Feeny wants to “stop fooling around” and fulfill community needs

Taylor Clark

Independent mayoral candidate Daniel Feeny stressed the need to shift developing and improving leisure infrastructure into high gear in a press conference on May 27.

“It is imperative that we make significant progress to meet the community’s needs for recreation and community facilities. Let's stop fooling around, let's stop shuffling the cards, and let's bring the projects included in the Plan directeur to fruition by trusting our partners, by playing as a team,” Feeny wrote in a press release.

While Gatineau’s Plan directeur des infrastructures récréatives, sportives et communautaires was updated in 2022, the candidate said it closely resembled the previous 2012 plan. Instead of updating plans, Feeny underlined the importance of implementing them.

To ensure citizens have the means and conditions to benefit more quickly, Feeny committed to modernizing existing parks, playgrounds, and swimming pools as well as sports and community centres with upgrades, renovations, and new equipment. 

Feeny also proposed the creation of new recreational spaces like walking trails, dog parks, and multi-purpose sports fields in currently underserved neighbourhoods. He stressed the want to accelerate the construction of the multi-sports complex in the west and the two-ice complex in the using modern infrastructure management tools.

In the “playing as a team” spirit, the candidate also committed to working closely with sports clubs, community associations, and non-profit organizations to develop the best business reflexes in financial arrangements and optimize the use of existing infrastructure.