Author name: The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph

SAAQ bans uncertified motorized vehicles from bike paths

Peter Black – Local Journalism initiative reporter
peterblack@qctonline.com

The provincial auto insurance board is putting the brakes on the proliferation of “non- compliant” vehicles rolling on bicycle paths and sidewalks. The Société d’Assurance Automobile de Québec (SAAQ) announced the ban in a July 30 news release.

The sudden change applies to “a multitude of vehicles that look like mopeds or motorcycles” but do not have a certification mark from Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. As of the announcement, the affected vehicles are banned from public roads.

The release says, “These vehicles pose a safety risk to vulnerable road users who use sidewalks and bike paths because of their heavy weight and the speed they can reach.

“Out of fairness to other owners of compliant motor- cycles and mopeds who must register their vehicles and hold the correct class of driver’s licence to be able to use the road network, it is important to take action.”

Quebec City Police Service spokesperson Sandra Dion, in a statement to the QCT, hinted at a period of grace before cracking down on violators. “We acknowledge this new decree which brings a change

to the regulations in force. Subsequently, it will be important to inform citizens that they are in violation, since they are probably not informed about this new law.”

City hall spokesman Jean- Pascal Lavoie told the QCT, “We have no specific comments to make at this time, but the city is still implementing the SAAQ regulations.”

A report in La Presse, quoting an SAAQ spokesman, said police or peace officers “will have to base their decision on the physical and visual characteristics of the vehicle to determine whether it is covered by the ministerial order.”

The most obvious characteristic would be the absence of the certification sticker.

According to details published in government documents, the affected vehicles are defined as: those equipped with footrests or a platform for the driver’s feet; equipped with a set of tires and wheels that have the appearance of that of a motorcycle or moped; equipped with a body that partially or completely covers their frame or some of their components and that are not equipped with a height- adjustable saddle; and, those equipped with a motor that can reach a speed of more than 32 km/h or that has a nominal power greater than 500 watts.

The SAAQ notes, “These vehicles are already prohibited from sale and importation in new condition in Quebec due to the lack of certification to the standards in force.”

Persons stopped while driving a prohibited vehicle on a public road face a fine between $300 and $600.

According to several media reports, delivery workers who use the uncertified vehicles to earn their living are upset with the sudden policy decision.

Parc Chauveau to get $11 million in improvements 

Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Quebec City’s largest park is getting a large makeover. Work is set to begin this summer on an $11-million slate of improvements to Parc Chauveau, located in the des Riviéres district in the northwest of the city.

Details of the project were unveiled in a July 19 joint news release from city and Quebec government officials.

Parc Chauveau, through which the St. Charles River runs, encompasses 130 hectares; for comparison, the Base de Plein Air de Sainte-Foy is 124 hectares and the Plains of Abraham 90 hectares.

The work to be done includes the creation of a four-season multi-purpose trail with a footbridge across the river, the creation of a main reception area and the reconfiguration of an existing bike path. 

In the release, Coun. Marie-Josée Asselin, vice-president of the executive committee responsible for natural environments, said the park is “a jewel in the heart of the city, a cherished place for Quebec City residents who gather there in their thousands, in all seasons. These new developments will make the experience of immersing users in nature even more interesting, while promoting active transportation.”

The project is the result of a consultation process that produced a master plan for the park in 2021. 

Some $2 million was spent last year on a series of improvements in the vicinity of the neighbouring Michel-Labadie Community Centre on Ave. Chauveau. These included “the first roller track in Quebec City, a skateboard area, a universally accessible biodiversity trail linking these recreational facilities and the St. Charles River.”

The centerpiece of the project is the new trail. The new two-kilometre universally accessible multifunctional path in the heart of the park “will take hikers, on foot, on wheels or on skis, from one end of the park to the other thanks to a new footbridge overlooking the river. This structural addition will make it possible to develop a network of recreational trails on both banks, in addition to connecting the riverside neighbourhoods by an active mode of transportation, in summer and winter.”

The accessibility aspect of the trail pleases Véronique Dallaire, the city councillor whose Les Saules – Les Méandres district includes much of the park. She is also the Opposition Quebec d’abord critic for accessibility. 

In a statement to the QCT, Dallaire said, “The development of Parc Chauveau will help make our city even more accessible. The creation of a multi-purpose trail and a new main reception area represent a significant investment in the quality of life.”

The new reception area, to be located at the corner of Ave. Chauveau and Boul. Saint-Jacques, will improve access to the park and include a service pavilion and playground area. It will be done in two phases, starting with redoing the main entrance this summer, including reconfiguring the bike path at street level, building a section of sidewalk on Ave. Chauveau and planting 90 trees and numerous plants.

Jonatan Julien, the Quebec government minister for infrastructure and for the capital region, said in the news release: “The Government of Quebec is proud to contribute financially to the addition of several developments and facilities on the Parc Chauveau site, which is a delight for many hikers, cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts.”

Billy Idol bringing ‘Rebel Yell’ to Quebec City 

Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Though it’s hard to imagine Billy Idol wielding a hockey stick, there is a Canadian shinny connection to the legendary British rocker. 

Back in April, Idol opened the Saturday night edition of Hockey Night in Canada, which featured a montage of hockey action and hockey fans set to Idol’s hard-driving hit “Rebel Yell.” He was later interviewed live on the broadcast.

The appearance was also a promotion for his 13-date Canadian tour that began July 30 in Vancouver and rolls into Quebec City on Aug. 19 for a date at the Videotron Centre.

The tour is built around the reissue of Idol’s double-platinum Rebel Yell album that featured the title track and other hits including “Eyes Without a Face” and “Flesh for Fantasy.” He will be performing with his longtime guitarist and songwriting collaborator Steve Stevens.

Idol, born William Broad, first found fame with his 1982 self-titled debut album, which included such hits as “White Wedding” and “Dancing with Myself.” Prior to his solo career, he released three albums with Generation X, a British punk band.

Idol, now 68, produced a documentary, released last year, about performing a concert at the gigantic Hoover Dam in the United States, a gig he did partly to draw attention to one of his social causes, the future of water supply. 

Opening for Idol will be Canada’s definitive 1980s hair band, Platinum Blonde, who first toured with Idol and Bryan Adams in 1985. 

For more information and tickets, visit lecentrevideotron.ca/en/2024/04/08/billy-idol-at-the-videotron-centre.  

Five city staircases to get repairs over next three years

Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Five of Quebec City’s staircases between Upper and Lower Town are slated for major renovation over the next three years.

According to information obtained from the provincial call for tenders website, the five staircases are Escalier des Franciscains in Montcalm; Escalier du Faubourg, between Saint-Roch and Saint-Jean-Baptiste neighbourhoods; Escalier Frontenac, between Old Quebec and Côte de la Montagne; Escalier Lepine, between Saint-Roch and Saint-Jean Baptiste, behind the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul site; and Escalier de la Chapelle, between Côte d’Abraham and Rue Saint-Vallier Est.

The call for tenders stipulates work is to begin next year on two of the staircases, des Franciscains and du Faubourg. The Lepine and de la Chapelle structures are slated for 2026, and Frontenac in 2027.

