of the big city. “As boomers age, they’re going to be moving out of the suburbs to places like this—Knowlton—or to the city core,” Yates says, as we sit in a village café overlooking a pretty pond where the occasional heron or duck alights.

The new back-to-the-landers aren’t the long-haired twentysomething hippies of the ‘60s. Many have grandkids and want to host them in a bucolic setting with lots of space and nature’s beauty all around. Others are still working but are tired of the go-go city pace; these folks are able to work at home or willing to put up with a longer commute. Some fortunate ones maintain two homes, living in the country most of the week but heading back into the city when they need some adventure.

Demographers are just starting to tweak to the trend. New research shows the back-to-the-land trend is actually repopulating some rural areas. According to a Statistics Canada study of urban-rural migration released last April, Canada’s three largest cities—Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver—lost almost 10 per cent of their population to interregional migration between 1996 and 2001, while rural areas within commuting distance of those centres gained 35 per cent.

Baby boomers make up the single biggest group of newcomers to the country, second only to 30-year-olds with small kids in tow. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver lost about 30,000 people aged 55 to 64 from 1996 to 2001, while rural zones gained the same number. And as the Canadian population ages, a huge number of boomers are racing off to the country. Already, the highest ratio of retirement-age people can be found in a rural belt just outside the regular commuting range of the big cities. In this zone, 15 per cent of residents are 65 years old and up, compared to 11 per cent in the big three cities, Statistics Canada says.

“People are leaving to go beyond the cities before retirement,” says Jean-François Lachance, a demographer at the Quebec government’s statistics institute. “We hadn’t noticed this trend before.”

Lachance and his colleagues are studying the exodus with the help of newly available data on address changes in Quebec health-insurance records. The found large Quebec cities had a net loss of 2.1 per cent of their residents aged 54 to 56 due to migration to other areas between 1995 and 2005, while rural areas and small villages gained 7.4 per cent.

On the Move

The same thing is happening across the country. On the picturesque Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, boomers are pouring into Powell River, a 20,000-resident timber-and-fishing outpost that’s a five-hour car-and-ferry trip north of Vancouver, says Vicky Needham, a local real-estate agent.

Over 60 percent of Needham’s clients are out-of-towners, and almost all are in their 50s and 60s. “It’s huge,” she says. “They’re just tired of the big city life. They want a more relaxed lifestyle.” Most aren’t yet retired and are either able to work at home or locally as teachers, police officers or other professional jobs. Some keep a pied-à-terre in Vancouver and commute by plane—a 20-minute flight, which, Needham says, “costs less than what it does to park for a week in Vancouver.”

Another reason for making the move: galloping city house prices. “Prices here are still very reasonable,” Needham says. “A lot of people sell their house in Vancouver for $600,000 or $700,000 and get one here for $300,000 with an ocean view.”

Tom Cruickshank, 53, editor of the magazine Harrowsmith County Life, sees the same changes in his neck of the woods in Bewdley, ON, a tiny hamlet 90 minutes east of Toronto. In 2000, he moved with his wife into a 111-year-old Victorian house on a 30-hectare (75-acre) hobby farm. Cruickshank is a city boy who lived for years in Toronto and Montreal, but he now raises chickens and sheep and works from home. “I like that I can set my own pace. The simplicity of day-to-day life is the big reward. I had a romance with it,” he says.

He’s noticing an influx of like-minded city slickers—most of them aged 45 and up and still working. Many commute to Toronto every day by VIA Rail. “Eventually, they find a job out here or a way to work at home.”

Retirees also make up a large portion of the back-to-the-landers. John Lines, 75, and his wife Helen, 72, settled in an idyllic spot after John retired in 1991—a 5,200-square-foot house in secluded Upper Cape, NB, with ocean frontage on Baie Vert and a spectacular view of Nova Scotia across the water.

The house was originally built by Helen’s ancestors about 200 years ago—near as anyone can guess—and it has been in her family since. The original dwelling had only two rooms, but successive generations added rooms as the family grew. “It’s sort of a living museum,” Helen says.

