Well beyond the issues of transparency that targeted Mayor Bruno Marchand, this week, a most distressing political battle is being played out against the Quebec City region and the most important project in its history, the tram.
After a truce which coincided with the arrival of Mayor Bruno Marchand, the CAQ government resumed this week where it had left the subject with Régis Labeaume.
At the beginning of the week, during a plenary meeting on the tramway, Mr. Marchand demanded that the government quickly adopt the decrees necessary to launch calls for proposals for the rolling stock and infrastructure of the tramway.
Thursday, Minister Geneviève Guilbault again returned the ball to Ottawa to try to justify the fact that the Legault government is slow to adopt said decrees. “Things have to be done in order,” pleaded the minister, a statement that is tantamount to laughing in the faces of the people of Quebec.
Because the truth is that the federal government has never received a request from Quebec for the additional costs generated since the modifications that bring the tramway to D’Estimauville rather than to Charlesbourg.
Meanwhile, in the midst of a storm, Mayor Marchand had to explain why the City had not released a traffic study, and whose The newspaper got a copy.
We learned in this document that travel times could double, with a tram, for motorists using Grande Allée and Laurier. These are only preliminary data, defended the chosen one.
Project sabotage
The problem is that the little game of the CAQ government has already cost a lot of money and will cost taxpayers even more. Indeed, the longer the decrees take to be adopted, the higher the costs. The tramway has already paid the price, and the same is true for projects throughout Quebec.
And as everything that drags gets dirty, we can never say it enough, the government is knowingly harming support for a project that is nevertheless vital for the development of the region.
But don’t be surprised. The CAQ government has never shown a real appetite for the tramway. It was the last party in Quebec to support it, and gave the impression of doing everything to sabotage it since it came to power in 2018, by multiplying the pitfalls preventing its realization.
Blackmail tunnel
It would also be necessary to be blind not to understand that the government has only one idea, a few months before an election campaign. He wants to push Bruno Marchand into the cables so that he supports his dogmatic third link.
It doesn’t matter if we don’t know the route or the costs, which have changed completely, or if science shows that we won’t solve the congestion, quite the contrary. For its flagship project, at all costs, the CAQ will not wait for the federal government. She will soon go ahead with a bogus and electoralist shovelful of soil, without asking herself any more questions.
And meanwhile, in Montreal, the CAQ government announced yesterday a budget of 6.4 billion financed 80% by Quebec to extend the blue line of the Montreal metro.
Being ambitious for the metropolis is perfect. But in the meantime, we have to face the facts: the capital has never been so badly served as for four years. Faced with such a finding, Mayor Bruno Marchand must not be intimidated and stand up to any form of shameless blackmail.