City spokesperson Wendy Whittom told the QCT, “The objective of the call for tenders is to determine the work necessary to ensure the sustainability of the stairs, so for the moment, the nature of the work to be done has not been determined. It will be once the preliminary study has been carried out.”

She said, “While it carries out ongoing maintenance on these structures, the city prioritizes the restoration of its assets based on their level of obsolescence.”

While the city hopes to minimize the impact on pedestrian traffic during the work on the staircases, one of them is in a critical tourism zone. The Escalier Frontenac is a main passage between Old Quebec and Dufferin Terrace to the popular destinations of Rue du Petit-Champlain, Côte de la Montagne and Parc Montmorency. The staircase, with its 115 steps, was built in 1976, and is situated next to the funicular in the shadow of the Château Frontenac.

While perhaps in a less dense traffic zone, the Escalier du Faubourg, built in 1931, is a convenient way to go from the Saint-Jean-Baptiste neighbourhood to Saint-Roch. Access will be further complicated next year by the closure of the Faubourg elevator for 10 months in 2025 for major repairs.

The oldest staircase, Escalier Lépine, was built in 1883 to connect what was then a bustling village in Lower Town with the shops and attractions in Upper Town. Featuring ornate wrought-iron entrance arches, the staircase was designed by famed city architect Charles Baillairgé and named for Germain Lépine, founder of the Lepine-Cloutier funeral home located on Rue Saint-Vallier.

For many years the most frequently used staircase between Upper and Lower Town, Escalier Lépine has become less popular with development changes in Upper Town. It may get more attention in the coming years with the proposed housing project targeted for the now vacant site of the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul centre.

Lightbound to run again: ‘Everything in my power’ to beat Poilievre

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

With a federal election likely coming late next year, Louis-Hébert Liberal MP Joël Lightbound says he is planning to run for a fourth term in Parliament.

He said at a July 16 media event, when a reporter asked about his plans, “It’s clear that I intend to run.” (“C’est clair que j’ai l’intention de me représenter.”)

Lightbound first won the suburban Quebec City riding in the 2015 election, beating the New Democratic Party incumbent. He won the subsequent elections in 2019 and 2021 by comfortable margins. He is the first MP in modern times to win Louis-Hébert in two successive elections.

Lightbound said in a Jour- nal de Québec report, “One of my motivations is to do everything in my power so that Mr. [Pierre] Poilievre does not form the government and does not undo policies that are good for prosperity, but also for the environment.”

The MP was likely referring to the Conservative leader’s hard-line opposition to Quebec City’s tramway project, to which he said he would not contribute “one cent” of federal money should he become prime minister.

The Louis-Hébert riding contains key elements of the tramway plan, including a line to Université Laval and the Boul. Laurier shopping district. According to recent projections from the Canada338 polling website, the Conserva- tive Party has a lead in Louis- Hébert, with 80 per cent “odds of winning.” The Liberal Party is second with the Bloc Québécois close behind. The projections are based on national and provincial polling data and do not include the names of candidates or incumbents. Lightbound had expressed an interest last year in run- ning for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party. He took himself out of contention in March, citing the impending birth of his first child with his spouse. Their son arrived in June.

The MP’s decision to run again comes in the context of his relationship with the Liberal parliamentary caucus. Lightbound spoke out against his government’s handling of the pandemic crisis in a February 2022 news conference.

Identified as a rising star since his first election at age 27, Lightbound has served as parliamentary secretary to the ministers of health, finance and public safety. His current main parliamentary role is chair of the standing committee on industry and technology.

Lightbound is a graduate of École secondaire de Rochebelle, CEGEP Champlain–St. Lawrence and McGill University law school.

A call to Lightbound’s constituency office had not been returned by press time.

FEQ boss Racine ‘can’t wait for next year’ after smash success

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

With crews briskly taking down the massive and sprawling infrastructure of the 56th Festival d’été (FEQ), president and director-general Nicolas Racine declared the 11-day event a smashing success.

“The weather was nice and that makes a difference, but it’s the people who create the event,” Racine said in an interview in the aftermath of the finale of the festival on July 14, with a show by rock veterans Mötley Crüe on the giant stage on the Plains of Abraham.

The people were there en masse, with all 125,000 passes to the festival sold within minutes back in March, and the July 12 show by superstar Post Malone drawing a beyond- capacity crowd.

Racine said he was particularly pleased that measures put in place for this year’s festival, his second at the controls, helped improve the comfort and safety of the huge crowds.

The area in front of the Bell stage on the Plains was moved back several feet, which made space for some 10,000 more fans. “Our goal was to create more comfort.”

He said, “We don’t want to change the business model that we have and we will try to accommodate as many as we can safely. Security is our first priority.” Officials reported a low incidence of medical interventions at this year’s event. Racine said the goal is for first responders to take a maximum of four minutes to get aid to someone in distress.

One of the crowd-pleasing innovations this year was the installation of gigantic panoramic screens on both sides of the Plains stage, a project done in collaboration with Montreal-based stage specialists Stageline.

The screens were nearly double the size of the previous ones and reduced by one week the time required to put up the enormous stage. The project was an example, Racine said, of FEQ’s mission to collaborate with Quebec businesses whenever it can. “The fans loved it, and the artists used [the screens] on many occasions” to complement their shows, he said.

Another element fans liked, Racine said, was the return of Place D’Youville as a festival venue for a program of free concerts. Long a popular site for FEQ shows, it was abandoned after the pandemic years of 2020-22 before being brought back. “It’s a great spot, with Le Diamant and the Porte Saint-Jean.”

This year also had a treat for performers, the “artists’ village,” located behind the Armoury building, where the talent could hang out, dip their toes in an inflatable pool, or, as Post Malone did according to reports, sample some delicious sushi.

Besides Post Malone and Mötley Crüe, other big name acts at this year’s FEQ included Nickelback, 50 Cent, the Zac Brown Band, the Jonas Broth- ers, The Offspring and an instrumental evening headed by Alexandra Stréliski. There was also, for the first time, a program of eclectic shows at the Grand Théâtre.

Taken together, Racine said, FEQ 2024 proved “that we need to keep investing in our prod- uct because FEQ is something really special that we have in Quebec City, one of the nicest cities in the world. We can’t take anything for granted.”

Racine also praised the city’s contribution to the festival, particularly for transportation. He said a friend of his from Montreal, not normally one to take public transit, took a city bus to the FEQ site and raved about the experience, especially the singing bus driver.

Even with teardown still in progress, Racine said work is well underway on next year’s edition. He said most contracts with artists and suppliers need to be signed by October; some acts have already been locked up for the 2025 edition, but FEQ maintains tight secrecy among a small group of staff until the lineup is revealed next year.

Racine applauded the work of the FEQ team in the “incredibly complicated” task of putting together the festival.

“The team that I have is really, really efficient and really engaged, passionate,” Racine said. As for running the show, “it’s a privilege. I love it and I can’t wait for next year because I already know where we’re going to improve.”

Prior to joining FEQ as president in November 2022, Racine owned and operated a tourism company in Quebec, as well as being involved in the administration of the Le Massif resort in the Charlevoix.

Post Malone draws monster crowd at FEQ for epic show

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

“Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.”

