Martin C. Barry
With the demise of certain elements of the City of Laval’s administrative tools, including the former Conseil régional des élus de Laval (CRÉ), the city is developing new interfaces for the oversight of health and social services on its territory in conjunction with the CISSS health and social services agency.
In one of the first actions taken last week signalling the beginning of a new relationship between the city and the CISSS, the representatives of more than 20 health and social service organizations that serve the Laval region met with city officials at the Pavillon du Bois-Papineau in Duvernay for a half-day conference to exchange views on working more closely together from now on.
Laval and CISSS a new relationship
“This is the beginning of a coming effort to work out a regional policy for social development,” said Laval city councillor for Laval-Les Îles Nicholas Borne who was representing Mayor Marc Demers. “This is something rather unique. To our knowledge it’s never been done elsewhere in Quebec. It’s done in collaboration with the CISSS as well as with the many health and social services organizations who are represented by more than 100 people here today.”
When asked what the city hopes to achieve through the new relationship, Borne replied, “Basically we want to work with them at the local level. We think that through coordination we should be able to develop a consistent policy. We want all of them to contribute along with their strength and their resources to help us develop policy as much as possible. Policy will be developed in conjunction with them, but we need their assistance to get things started.”
New responsibility for city
In a statement issued in a press release, Mayor Marc Demers said that since work previously done by the semi-autonomous Conférence des élus de Laval is now part of the City of Laval’s internal systems, “we have been working to revise our ways of making things more dynamic while working more closely together. We are determined to take on these new responsibilities and we believe that the most efficient way to get there is to work in concert with our partners in the field.”
For her part, Danièle Dulude, president and assistant executive-director of the CISSS de Laval, said, “By its mission and its responsibility towards the population, the CISSS is committed along with the City of Laval to meeting the challenge of creating an environment favourable to the health of youths, families and senior citizens.”
According to the city and the CISSS, a steering committee made up of 20 representatives of institutions and organizations from Laval, including nine representatives who were elected during a start-up meeting, as well as three co-opted members, will be hammering out an understanding for the eventual development of a detailed policy.
Developing social policy
“I believe firmly that the participation of the largest number of people possible and the possibility of listening to points of view will be such that ideas will come out of this and this will be an essential factor for the success of this project,” Dulude added later in a speech to the group leaders.
“Being committed to social development means working to support communities in order to improve living conditions of the most vulnerable, thus contributing to improving the quality of life of everyone,” she continued. “This is an all important factor for prevention for all physical health problems as well as those that are psychological and developmental in people.
“We need to develop our people. Our literature and research tell is it is essential. If we are here as the CISSS, it’s because we believe it sincerely. By gathering our preoccupations around four themes, we will be putting into place stimulating projects which are sure to have an impact on all our citizens of Laval all over the city. We want to make a project that’s innovative and we would like to be ahead of the game with this project.”
