That gap in service is still very real in parts of the region, despite a provincial promise that it would be gone by now.
A promise that hasn't caught up
In 2022, the Coalition Avenir Québec government launched Opération couverture cellulaire, a program meant to bring cellular connectivity to unserved parts of the province, with a pledge of complete coverage across Quebec by 2026. That deadline has arrived, and several Pontiac villages, including Chapeau, Portage-du-Fort and Ladysmith, still have no cellular service at all.
The most recent round of project announcements under the program, published in early February, included no cell tower projects for the Outaouais region at all. Part of the reason, according to reporting on the issue, is that no telecommunications companies have stepped forward with proposals to build coverage in the Pontiac in the first place. Without a carrier willing to bid on the work, the towers simply aren't getting built, no matter what the province's timeline says.
A petition from the region
Pontiac resident Amy Taylor started a petition calling for full cellular coverage in the region, and it's now sponsored on the National Assembly of Quebec's website by Pontiac MNA André Fortin. Taylor says being left out of the latest round of coverage improvements reinforces something residents already feel: that the region is forgotten. For a part of the province that already deals with connectivity gaps, watching other areas get towers while the Pontiac gets nothing stings.
Why it matters for emergencies
This isn't just an inconvenience for drivers who want to check a map or send a text. Patrick Bertrand, fire chief of Mansfield-et-Pontefract, says the lack of a cellular network complicates his department's emergency response work directly. When crews can't reliably reach dispatch or coordinate by phone in a dead zone, response times and coordination both suffer, in a region that already has to cover a lot of ground with limited resources.
Jane Toller, prefect of the Pontiac Regional County Municipality, has raised a different fix: a satellite connection instead of traditional cell towers. Her argument is that satellite service wouldn't be knocked out by the power outages that hit the region often, the way a tower-dependent network can be. It's a workaround that sidesteps the problem of no carrier wanting to build towers in a low-population area, since satellite infrastructure doesn't depend on the same local business case.
The Ottawa connection
For Ottawa residents, the Pontiac isn't some distant corner of the map. It's the cottage country and weekend-drive territory directly across the river, and a region plenty of people in this city pass through or rely on for recreation. A persistent dead zone there isn't abstract: it's the stretch of road where your phone drops out right when you might need it most, whether that's checking directions or calling for help.
The Pontiac has been in ottown's pages before. Back in September, ottown's earlier report covered the region's provincial politics after a Conservative candidate for the riding withdrew following reporting on his past remarks. Connectivity gaps like this one are part of the same broader picture of a region that sometimes feels overlooked by decision-makers in Quebec City.
For now, there's no confirmed timeline for when, or if, towers will go up in Chapeau, Portage-du-Fort or Ladysmith. The petition remains open on the National Assembly's site, and whether satellite service becomes the actual fix hasn't been decided.
Sources: CHIP FM, Radio-Canada