Post Malone, a global superstar of the highest order, appeared genuinely humbled and grateful in front of a monster Festival d’Été (FEQ) crowd on the closing Friday of the event.

Taking the stage about 15 minutes past the 9:30 p.m. target, Malone’s show instantly won the hearts of the boisterous and adoring throng with a riveting opening featuring an ethereal string quartet of four women who quickly burst – literally, with the first of many fireworks salvos – into a musical storm that roared through an epic set that finished with no less than three encore tunes.

Malone – he introduced him- self by his real name, Austin Richard Post – is by his own description, a musical chameleon, “genre-less,” whose success as a songwriter and performer resides in his ability to create a gripping tune by melding and experimenting with all variety of styles, from hip-hop to pop and even country.

Indeed, Malone begins a tour in the United States in September based on his first country album, F-1 Trillion.

When FEQ organizers announced the 2024 lineup in March, Post Malone was acknowledged as the event’s biggest “get,” given his limited touring schedule and the enormity of demand from a multitude of festivals.

Born on the fourth of July, Malone, now 29, spent his early childhood in Syracuse, N.Y., but moved with his family to Texas when he was nine. He picked up a guitar when he was 15 and played in several bands before he found his first success with “White Iverson” which had 10,000,000 sales or streams.

Since then he’s won multiple awards and set sales records, including his nine diamond-certified recordings. Chugging beers, smoking cigarettes, joking with the crowd, pacing the stage like an animal, flexing his tattoo- cluttered torso, cussing up a storm, Malone was what his Québécois fans would agree on as a “vraie bête de scène.” In fact, as is his tradition, Malone invited a fan on stage to show his appreciation. Félix Bergeron gushed “C’est une rêve” and played acoustic guitar to accompany Malone on his hit “Stay.”

As FEQ said in its promotion of Malone, many fans – Bergeron among them – dreamed of seeing Post Malone at the festival. Now it’s happened and few would disagree this was a performer who matched the scale and spectacle of FEQ. It was the largest crowd of the festival, with security officials closing the entrance gates at 8:40 p.m. The venue’s maximum capacity is 100,000 people.

Not that Malone needed any help to jack up the fans, but Jessie Murph, a poster girl for viral social media success, charmed and seduced the crowd with her blend of broken-hearted lover and defiant swagger.

The 19-year-old from Tennessee, as legend has it, literally Googled “how to become famous” and then began creating lip-sync videos and posting them online. She hit the jackpot with her composition “Always Been You,” released on TikTok in the fall of 2019, which drew tens of millions of streams.

With a sense of humour, a raspy wail of a voice and a world-class potty mouth, Murph wowed the mob and said it was the biggest crowd she’d ever played. “F**k, I love you Quebec,” she said midway through her 40-minute, 15- song set.

She finished her show with “Son of a Bitch” wielding a bejeweled Louisville Slugger baseball bat.

The opening act was Canadian perky-pop trio Valley, whose lead singer and guitarist, Rob Laska, told the crowd he felt like “family” since his girlfriend’s parents come from Quebec.

The veteran Toronto-based group paced through a string of catchy tunes, with energetic drumming from Karah James (wearing a Girls Rock T-shirt) and creative guitar work from Alex Dimauro.

COMMENTARY: Quebec has suddenly become country music country

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Folks who were there might reckon Sept. 12, 2007, was a milestone in country music’s invasion of Quebec.

The place was the Festival Western in Saint-Tite, the little village in the Mauricie region, just north of Hérouxville.

It was a crisp evening with fall in the air, brisk enough that you could see puffs of Kenny Rogers’ breath in the stage lighting – Kenny Rogers, at the time a 67-year-old father of twin toddlers, and the Zeus of the American country music pantheon.

Kenny Rogers in Saint-Tite.

Were it not for the fact the otherwise unremarkable rural crossroads transformed itself in mid-September into a teeming city of RVs, dance halls, rodeo events and a boisterous market for every imaginable bit of country merch and memorabilia from saddles to cowboy hats, a superstar of Rogers’ magnitude showing up for a show there – two shows, actually – would be unimaginable.

But no, there he was onstage, performing his timeless classics with that incomparable whisky-smooth voice, clearly amazed he was blowing the minds of thousands of fans in a rodeo ring in the middle of nowhere in the francophone heartland of Quebec.

Those fans, some 15,000 of them, might not have understood all the song lyrics, but they understood clearly this was a historic moment.

And then, and then … Rogers brings onstage, with the most genteel of Southern boy introductions, Isabelle Boulay, the celebrated Quebec chanteuse, possessed of an other-worldly voice.

In a duet for the ages, Rogers and Boulay performed “Every Time Two Fools Collide.” It was Boulay’s choice, to Rogers’ surprise. It’s beautifully immortalized on YouTube, if you want to feel the seismic energy between the Texas superstar and the darling of Sainte-Félicité in the Gaspé.

Fast forward to the 2015 edition of Quebec City’s Festival d’Été (FEQ), the consummate weathervane of music trends, an event that began 56 years ago as a Québécois hippie happening and grew into a showcase for global headliners of all flavours.

Country music? Why not? Introducing Keith Urban (Mr. Nicole Kidman to many) who years afterward would talk about how his 2015 show in front of the massive, enthusiastic crowd on the Plains of Abraham was his favourite to date in his storied career.

In 2022, post-pandemic, FEQ rolled the dice again and brought in emerging star Luke Combs, who, had there been a roof o’er the Plains, would have blown it off. To prove it was not a fluke, Combs returned to Quebec City and Montreal a few months later for sold-out shows at the Videotron Centre and Bell Centre.

Montreal, that cosmopolitan metropolis, now boasts its own wildly successful country music event. The Lasso festival, now in its third year, pulled in more than 50,000 fans last year for the two-day gathering in August.

So what explains this virée country in Quebec? The simple answer, according to observers, is that today’s country music is not your grandparents’ corny, twangy country music. “New country” is energetic, infectious, uncomplicated, sexy and danceable. It fuses other genres from rap to pop to metal to whatever it is Taylor Swift and Beyoncé do.

As FEQ programming boss Louis Bellavance puts it, “There is a transfer from rock fans to country fans because they carry the same energy. It’s the ‘new country’ artists who bring that energy.”

Country music is like other genres Quebecers have embraced – progressive rock, for one: though the words are usually in English, the vibe is universal and knows no borders.

For decades, Quebec’s dozens of farm fairs, from Richmond in the Townships to New Richmond in the Gaspé, with their stages for country musicians of all types, have been the breeding ground for thousands of fans of “three chords and the truth,” as songwriter Harlan Howard describes country songs.

Those three chords have evolved somewhat – as has “the truth.” Lavish arena shows by big-name country acts have moved into the cities, and festivals are springing up all over the countryside.

But still, there was that magical night in Saint-Tite when two stars collided musically, and the rest is Quebec country music history.

Duclos: Poilievre ‘humiliated’ Paul-Hus on tramway funding

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

With a federal election slated for next year, Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) Leader Pierre Poilievre has contradicted his Quebec lieutenant about whether a future Conservative government would respect a federal financing agreement for Quebec City’s tramway project.