John, born in Toronto, was far from being a country person. The couple had lived in many of Canada’s biggest cities where he had been stationed during a 32-year career in the military. “Our friends thought we were crazy” to move to a remote corner of New Brunswick, he says. “Now when they pass through, they say they understand.”

“It helps keep the family together. Our children come to stay over with our grandchildren. That’s important to me,” Helen says.

The invasion of city folks is changing parts of rural Canada, repopulating some areas that were hard-hit by an exodus of people. In Powell River, employment at the local pulp-and-paper mill has declined from 2,000 in its heyday to just 600 today, but the community has been revitalized by the arrival of the boomers, Needham says.

In Quebec, a mass flight from resource-dependent regions like Lac St. Jean and the Gaspé is being partly offset by city dwellers moving to other areas, like the Laurentians and Eastern Townships.

The new arrivals are also helping to foster diversity and breathe new life into their adopted communities. In Power River, many are settling in an older, once-rundown neighbourhood where they are refurbishing the historic character homes. “It’s been great for the city,” Needham says.

Weighing the Pros and Cons

So what’s life like for the country squire? There are some important cons you should weigh alongside the pros before you head off to the land of pickups and honey.

If you’re used to a city where you can walk a lot of places, a big change is at hand. You’ll be burning gas to visit friends, go shopping and maybe even pick up your mail at the community postbox or post office.

That was one of the hardest adjustments for Harry Yates. He sighs as he talks about how he loved strolls in his former neighbourhoods in Montreal and New York. Worse, he and his wife needed to get a second car when they moved to the country. “You’re tied to a car,” he says.

Another problem in many farflung areas: health care. Vicky Needham says the lack of medical specialists in her isolated town has been an obstacle stopping some retired people from coming.

Yates, now 74, is starting to think about his medical needs, too. That’s one reason he and his wife rented a pied-à-terre in Montreal this fall, after six years in Knowlton. The apartment brings them closer access to medical help Yates may need as he gets older.

The other reason for getting the apartment: while Yates adores his country hideaway and village life, the city still runs deep in his veins, and he occasionally yearns for an extravagant lunch at a chic city bistro or a stroll in Old Montreal.

“Country living is not for everyone,” says John Lines. “I wouldn’t advocate this for someone who loves the excitement of the city.”

If you can afford it, he suggests, do what he and his wife did: hold onto your city place for a while when you move to the country, just in case you don’t like it.

In the plus column: your new neighbours. “I never had a problem making friends anywhere I went,” Yates says, “but it’s easier here because people come up and say, ‘Oh, you’re the new guy. I’m so-and-so.’” Needham agrees: “Anyone who moves here says they can’t believe how friendly it is.”

Cultural and ethnic homogeneity can be a drawback in much of rural Canada, but there are many pockets with flourishing diversity. Power River has a large Italian minority—descendants of workers who came to work in the mill in the 1920s and ‘30s. Other farflung areas boast a strong First Nations presence, including museums, historical sites, and eco-tourism.

John Lines says his area of New Brunswick is full of cultural events, including the arts scene in the university town of Sackville, whereas it was Ottawa, in fact, that he felt was “very insular.”

What about fitting in? In much of rural Canada, the locals go back five or six generations—and much more in the case of Aboriginal residents. Do they look kindly on newcomers?

“I’m from away, and I’ll always be from away,” Lines says. “If I suggest something should be changed, people will say, ‘What do you know? You’re from away.’ You have to work your way into the community. It’s not a given.”

Lines’s solution: volunteering. Having worked as a structural engineer, he pitched in to oversee the refurbishing of a 180-year-old stone house for a local historical society museum—a six-year undertaking. “I figure it’s now payback. It’s my turn to give something back.”

For Yates, the biggest worry isn’t fitting in with the local people—his answer was to head to the village pub, where he made friends arm-bending in no-time—but the local critters. Six years of rural living still haven’t put him quite at ease about the creatures of the forest, from skunks on up to cougars. As he shows me around his property, he stops by a pretty stream and gazes fearfully at the woods on the other side, filled, he is sure, with bears, coyotes and moose just waiting to do him in.

