Accessibility and soccer at the top of recreation priorities for female mayoral candidates

Grace Richards and Taylor Clark 

Mayoral candidates Olive Kamanyana and Maude Marquis-Bissonnette have put forward their plans to improve Gatineau’s leisure and sports sector. Their press conferences came amid calls from citizens for more investment into recreation, from children to older adults. Gatineau’s master plan for recreational, sports and community infrastructures was passed by council in 2022, with a focus on developing these infrastructures throughout the city. 

While the master plan addressed accessibility and needed improvement, independent candidate Olive Kamanyana said the plan equally needed to speak to adaptation. 

“Adapt our equipment, adapt our infrastructure to all categories of people who make up our population,” said Kamanyana. On the ground, the former Carrefour-de-l’Hôpital district councillor said she constantly faced the stark reality of individuals and families of older adults and people living with disabilities or motor deficits as they attempted to navigate the City’s leisure infrastructure. “I have heard many comments from parents, young families, elderly people, families with children on the autism spectrum complaining and asking for things to be improved and it has yet to be done,” said Kamanyana. 

To implement change, Kamanyana proposed the creation of a special committee made up of partners as well as the presidents of the Commission des aînés and the Commission Gatineau, ville en santé to develop a strategy that will allow inclusive accessibility to sports infrastructure and leisure activities. 

As chair of the committee, Kamanyana planned to adapt existing municipal buildings to increase mobility, add outdoor exercise, furniture and lighting to parks, develop new strategies for recruiting and training instructors, prioritize snow clearing around seniors’ residences and include additional leisure and sports activities that promote supervised learning adjusted to the specificities of autistic children. 

“All of these people that I have just mentioned have the right to leisure and sports infrastructure that meets their needs. In consultation with all these organizations, I will ensure that for us, leisure and sports are a priority and meet the needs of our people in Gatineau.” 

Rather than focusing on access to infrastructure, the Action Gatineau head concentrated on the lack of it. Joined by members of Action Gatineau and representatives from Soccer Outaouais, Marquis-Bissonnette revealed her key commitments for soccer in Gatineau. 

Among her promises was quickly concluding agreements to allow sports to return to the Fonderie this fall, rapidly starting the construction of a soccer dome at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, as well as supporting and ensuring the continuity of the synthetic surface project at Ernest-Gaboury Park.

“My priority is to ensure that everyone from Aylmer to Buckingham has access to sports infrastructure all year round,” said Marquis-Bissonnette. The candidate also emphasized investing in soccer infrastructure means investing in an activity that is readily accessible to many, thanks to the relatively low cost of equipment compared to other popular sports, and the ability for people with varying levels of mobility to play. 

With a mounting number of players that was only expected to grow, Soccer Outaouais president Chérif Atallah said the association looked forward to a new administration giving attention and importance to the soccer needs in the region. 

“Our players have suffered a lot due to the lack of infrastructure in recent years,” said Atallah. “It is the duty of all of us to offer them the support (the players) need in terms of infrastructure and the quality of safe outdoor terrain.” 

The association’s general manager Richard Gravel thanked Marquis-Bissonnette for what he felt was a serious commitment from Action Gatineau after years of what he referred to as “slowness” from the City 

“We are a growing city. The needs are increasing. And this is where I say that we must seize the opportunities. We must be able to build with sports associations to properly meet needs,” said Marquis-Bissonnette. 

Photo caption: Independent mayoral candidate Olive Kamanyana and Action Gatineau head share their commitments to improving leisure and sports activities in Gatineau. 

Photo credit: Taylor Clark