Liberal MP and federal cabinet minister Jean-Yves Duclos mocked the Tory dispute as humiliating for the local Tory MP.

Pierre Paul-Hus, MP for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint- Charles, told reporters at a July 3 ceremony to celebrate Quebec City’s birthday, “If the financing of the tramway is secured before the next federal elections, the Conservative Party of Pierre Poilievre does not intend to axe the project. Mr. Poilievre was clear about financing [the tramway project]: No. But the fact remains that if, in the coming months, there are agreements signed, we will not undo what has been done, obviously. We will not start undoing contracts.”

Upon hearing this statement from reporters, Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand said it was “good news. Now we need to get this project done quickly. It’s urgent, but not because of a possible federal election. It’s urgent because Quebec City needs it,” he said.

However, later that same day, Poilievre corrected his Quebec lieutenant, with Paul- Hus sending a message on X saying, “A Conservative govern- ment will NOT invest federal money for a tramway, regardless of the promises from Justin Trudeau.”

A message from Poilievre’s office around the same time said, “A Conservative govern- ment will neither prevent the project nor finance it. Other levels of government are free to do the project without inter- ference (and money) from the federal government.”

Duclos, federal minister of public services and procurement, seized on the Tory position at a July 4 news conference to announce sports funding (See separate story in this edition).

“If the Conservatives were brought to power and slowed down funding already granted for a tramway project in Quebec, it would be a real ‘theft’ at the expense of the people of the region,” Duclos said.

He accused Poilievre of practising “politics of lies and chaos.”

Poilievre, he said, “lied be- cause he said that all the Canadian government had made were promises to the tramway. It’s not true. He knows very well that there is an agreement with the Quebec government. … It’s not a promise, it’s a signed agreement.

“It’s really a shame and distressing for Pierre Paul- Hus and the other deputies from the Quebec City region to be rebuffed and humiliated like that by their own leader,” Duclos said.

“Pierre Poilievre yesterday clearly indicated that he had no confidence in his deputies from the Quebec City region. Pierre Paul-Hus tried timidly and in vain to serve the people of the region. Pierre Poilievre shortly after corrected him and forced him to retract.”

The QCT contacted the office of Paul-Hus for clarification of the Conservative stance on financing the tramway. An assistant replied by sending links to X statements from the MP and Poilievre reacting to Duclos’ comments.

Paul-Hus, reposting a message from Poilievre’s X account, said, “For the people of Quebec, ‘theft’ is spending billions on a project they don’t want. Despite what JY Duclos may think, the Conservative MPs from the Quebec region were very clear to CPDQ-Infra: it’s NO for the tram project! Unlike Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre listens to citizens and defends the priorities of the greater Quebec City region. I am very proud to be part of his team.”

Poilievre’s response was, “No, Mr. Duclos, it’s you who are stealing money from families in the greater Quebec City region by forcing them to finance an $11-billion white elephant that they don’t even want. The common-sense Conservatives will listen to the population, which is why the money promised by Justin Trudeau for the tramway will be reinvested in the construction of a third link.”

The “third link” to which Poilievre refers is the bridge the Coalition Avenir Québec government has vowed to build in the eastern end of Quebec City despite the Caisse de dépôt et placement (CDPQ) Infra report rejecting such a structure as unnecessary.

Mayor defends deficit for popular àVélo bike rental program

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Quebec City’s àVélo bike rental program may be wildly popular, but it’s also distinctly unprofitable.

According to data the Opposition Québec d’abord party (QCDAB) obtained through an access-to-information request, the program was in the red by $2.3 million in 2023, the third year of the service’s operation.

The party’s interest in the financing of the bike-sharing service follows the city administration’s recent unveiling of a massive expansion of the program over the next four years, to a total of 3,300 bikes and 330 stations throughout the city.

QCDAB Leader Coun. Claude Villeneuve released the figures before the July 2 city council meeting, showing àVélo had revenues of $1.07 million versus expenses of $3.36 million.

To finance this expansion, the city needs to borrow $24 million to buy the bikes and station infrastructure. The loan came up for a vote at the council meeting, with QCDAB members and the two Équipe Priorité Québec members voting against.

Villeneuve said the city needs to be more forthcoming about the financing of àVélo, which is managed by Capitale Mobilité, an agency of the Réseau du transport de la Capitale (RTC).

QCDAB Coun. Alicia Despins said in a statement to the QCT that her party “believes it is irresponsible to authorize over $24 million for the àVélo project without having access to the financial records of Capitale Mobilité. … We are very concerned by the lack of transparency from the Marchand administration regarding the funding.

“I’m a regular user of àVélo. So to be clear, Québec d’abord is not against the àVélo project, which was implemented by the [former mayor Régis] Labeaume administration,” Despins said. “We simply request factual elements to properly manage public funds.”

Mayor Bruno Marchand dismissed opposition concerns about the bike service deficit, saying no form of public transportation operates without a deficit.

“It’s surprising to see such a great success being brushed aside by the opposition. This is what they have been doing since the beginning,” the mayor said.

He said, “Each bicycle trip is a gain for the population since it saves other costs linked to the environment, in particular. We are approaching 500,000 trips. We will exceed a million this year. Now imagine when in four years we will have 3,300 bicycles spread across the city!”

Poilievre won’t fund tramway if he becomes PM

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Just as work is resuming on Quebec City’s tramway project following the green light from the recent Caisse de depôt et placement Infra (CDPQ-Infra), future financial support for the project from the federal government is in doubt.

Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) Leader Pierre Poilievre last week repeated his vow to not provide any funding for the project if he becomes prime minister. He had previously said he would not give the project “one cent.”

Poilievre, on a tour of Quebec in a recreational vehicle, met reporters while visiting Quebec City on June 24 as part of Fête Nationale activities. Encountered by a protester demanding a referendum on the tramway plan, the Conservative leader said, “You don’t want a tramway; well, I don’t either. My thinking remains the same, common sense thinking, to say yes to buses, yes to cars, yes to the third link.”

In 2019, the Liberal federal government of Justin Trudeau committed $2.1 billion to the project which was then – pre-pandemic, pre-inflation – budgeted at $3.3 billion. The Caisse report, released two weeks ago, pegged the cost of the revised first phase of the project at $5.3 billion. The full system, with two other routes to serve the suburbs and a tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis, is estimated at $15.5 billion.

Poilievre said the project would end up costing each household in the metropolitan region $28,000.

As for the “third link,” Poilievre said he supports the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s latest proposal to build a bridge between the eastern ends of Quebec City and Lévis. The government unveiled the plan on June 13 – with no cost or timeline – at the same time it committed to approve the first phase of the tramway project.

In making the surprise bridge announcement, Premier François Legault and Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault gave the compelling reason as “economic security” to avoid the “catastrophe” for commercial traffic if the Pierre Laporte Bridge should be closed for whatever reason.

A Journal de Québec investigation found the Laporte Bridge has never been closed completely for a structural reason, and has only had to close for a total of 22 hours over 54 years for other reasons, such as a suicide or regularly scheduled maintenance.

The Caisse report examined several scenarios for a “third link” but said it was not justified; it did recommend a tramway tunnel if there proved to be a necessity in the future.

