2023-08-15 20:03:44
Reducing Quebec’s car fleet by half, as Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon wanted, would be “unrealistic”, report Quebec car dealers, who are worried about the “bad message” that this sends.
• Read also: We need half as many cars in Quebec, says Fitzgibbon
As reported The newspaperthe Superminister of the Economy and Energy threw a stone into the pond, Monday, by affirming – twice rather than once – that it would be necessary “to have half as many cars” in Quebec.
First at the microphone of Paul Arcand, at 98.5 FM, then on the sidelines of a press conference, a little later.
“I’m one of those people who believe that electric cars…everything has to be electric. But you have to have half as much, ”he hammered.
Worry
The car fleet numbering around 6 million vehicles, “it’s wishful thinking” to want to reduce it by half, considers the CEO of the Corporation of Quebec Automobile Dealers (CCAQ), Ian P. Sam Yue Chi, who judges the words of Minister Fitzgibbon “disturbing”.
“It’s unrealistic,” he summed up in an interview with The newspaper. Especially in the regions and in rural areas, which are less served by public transport. “And I don’t see how we could reach a level of public investment so that all of Quebec is served by public transit.”
He therefore urges the Minister “to reassure the vast majority of Quebecers, and almost the entire economy of the province, who have only the car as their only viable means of transport, that the noose will not close on them”.
Wrong message
“If it is really the government’s choice to cut the car fleet in two, we want to know it and as quickly as possible. We also want to know what the relevant plan is,” he said.
According to him, this kind of statement comes at a very bad time, when the entire industry is currently working hard to green the car fleet. It also sends “a bad message” both to Quebecers, whose vehicle could hardly be taxed more, and to manufacturers, who will be required to offer more zero-emission vehicles to consumers.
Did he express himself badly?
The president of the CCAQ wonders if Mr. Fitzgibbon did not express himself rather badly and he invites him to clarify his remarks, if such is the case.
This is also what his predecessor at the CCAQ, former Minister of Transport Robert Poëti, believes.
“I have the impression that he has not fully expressed his idea,” commented Mr. Poëti.
Our Parliamentary Office has followed up on Minister Fitzgibbon. His political adviser, Rosalie Tremblay-Cloutier, repeated that “the government has no direction with regard to reducing the number of vehicles on our roads”.
“It was an image that the minister wanted to give, you shouldn’t see anything more in it,” she added.
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