Residents of L'Île-Perrot wishing to register their children in minor ice hockey for the 2024-2025 season will have to pay $350 more than their neighbors in Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot, Pincourt and Terrasse-Vaudreuil. The Town of L'Île-Perrot strongly condemns this situation. 

According to the Town, the Association de hockey mineur de l'île-Perrot (HMIP) had “unilaterally decided, in concert with the administration of the Cité-des-Jeunes arena, to offer a higher rate to the citizens of the Town of L'Île-Perrot, unlike Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot and Pincourt”.

A visit to the Association's website confirms that rates for L'Île-Perrot residents are indeed higher than for those of other Association member municipalities that manage the Cité-des-Jeunes arena. 

For an M5 player living in Pincourt, for example, registration costs $250 plus parental contribution and administration fees. For a youngster from L'Île-Perrot, the bill is $600, before parental contribution and administration fees.

For U11 players from Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot, the fee is $700, versus $1,050 for players from L'Île-Perrot. 

According to the Association's registration form, citizens of L'Île-Perrot are invited to contact the city to “request payment of any subsidies that may be granted by the municipal administration to citizens”.

According to the Town of L'Île-Perrot, the intermunicipal group that manages the Cité-des-Jeunes arena invited HMIP to give preference to residents of the three towns responsible for operating the sports facility - Pincourt, Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot and Terrasse-Vaudreuil - or risk increasing the ice fees charged to HMIP. “HMIP therefore listened to the Arena's advice and acted to the detriment of Perrot residents,” denounces the Perrot administration.

A risk for the benefit of the community

In December 2022, the towns of Pincourt and Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot announced their intention to acquire the Cité-des-Jeunes arena. The municipality of Terrasse-Vaudreuil has since joined the group. Only the Ville de L'Île-Perrot refused to participate for financial reasons.

Today, the arena is owned by the Ville de Vaudreuil-Dorion, but managed by the towns of Pincourt, Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot and Terrasse-Vaudreuil.

“We took the risk of joining forces to manage the Cité-des-Jeunes arena. It's only natural that participating municipalities should benefit from preferential rates. We drew up a business plan that was rejected by the City of L'Île-Perrot. So, if the town refuses to cooperate, why should it benefit from privileges?” defends Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot mayor Danie Deschênes.

“We take all the risks involved in managing this sports facility. If the Ville de L'Île-Perrot wants to benefit from the advantages of collaboration, it should join us. We reiterated our invitation to the city, but since then we've heard nothing and seen nothing. Once again, the lack of collaboration between the Ville de L'Île-Perrot and the other towns on the island has an impact on the children,” adds Ms. Deschênes.

Michel Bourdeau, mayor of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, agrees. “We put a lot of time and effort into saving the organization. If we hadn't taken that risk, our young people on Île Perrot would no longer have a place to practice their sport. We believed in it and worked hard to ensure that everything would go smoothly and that our youngsters would be able to continue developing in their sport, whether it be ice hockey, speed skating, figure skating or Dek field hockey. We took the risk, and it's only fair that we should reap the rewards. The Ville de L'Île-Perrot would like to have the same advantages and do nothing. It doesn't work that way. All the city has to do is join us,” he told Néomédia. 

Putting the pressure on

For several years, the Ville de L'Île-Perrot has been granting financial assistance to HMIP for the specific purpose of offering a preferential rate to citizens registered for the field hockey season, the same as all Île Perrot residents.

The Town said it was willing to repeat this contribution in 2024, but HMIP formally refused to take advantage of it and use it as the Town wished, indicating that the Association would no longer process any municipal subsidies due to the involvement of the towns of Pincourt, Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot and Terrasse-Vaudreuil in the Cité-des-Jeunes Arena project.

The Town of L'Île-Perrot therefore invites its citizens to “make the necessary representations so that HMIP reconsiders its position, accepts to receive the financial aid to which it is entitled and uses it wisely, i.e. by reserving a preferential rate for the citizens of Perrot, as for all residents of Île Perrot”, as stated in a press release.

Néomédia attempted to contact the Association de Hockey mineur de l'île Perrot, as well as the mayor of Pincourt, Claude Comeau, at the time of writing, neither of whom had responded to our requests.