Poilievre said the decision to build a bridge is “for the Quebec government, but what I’m saying is that a government led by common-sense Conservatives will make funding available to support a third link, for the future.”

The Conservative leader had by his side during a visit to the Port of Quebec two of his Quebec City-area MPs, Pierre Paul-Hus and Gérard Deltell.

Meanwhile, Éric Duhaime of the Conservative Party of Quebec released a poll con- ducted after the tramway- bridge announcement showing 58 per cent of people surveyed oppose the tramway project, while 34 per cent support it.

The poll, by Toronto-based Pallas Data based on 1,445 respondents, also found Duhaime’s party is neck and neck with the Parti Québécois in the Quebec City region, with about 30 per cent support; the CAQ is far behind with 18 per cent.

COMMENTARY: ‘The Prince’ and ‘Skippy’ bios new additions to Canadian political library

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

On my office desk at the moment is a biography of Louis St. Laurent, prime minister of Canada from 1948 to 1957. Louis St. Laurent: Canadian was written by Dale Thomson, a historian who had for a time worked for St. Laurent.

It’s considered the “standard” of biographies of Uncle Louis, a steady-handed leader for postwar Canada, and only the second francophone first minister since Sir Wilfrid Laurier. It was on my desk for some research into one of the big files that crossed St. Laurent’s desk during his tenure – one very hot Cold-War potato of a file – the Igor Gouzenko spy affair.

The recent publication of biographies of our current Itchy and Scratchy Show leaders, Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre, got me thinking about some things I’ve learned about Canadian politicians from books in my modest home library.

I have a few about Sir John A. Macdonald – we hope they’re not doomed for a future revisionist history book-burning.

There’s a first edition of Canada’s Patriot Statesman, by G. Mercer Adam, 613 pages of glowing admiration of Sir John, rushed to press the year of his death in 1891. The tome is “dedicated to the young and lusty nation, which he throughout his long life time loyally and faithfully served.”

The real “Old Chieftain” treasure, though, is Memoirs, by Sir Joseph Pope, Macdonald’s personal secretary for many years, first published in 1894. It contains mountains of Sir John’s writings in his witty and brilliant style, plus a dedication by his widow, Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe.

To wit: “During one of those strange and bewildered days following that supreme and solemn hour which closed the earthly life of my husband,” she writes about deciding how she chose Pope as Macdonald’s official biographer.

Other gems: Joseph Shull’s Laurier, just as notable for its exploration of Sir Wilfrid’s seemingly platonic romance with Émilie Lavergne, the wife of one of his MPs, as it is for the examination of the political actions of the original “sunny ways” prime minister.

Health minister, secretary of state and first woman in a federal Liberal cabinet Judy LaMarsh’s Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage should be a must-read for any aspiring politician in this country – especially women. Besides all the juicy inside dish on the Parliamentary old boys’ club, there is her explanation of her immortal quote in the heat of the 1968 Liberal leadership convention that elected Pierre Trudeau. Said LaMarsh to a low-ballot candidate, “Get out now and we’ll go on to stop the bastard.” He didn’t and they didn’t.

C.P. Stacey’s A Very Double Life: The Private World of Mackenzie King, is an astounding exposure of the weird and disturbing thoughts and pro- clivities of Canada’s longest- serving prime minister. Based on the voluminous diaries King wrote until three days before his death in 1950, the frequent seances he convened are among the least of the alarming revelations.

His admiration of Adolf Hitler, for example, after meeting him in 1938, is a mix of stunning naiveté and bizarre kinship – “I am convinced he is a spiritualist … whose mother’s spirit I’m sure will be his guide” – of whom he opines, “I believe the world will yet come to see a very great man … [who] will rank some day with Joan of Arc among the deliverers of his people.”

So that’s just a tiny sampling of books about our political notables, and their engrossing insights into leaders’ character and motivations.

Then there are the latest additions to the library of Canadian political leaders: Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life, by Andrew Lawton, and The Prince, Stephen Maher’s look at Justin Trudeau.

The thing is, I’ve already read enough reviews of both books to get the gist. I don’t know if I really need to swallow them whole.

We already know “Skippy” – as former Tory cabinet colleague John Baird called Poilievre – has been a conservative attack dog since his teenage years. What kind of prime minister such a narrowly focused character will make, we may find out soon enough.

As for Trudeau, perhaps Maher should have waited a bit longer to write what may well be the final chapter of the “prince’s” career. Folks might be more likely to buy and read that book.

Denis Coderre enters Quebec Liberal leadership race in Bellechasse

Peter Black, Local Initiative Reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Vowing to run in the Bellechasse riding on the South Shore, former Montreal mayor and former federal Liberal minister Denis Coderre has entered the race for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party.

Coderre, who turns 61 in July, made the announcement on June 21 in front of the National Assembly, with a group of supporters at his side, including former Liberal MNA Raymond Bernier.

Coderre had announced his interest in the leadership earlier in the year and said he would reflect on the decision during a pilgrimage to Compostela in Spain in May.

Coderre is the first candidate to officially declare for the leadership, which will be decided by a convention in June next year. The job became open when Dominique Anglade resigned following the party’s disappointing 21-seat showing in the 2022 election.

Coderre was elected mayor of Montreal in 2013, but narrowly lost to Valérie Plante in 2017; he lost by a larger margin in a comeback attempt in 2021.

In April of last year, Coderre suffered a mild stroke from which he has said he has made a nearly full recovery.

Prior to his run for Montreal City Hall, Coderre was the Liberal MP for the Montreal riding

of Bourassa, winning the seat in 1997 after three unsuccessful tries. He was named minister of immigration in 2002, but after the 2004 election, was not reappointed to cabinet by then-prime minister Paul Martin.

Coderre, who says he voted Yes in the 1980 referendum, has since become a staunch federalist. In 1990, he came a distant second to future Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe in a Montreal byelection.

Coderre said part of the reason he wants to be Quebec Liberal leader is to fight against the Parti Québécois, which, under leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has vowed to hold a referendum on sovereignty if elected in 2026.

“I don’t need a new country. I’ve got one,” Coderre said. “The best way not to have a referendum is not to vote for them [the PQ].”

At the announcement press conference, Coderre said he chose the Bellechasse riding “because it is a federalist riding with a high French-speaking content and an agricultural and industrial character.”

Even though the Liberal candidate in the 2022 election got only four per cent of the vote in the riding, now held by Stéphanie Lachance of the Coalition Avenir Québec, Coderre has said he will run there even if he does not win the leadership.

Coderre said he is in favour of a “third link” between Quebec City and the South Shore, and would support whatever Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand thinks is best for the tramway plan.

Coderre said he invited “all the disappointed Liberals” to join him. “I think we need experienced men and women. I’ve always loved this party. I have deep roots in it, no mat- ter what anyone says. I think it’s important for us to come together again.”

Coderre said he plans to embark on a series of spaghetti dinners in all 125 ridings in the province to raise support for his campaign.

Other potential candidates, according to media reports, are Frédéric Beauchemin, MNA for Marguerite-Bourgeoys; Charles Milliard, former president of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec (FCCQ); and Antoine Tardif, the mayor of Victoriaville.