“I’m still a bit leery of wildlife waiting for me in the driveway when I come home,” he says, laughing. But he says he hopes his grandchildren won’t inherit his “weird perturbations,” having experienced at his little country slice of heaven what Shakespeare called “a green thought in a green shade.”

[TAGS: Country living, retirement, baby boomers, Eastern Townships, Knowlton]

New Life for Mont Glen

2008-03-11T10:48:00.005-04:00

Starting today and for the rest of March, the ski hill will be open on weekends as it prepares to become a members-only resort next year

Alex Roslin
The Montreal Gazette
Saturday, March 1, 2008

Mont Glen, one of the Eastern Townships’ oldest and most storied ski hills, is reopening today and for four weekends in March after a three-year hiatus.

The reopening is a prelude to the hill’s launch next year as Quebec’s first member-only ski hill—a new concept that manager Pat Côté hopes will resuscitate the long-struggling resort.

“There’s lots of excitement here,” he said. “The snow is great, reservations are going good, people are happy.”

Mont Glen, which first opened in 1960 and boasts a 350-metre vertical drop—higher than every hill in the Laurentians except Tremblant—had hard times through the 1990s because it lacks snow-making equipment and is heavily dependent on the snow gods to deliver fluffy white flakes all season long.

Côté said he hopes the strategy of charging an annual membership fee will translate into uncrowded runs and no chairlift lineups, which will help his hill stand out in a competitive Townships ski market that includes four hills within a 20-minute drive of Mont Glen—Bromont, Orford, Sutton and Owl’s Head.

Côté describes the March opening as a stripped-down test run, during which Mont Glen will sell only 300 tickets per day through its website. Only one lift will be operational, and there will be no equipment rental, cafeteria services or bar.

Côté said the hill’s owner, Knowlton real-estate developer Mario Lamothe, initially tossed around the idea of a super-high-end resort in the vein of several private ski hills around Collingwood, Ont., which charge $30,000 or more for membership and up to $5,000 per year for a family pass.

In the end, Côté said that idea was dropped for now as “too much of a gamble” in favour of the more modest idea of a “Club Costco-style card” that “will be affordable for everyone.”

Mont Glen had long had an almost-fanatical fan base drawn to its challenging runs and feathery all-natural powder, which unlike artificial snow doesn’t turn icy after a lot of traffic.

The hill’s lively extracurricular scene was also notorious, including a colourful bar life and slopeside parties. Mont Glen attracted such a loyal partying clientele that a second bar opened off-site to help serve them, the Thirsty Boot, a favourite drinking hole of author Mordecai Richler.

Ski Canada magazine once called Mont Glen “the zany black sheep of the Ski East centres.”

But repeated seasons of poor snowfall and competition from neighbouring resorts caused the business to deteriorate in the 1990s. It finally closed in 2004.

One earlier owner sought to revive the resort’s prospects by developing condos at the 700-acre site, but that idea was shot down by the town council of West Bolton, where residents wanted to preserve the mountainous area’s tranquility and picturesque natural vistas.

Côté said the current owner hasn’t made any decisions on developing 500 acres of the site where residential construction is a possibility.

Local residents are responding with enthusiasm tempered with a measure of skepticism owing to the hill’s past financial travails.

“I don’t think there is more than a 50-50 chance of success,” said Brian Eddington, a columnist with a local newspaper who wrote a book chronicling the hill’s rich history, titled Out of Bounds: The Glen Mountain Ski Story.

Still, Eddington said he is happy to see the hill where he skied for 30 years reopen. “A lot of us miss it.”

West Bolton mayor Donald Bager is also skeptical. “It will take some fairly ingenious solutions to make it profitable.”

He also said some locals were concerned about the idea of an exclusive resort at the hill. “It doesn’t take a rocket science mentality to see what that would do to the community.”

Documentary-maker Albert Nerenberg, who moved near the mountain with his family last summer, called the reopening “great for the whole area,” but said he is also glad the high-end plan was dropped.

