The question of access to the public beach has been at the centre of the concerns of many people in North Hatley and surrounding villages for the past two months (and for some, even much longer than that). Two petitions asking for negotiations between the North Hatley Recreational Society and the Town of North Hatley, and for access to the public beach to remain open 24/7, received some 500 signatures, and the regular council sessions of May and June were attended by some 120 and 80 citizens respectively, most of them vocal in their disapproval of the decision by the town council to prevent access to the lake at the public beach outside supervised hours for swimming. 

At the council meeting in May, the mayor justified this decision in the following terms: “Today, in the public environment we have to deal with, the old ways are no longer viable. The laws have changed. Insurers are watching more closely.” 

But what in fact is the situation? Is there any obligation under Québec law to close off access to the beach? Are the town’s insurers insisting on the beach being closed during unsupervised hours? The answer to both these questions is the same: NO. In fact the town’s insurer – the Mutuelle des municipalités du Québec – repeated in an e-mail dated 10 May 2018 what it had already said on 01 September 2016: It is not necessary to fence off the beach. [Emphasis added.]

Why is the mayor letting us, the people he is supposed to represent, believe the opposite? And why does he write that “Drownings in Quebec have risen exponentially in recent years,” when, in fact, the most recent figures (for 2013 and 2014) show them to be at their lowest point in recent years (see “2017 Drowning Report, Quebec Version”)? It would seem that any argument – true or false – can be called upon to justify what is an almost universally unpopular decision.

Things have come to a sorry pass when our elected officials act on the presumption that they know better than, and are willing to mislead, those they represent. But then, most members of council suffer nothing from access to the public beach being closed, since they have either private access to the lake, or pools in their backyards. Perhaps this is why they do not seem to have grasped why their decision has been so poorly received. Many people – in particular young families (who, the mayor has often maintained, are a priority for the town council) – move to North Hatley specifically with the idea that they and their children will be able to take advantage of the town’s location on beautiful Lake Massawippi. Unfortunately, an arbitrary and unnecessary decision by council has deprived them – and us – of this possibility.

The mayor has been constantly framing the decision by council in terms of ‘prudence’, but those wishing to have access to the public beach are not imprudent risk takers. Rather, they are responsible adults, willing to take responsibility for the actions of themselves and of their children. The members of the council seem to have cast themselves in the role of ‘helicopter parents’, a role the population of North Hatley and of surrounding villages have not asked them – and do not want them – to assume.

– Paul St-Pierre

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