Court rejects parking garage on former church site on Grande Allée

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Peterblack@qctonline.com

Those unaware of a prolonged legal battle between a developer and Quebec City Hall might be curious to know why there is a huge grassy vacant lot on Grande Allée kitty-corner from the Concorde Hotel.

Last week, the dispute between developer Louis Lessard and the city over a proposed nine-storey parking garage reached a new stage, with the Quebec Superior Court rejecting Lessard’s claim the city had acted in bad faith by making zoning changes that prohibited the project.

The decision, rendered June 13 by Judge Jean-Louis Lemay, is the latest chapter in a saga dating back to December 2010, when Lessard purchased the long-abandoned Église Saint- Coeur-de-Marie. Thus ensued a back-and-forth between the city and Lessard over his plans to redevelop the church site. After the city rejected a reported nine different proposals for a multi-storey residential building, some incorporating parts of the existing church, Lessard sued the city for $12 million in damages in 2017. (He later dropped the suit). Meanwhile the church, built in 1920, was deteriorating, with critical roof damage, to the point Lessard was granted a permit to demolish the structure.

In 2019, the building – with distinctive neo-Byzantine architecture but no heritage pro- tection – was levelled and the lot cleared in preparation for a building project. Lessard went back to the drawing board and proposed the parking garage, which, he contended in the suit against the city, conformed to existing zoning laws.

The city subsequently made zoning changes in 2022 and 2023 to close a loophole allowing “parking and taxi stands” in the area comprising Lessard’s lot.

Lessard claimed the city made the changes to deliberately block his application for a building permit for the parking garage project.

In his ruling, the judge concluded Lessard had not proved he had a prima facie right to a building permit and furthermore, had not fully complied with the application process, including failure to pay the full $57,600 fee to the city.

The court also affirmed the changes to the zoning plan to ban parking structures were within the city’s justified rights to correct an error or oversight. It noted the urban planning committee had made similar changes in many other zones in the city, so Lessard could not claim he was the “victim of discriminatory treatment.”

Though Mayor Bruno Marchand had described the parking garage project as “something good for the 1970s,” the judge ruled there was no element of “a plot” by elected officials or civil servants against Lessard.

City councillors Catherine Vallières-Roland and Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc had been called as witnesses in the case.

Contacted by the QCT, Loik Lessard, son of the developer and a company official, said in an email, “We are in reflexion and we are analyzing our options.”

CAQ approves Phase 1 of tramway, commits to build new bridge

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Coalition Avenir Québec government of Premier François Legault did what it said it would do and approved the recommendations for a transit system contained in the report it commissioned.

It also did something contrary to the recommenda- tions in the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec Infra (CDPQ Infra) study. It made a commitment to build another bridge for motor vehicle traffic across the St. Lawrence River at the east end of the city, po- tentially at one of the widest and deepest points in the river.

At a June 13 news confer- ence the day after the Caisse released its report, Legault evoked “economic security” as the main reason for proceeding with a third link to back up the Pierre Laporte and Quebec bridges.

In April 2023, the CAQ government abruptly cancelled a plan to build a tunnel under the river, claiming the volume of traffic did not justify the multi-billion-dollar cost.

In the wake of a subsequent byelection defeat in the Jean-Talon riding in September, Legault said the government would revisit the third link question. It was included in the mandate of the Caisse study of the global transit needs of the Quebec City region.

The Caisse, however, examined six possible options for an intercity link and concluded none was justifiable. It did suggest a tramway tunnel if circumstances deemed it necessary.

Legault told reporters, “I think that when you look at the file and take a step back, even looking at the inconveniences, we are better off having this new road.”

The premier raised the spectre of the closing of the Pierre Laporte Bridge, the only span capable of handling heavy truck traffic east of Trois-Rivières, as an economic catastrophe for the region.

“As premier, the question I have to ask with my col- leagues is can we live with this economic risk?” Legault said.

Neither Legault nor Transport Minister Genèvieve Guilbault would commit to a timeline for construction of the bridge, which, presumably, would connect the Beauport Autoroute 40 interchange with Autoroute 20 on the South Shore.

Guilbault said the government could seek expertise from around the world about how to build a bridge across the river in an area that, according to experts consulted in media reports, poses many engineering challenges.

Regardless, Legault said the bridge project will move forward. “There will be no other economic or traffic studies. I think there have been enough now,” he said.

As for the Quebec City transit project the Caisse proposed, Legault was cautious about making a too-sweeping commitment. He said the government will give the green light to the first phase of the project, notably the tramway line between Le Gendre in the west and Charlesbourg in the north-west.

As for the subsequent phases, Legault said that would be a question of future discussions with Quebec City and Lévis.

Mayor Bruno Marchand applauded the government’s decision in a statement, saying he is “delighted the government immediately confirmed the implementation of the first phase of the CITÉ plan.”

Caisse proposes tramway in master plan for regional transit

Peter Black

peterblack@qctonline.com

Delivered within the six-month deadline, and containing many new elements from the previous plan, the Caisse de dépôt et placement de Québec Infra (CDPQ Infra) has laid out a sweeping master plan for transit in the greater Quebec City region.

Unveiled at a crowded news conference on June 12, the project, called the Circuit integré de transport express (CITE) plan, foresees a tramway, rapid bus service and potentially a mass transit tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis, built in three phases.

Phase 1 of the CITE project is similar in its key elements to the project the city had underway until the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government put it on pause in November over concerns about the escalating cost.

In the altered version the Caisse proposes, the central tramway line would run from Cap-Rouge in the west to Charlesbourg in the north-east, passing along Boul. Laurier and Boul. René- Lévesque, with a tunnel to Saint-Roch.

The previous plan had the eastern terminus on Rue D’Estimauville, a change that had been imposed by the CAQ government; the initial route the city proposed in 2018 when the plan was first unveiled included the Charlesbourg line.

The new line would run for 28 kilometres, compared to the 19 km of the D’Estimauville version.

Under the Caisse plan, the D’Estimauville extension would be built in Phase 2, and a line from Charlesbourg to the Lebourgneuf sector in the northwest in Phase 3. A spur to Jean Lesage International Airport is also in the long-term plan.

Supplementing the tramway would be two rapid bus (SRB) networks running on dedicated lanes serving suburban areas, as well as the downtown core of Lévis. The Quebec City SRB line would run along Boul. Charest, connecting to the tramway in Saint-Roch in the east and Boul. René-Lévesque in the west.

In Lévis, the SRB line would pass along Boul. Guillaume-Couture to the Desjardins complex, connecting in the west with the Sainte-Foy transit hub after crossing one of the two bridges.

Both SRB lines are included in the first phase of the project.

The Caisse plan hopes to trim the cost of the tramway and increase its “social acceptability” by several measures: reducing the size of the tram cars, making stations smaller, lowering the platform for the tram rails and using available battery technology to reduce the amount of overhead electrical lines.

The CITE plan, according to the CDPQ Infra release, “proposes new, interconnected transit solutions that will offer high service frequencies, with extended timetables, increased comfort and reliability and significant time savings, reducing travel time by up to half in some areas.”

The report says the plan “has the potential to significantly increase ridership on the [metropolitan Quebec City] public transit system, adding at least 40,000 people a day. This represents a minimum increase in public transit ridership of 30 per cent, generating a further reduction in GHG emissions.”