“We were really worried it would bring in a bunch of Polo-wearing riffraff.”

[TAGS: Mont Glen, skiing, Eastern Townships, West Bolton]

The New Back-to-the-Landers

2008-03-11T10:46:00.004-04:00

A growing number of people are saying goodbye to Quebec’s biggest cities for a slower, cheaper life in the countryside

ALEX ROSLIN
The Montreal Gazette
Saturday, July 28, 2007

Lying on a hammock on an island in the Bahamas was a good place to find inspiration.

“Why should we live in paradise for only a couple of weeks of vacation a year?” my wife, Rhonda, asked. “We should live in paradise all year-round.”

And so we decided to move with our two kids out of our apartment in the Mile End.

We are going back to the land. We’re moving into a beautiful old house in the Eastern Townships.

It turns out we’re part of a back-to-the-land renaissance that is transforming rural Quebec.

The new urban refugees aren’t quite the commune-dwelling Luddites of the ‘60s. They are often yuppies or have young kids and just want to get away from noise, pollution and crazy real-estate prices. Many work at home as writers or artists and rely on the Internet to stay in touch with clients. Others are willing to commute an hour or more to the city.

The newcomers are also often babyboomers looking for a slice of country paradise where they can host kids and grandchildren.

“We’ve noticed a return to the land and smaller communities,” said Chantale Girard, a demographer at the province’s Institut de la statistique du Québec who is studying the trend.

Montreal, Laval and Longueuil are losing thousands of residents to rural areas and smaller communities that lie beyond the region’s traditional ring of suburbs, according to newly available data that Girard is studying on migration patterns within the province.

The information comes from provincial health-insurance records, and it challenges the common perception that the countryside is being depopulated as young people migrate to urban centres in search for jobs.

While many people are indeed fleeing resource-dependent regions like Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Lac St. Jean, other rural areas like the Townships, Laurentians, Lanaudière and Outaouais are actually projected to grow faster than the provincial average in coming years.

Montreal lost 22,700 people to interregional migration last year, while the fastest-growing region, with 6,900 people gained, was the Montérégie, which stretches from the South Shore to the ski village of Sutton and the U.S. border.

For us, it was not an easy decision.

Mile End is pretty close to perfect for us, with cultural diversity and a cool friendly vibe. Rhonda and I have called it home for 25 years between us. Every time we stepped outside we were bound to bump into a dozen people we knew. Rhonda’s brother calls it Sesame Street.

But we needed more space for our growing family, and we felt sick about spending the kind of money needed to buy a house there or in any of the neighbourhoods we liked on the island.

Besides, our vacation inspired us to realize we loved being around nature.

What we needed was a Mile End somewhere in the countryside. So we started looking for a house in the Eastern Townships. Three weeks later we were signing the paperwork to buy a house in the historic village of Knowlton.

We fell in love with the spacious stone and cedar home built by the region’s pre-eminent stone retailer, who happens to be named Mike Stone. It stands on an acre of land backing onto a forest and is nestled into the side of Sugar Hill overlooking picturesque Lac Brome.

All this for less than the cost of a tiny condo with no yard in Mile End. We moved in last week.

Our real-estate agent, Peter Reindler, was a kindred spirit. He quit Montreal 30 years ago to settle in Sutton.

This was back in the day of the first back-to-the-landers—the hippies inspired by the band Canned Heat and its hit Going Up the Country.

“I’m gonna leave the city, got to get away,” the song goes. “I’m going, I’m going where the water tastes like wine.”

People aren’t just leaving the big city.

They’re also quitting many suburbs for more rural areas. For example, Longueuil last year gained 2,600 residents from Montreal, but it lost even more people—2,800—to more farflung parts of the Montérégie.

The biggest beneficiaries were Haute-Yamaska (which includes Granby and Bromont) and areas around St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Chambly and Beloeil.

Bridget Wayland is a former Montrealer who settled in a distant corner of the Montérégie with her family. She knew she was done with big-city life after her son was born.