As for a “third link” between Quebec City and Lévis, the Caisse recom- mends a seven-km tunnel dedicated exclusively to a tramway line be built between the downtowns of the two cities, “in time and in accordance with demographic and densification conditions.”

The report, after studying six possible crossing sites, concluded “the traffic flow on any of the corridors studied would be relatively low, as would the reduction in the number of vehicles on existing bridges. The addition of an intercity road would move congestion points deeper into the Quebec City road network, forcing a reconfiguration of these corridors. As a result, the marginal gains in mobility for the [greater Quebec City metropolitan area] cannot, on their own, justify the construction of a new intercity road.”

The $15.5-billion estimated cost includes $7 billion for the tramway, $4.5 billion for SRB and express bus lanes, and, should it proceed, $4 billion for the tramway tunnel.

The city’s budget for the tramway line, updated in November, had been $8.4 billion.

COMMENTARY: Champlain’s Dream: How to celebrate the triumph of a colonizer?

Peter Black

peterblack@qctonline.com

For all that historians know about Samuel de Champlain – which is a considerable amount – none has been able to answer a basic question about the man: What did he look like?

The only verified real-life image of the founder of Quebec is in a scene he sketched himself for one of his voyage logs, depicting a  battle with the Iroquois in 1607 at Lake Champlain.

In the drawing, the man, confirmed to be Champlain by his contemporaries, is shown firing an arquebus at a flank of Iroquois fighters who are firing arrows back.

The image being less than an inch high, Champlain’s features are indistinct, but he is definitely sporting a beard, and, according to historian David Hackett Fischer, author of the magisterial and definitive biography Champlain’s Dream, he is the very picture of an officer of high standing.

Now, were there to be a decent and accurate portrait of Champlain, it should by rights accord him a Mona Lisa smile. There was no certainty the tiny but bustling colony he left behind when he died on Christmas Day, 1635, would endure. It is safe to say that never in his wildest dreams might he have imagined what La Nouvelle-France would become.

With la Fête Nationale in the air, it’s as good a time as any to reflect on Champlain’s geopolitical miracle.

What often gets lost in the endless political jousting over Quebec’s place in Canada is how stunningly remarkable it is that a place so stubbornly and proudly French-speaking has survived and thrived since Champlain planted the first tiny, delicate seed some 416 years ago.

At any one of several inflection points in the early years, the French presence in the upper right corner of North America could have been snuffed out with relative ease, given the inconsequential size of the population, the fragility of its settlements and the relative might of its neighbours.

Indeed, when Champlain returned to Quebec from France in 1633 – the 27th and last of his trans-Atlantic trips – he didn’t know what to expect. He had fled the colony four years earlier when the British naval guns-for-hire, the Kirke Brothers, captured it during one of those endless wars between England and France.

The British returned the North American territory to France in 1632 in exchange for the French king paying the dowry of English King Charles I’s wife.

Champlain found the English gone but Quebec in ruins. There was only one family of French settlers – the famously prolific Hébert-Rolland couple – still working the land. He set to work rebuilding the settlement.

Some 130 years later, the British again captured Quebec City in September 1759 (and Montreal a year later). As it turned out, the Brits, in their conniving cleverness, granted the Canadiens the right to keep their language, religion and culture under the Quebec Act of 1774, largely as a buffer against the rebellious American colonists.

Fast forward through various threats to French Canada’s existence, from the Durham Report to the Confederation debates to the crushing domination of Quebec’s economy and society by English-speaking business barons, to, let’s say, waves of non-French-speaking immigration.

Yet, here we are with a province – OK, nation – where nearly all the 8.5 million inhabitants speak French – old stock and newcomers alike. Face it, Champlain would be amazed.

Still, though, Champlain, for all his glory, was a colonizer. That’s what he did.

Champlain, the colonizer, is now in the sites of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, which announced earlier this year it is reviewing the inscriptions on dozens of monuments in honour of the Father of New France.

As laudable or laughable as this may sound, it does pose an existential question: When Quebec celebrates the triumph of French in North America, are they not celebrating at the same time the subjugation and near eradication of Indigenous people?

Champlain, apart from occasional battles with the Iroquois, was known for his respectful and friendly relations with the original inhabitants; indeed, he spoke Indigenous languages, and his wife adopted three Native kids.

Champlain had as little insight into the future of Indigenous people in North America as he did his little French colony.

His dream, safe to say, did not include the nightmarish woe that was eventually visited upon the original nations of North America, and surely he would never have wished for that.

TRAM TRACKER

Marchand embraces Caisse transit report: ‘It’s time to act’

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Scarcely containing his relief and satisfaction, Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand declared, “The time for hesitation is over; the time of division too; the time to take action is now.”

Marchand was responding to the Caisse de dêpot et placement du Québec Infra (CDPQ Infra) report giving a resounding thumbs-up to the essentials of the tramway project he has been piloting since his election in 2021, which was in the works for many years previously under former mayor Régis Labeaume.

The day before the June 12 release of CDPQ Infra’s much-anticipated Plan CITE (Circuit integré de transport express), the mayor was briefed on the massive report, which contained the conclusions of CDPQ Infra experts who examined some 1,000 studies and heard from 179 interested parties.

The mayor rejected suggestions by reporters that the Caisse report is a personal victory for him, after the CAQ government had put the tramway project on hold in November and called on the Caisse to study transit needs in the greater Quebec region.

Asked by the QCT how he felt personally when he first opened the report and saw it endorsed the tramway, Marchand said, “I don’t give a damn. My only goal is to build a city and it’s not personal … you have to think about 500,000 people and not about you.”

Marchand said, “The city agrees entirely with the report” saying the Caisse recognized “the immense needs” of the region and “could not be more clear” in its call for a multi-faceted approach to addressing those needs. The mayor said he was particularly pleased to see the Plan CITE address service for residents in all corners of the city.

He said it doesn’t do any good to regret whatever time was lost in the tramway construction schedule while the Caisse undertook its study. He said construction could resume quickly because so much preparatory work had already been done by the tramway project office.

He also said he had no issue with CDPQ Infra taking charge of the project, and had spoken already with Caisse head Charles Émond.

In other reaction, Opposition and Québec d’abord leader Coun. Claude Villeneuve, whose party has long supported the tramway, said, “Let’s stop fooling around and let’s do it quickly,” saying it’s time to end the “dithering” that’s wasted time and money.

Villeneuve noted the tramway route to Charlesbourg the Caisse proposed is the same as that advanced by the Labeaume administration in 2018.

“With the project presented in 2018, in two years (2026), we could have had a functional tram at the price before the pandemic when it was still possible to eat at a restaurant for less than $20,” Villeneuve said.

Transition Québec Leader and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith said in a statement, “While I do not agree with the mayor’s decisions or way of doing things … [i]n this matter I will remain an ally and I invite everyone to leave partisanship and petty politics aside, in the name of the best interests of our fellow citizens. We have wasted enough time.”

Nora Loreto, founder of the Québec désire son Tramway group, said, “The report is a slam dunk. It’s everything we wanted and more.” She was particularly pleased about the Lebourgneuf tramway extension in Phase 3.