Her cramped second-floor apartment in the Mile End had no yard access. She and her husband, Chris, couldn’t afford to rent a first-floor apartment with a yard, much less buy a house. Little Sebastian would have two choices—playing on their small balcony or at the park four blocks away under an overpass.

“Oh God, this is not how I want to raise Sebastian,” Wayland recalls thinking.

So they decided to move into a historic house built before 1870 near Frelighsburg, at the end of an idyllic country road just 200 metres from the U.S. border.

Wayland, a writer, works from an office in the barn, while her husband, a teacher, found a job in nearby Cowansville. They raise chickens and grow veggies and herbs that they sell at the local farmer’s market.

“It’s much more calm,” she said of country life. “We love the day-to-day quality of life. When you go to bring the garbage out, you look up, and it’s the Milky Way and gorgeous stars—whereas in the city you never look up.”

Tom Cruikshank, editor of the magazine Harrowsmith Country Life, is a former Montrealer who moved seven years ago to a 75-acre hobby farm with a century-old house a couple of hours northeast of Toronto.

He and his wife both work from home and keep 10 chickens for eggs and 11 sheep for fleece and meat.

“I like the manageability of the smaller setting,” he said. “You can be more relaxed. People bump into each other again and again, so they tend to be nicer to each other.”

There are some drawbacks to country living, though.

Lyle Stewart and his family gave up their Plateau apartment and lived for a year in their cottage deep in the woods outside the Lanaudière village of Chertsey to save money to buy a house in the city.

They enjoyed the fresh air and being surrounded by nature, but the downside was being stuck in their car for everything from grocery shopping to commuting to work in the city, said Stewart, a union communications official.

“The commute is a killer,” he said of his two-hour daily roundtrip.

It was a big change from life in the Plateau, where they could walk or bike almost anywhere they needed, he said.

“Country living may look nice and green, but you’re burning a lot more energy and contributing to global warming (through driving),” Stewart said.

But not all the newcomers become more dependent on cars. Stéphane Tardif and his wife Eloise took a bold path when they moved from Montreal to Knowlton five years ago.

Now relocated in Cowansville, they refused to buy a car and rely instead on walking, bikes and the regional bus service to get around with their two small kids. “It’s a radical way to be in the country. People always said it was impossible (not to have a car here). But we did it,” Tardif said.

Tardif, a youth counselor, even recruited his bike for work when he got funding to start Biblio-Vélo, a service to bring books to local youth, towed along on a wagon.

“We changed our rhythm of life (by leaving the city). We have picnics, walk in the forest and look at the animals. There was a real gain of time and family life.”

Where They’re Going

The Eastern Townships, home to vineyards, pretty country drives and charming villages soaked in history, is one of the regions luring many Montrealers moving to the country. Some of the choice spots for the new back-to-the-landers are:

Sutton: The outdoor enthusiast’s mecca around this laid-back skiing village attracts lots of environmentally conscious young families and artists, drawn by the area’s pure mountain-top lakes and 150 kilometres of hiking trails.

Bromont: This rapidly growing village at the doorway to the Townships sits at the foot of the ski hill of the same name. Just 45 minutes from the Champlain Bridge, it’s attracting people who commute to Montreal.

Knowlton: This tony village boasts heritage architecture, vibrant cultural life and charming boutiques. You can also gape at the ridiculously expensive estates around Lac Brome.

The region also has some hidden gems that are little-known to outsiders but beloved by locals:

Owl’s Head: The out-of-the-way area around this ski hill has a fanatical following among residents. Attractions include breathtaking country vistas, nearby Lac Memphrémagog and a golf course with panoramic mountain views.

Glen Sutton: Considered one of the most scenic spots in the Townships, this 300-resident village has been enticing nature lovers and landscape painters since the 19^th century.

Glen Mountain: This spectacularly beautiful area surrounds the ski hill of the same name but is also close to services in Knowlton.

[TAGS: Eastern Townships, Knowlton, Sutton, Bromont, country living, back to the land]

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