As a political move, Loreto said, “Frankly, I’m shocked the CAQ put it to the Caisse without having an idea what it was going to suggest. This is the worst news for the CAQ. The delays cost billions. They’re going to wear this going into the next election.”

Meanwhile, Quebec Conservative Party Leader Éric Duhaime is calling for a referendum on the choice of a tramway system for the region.

In a news release, he said, “The Legault government cannot move forward with the largest investment in the history of the Quebec City region without democratic legitimacy. If there were elections today, [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau, [Premier François] Legault and Marchand would lose power. All three of them are at the end of their regime and elections are planned for next year and the following year.”

JHSB job ‘such a great fit’ for Mélie de Champlain

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

(This is the second story in a two-part series. Part One appeared in the June 12 edition.)

One might call the circumstances that led Mélie de Champlain to become the new head of Jeffery Hale–Saint Brigid’s health and social services a bit ironic. The key factor was the COVID-19 pandemic.

De Champlain had decided to take a year off from her five-year stint as a top administrator with Vancouver Coastal Health on Vancouver Island. She and her husband decided to take a cross-Can- ada trip to her parents’ home in Matane. Along the way, they both contracted COVID.

During the two weeks they spent recuperating in Matane, she said she realized how much her parents missed her and how much she missed her parents and brother.

What’s more, she said, “I realized I was missing Quebec; I missed my culture. I had been immersed in English in British Columbia. A huge part of me was not being fulfilled.”

She reflected on her next career move on the trip back to the West Coast, and once back in Vancouver, she started checking out opportunities in her field in Quebec. She soon found herself on the phone with Jeffery Hale Community Partners head Richard Walling and senior health network official Patrick Duchesne.

“They were testing my English,” she joked. “But I told them, ‘I want to come.’”

De Champlain officially started the job as head of Jeffery Hale–Saint Brigid’s (JHSB) combined health services in December 2023. As it turned out, her case of COVID had brought her to the management of two facilities particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

Now that she’s been on the job for a year and a half, she’s gotten to know the English- speaking community she serves. “It’s a community that has a strong philanthropic history and has a strong sense of belonging and doesn’t want anybody left behind,” she said.

That means, she said, finding “creative ways to provide them with services, involving Jeffery Hale Partners and [Voice of English-speaking Québec]. That is really the strength of the anglophone community.”

Asked what challenges she identified once she settled into the job, de Champlain immediately mentioned recruitment of qualified staff, particularly bilingual staff allowing JHSB to meet its commitment to a level of service in French and English, especially at Saint Brigid’s.

She said some 30 care aides have been hired in recent months and considers that critical situation resolved for now. However, the challenge of finding bilingual nurses remains.

Another challenge has been finding space in the hospital to adapt to changing needs. She gives the example of a new clinic for latent tuberculosis cases and a unit for evaluating asylum seekers.

“We tried to be creative and optimize space and were able to create those two clinics,” she said.

Another big task on de Champlain’s plate is the longstanding project to build a new care home to replace Saint Brigid’s which no longer suits the needs of a clientele requiring, for the most part, heavy care.

At the instigation of Walling and JHSB board chair Bryan O’Gallagher, Quebec Infrastructure Minister and Minister for the capital region Jonatan Julien recently visited Saint Brigid’s to observe the conditions.

De Champlain said she is “optimistic” plans for a new facility will be put on the government’s priority list.

Now with a firm grasp on the demands of the job and declaring “it’s been such a great fit” for her, de Champlain said her message to the community is that “the services of the Jeffery Hale are continuously changing and transforming according to the needs of the population.

“We’ve got community services that are providing care for all, we’ve got the minor emergencies clinic, we’re renovating the medical imaging unit right now. We’ve got lab tests …, ” and on and on.

When she’s not tending to the health needs of the community, de Champlain, the mother of a young adult son and daughter, relishes walking around her adoptive city. “It’s like visiting five different neighbourhoods on the same walk.”

For the adventurous nurse from Matane, after a lifetime of working around the world and in Canada, it’s like she’s found home.

Mysteries of the eel revealed as extinction looms

When we first moved to Quebec City a while back, we noticed it was on a big river, and here and there along the big river, there were these long contraptions made of sticks and nets extending out into the water.

We eventually learned these seeming relics of bygone times were eel traps – weirs to be precise – and that eel fishing is not only still happening, it has played an important role in the survival of First Nations and later nations alike in the harsh land now known as Quebec.

Since that first sighting, we’ve come across more weirs along the St. Lawrence, for example, in the Kamouraska area and in Rivière-Ouelle, my wife’s ancestral turf, where the snake-like fish was the basis of the economy for generations.

There’s even one weir visible from the Pierre Laporte Bridge on the South Shore that seems to be pretty much intact.

We would not normally think that much about the eels of this land were it not for two things. First, we recently watched this oddball Irish comedy/mystery series called Bodkin. (Decent Tomatoes, if you’re wondering).

One of the plot lines (and there are perhaps too many) is the theft of a tanker truck loaded with baby eels destined for illegal markets. Interpol has an undercover operation underway in the Irish coastal village hoping to bust the eel-trafficking ring.

As one of the Bodkin series producers explained about weaving eel smuggling into the plot, “We knew early on that if a trailer full of eels didn’t explode, we would have failed.”

So, now we know eel trafficking is a thing in Ireland and all over Europe. It’s been called the new ivory of illegal markets, mostly in Asia.

Then, just last week, news broke about the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in Nova Scotia nabbing eel smugglers who had loaded a truck with dozens of styrofoam insulated boxes marked “perishable.”

According to DFO officials, the illicit cargo of eels – actually baby eels known as elvers – was worth some $250,000, and bound for Toronto for transport to black markets in the Far East.

Connecting the investigative dots here, the bust in Dartmouth happened to come two weeks after federal officials halted a plane at Pearson International Airport loaded with 109 kilograms of elvers worth up to $500,000.

The illegal trade in elvers – also known as glass eels because the tiny things are translucent – had become so intense, and sometimes violent, that DFO put a halt to the legal elver fishery this year.

DFO says it now has the situation under control, pending further thought about what to do about the future of eels in the Maritimes, Quebec and into the Great Lakes.

Here in Quebec, no incidents of illicit baby eel traffic have been reported, but surely related is the precipitous decline in mature eel populations. The reasons for this, according to research, are the presence of hydro dams on rivers along the St. Lawrence, overfishing, and of course, climate change.

Quebec fishery officials bought back eel-fishing licenses about 25 years ago; where once there had been hundreds, now there are just eight legal eel-fishing operations.

One of those eel fishers in Kamouraska said in a recent Radio-Canada story he netted about 900 eels last season; years ago, his grandparents harvested the same amount in just one tide.

It’s a sad fact about the eel that it’s becoming en- dangered around the world, especially in Europe, just as scientists are resolving eternal mysteries about the slithery fish.

Just two years ago, for example, researchers learned how eels breed, having known for years about the fish’s epic migration from North American and European rivers to the Sargasso Sea in the mid-Atlantic.

Turns out they breed like most other fish, with the female releasing eggs for papa eel to fertilize. Mom and Pop promptly die, and the kids in their zillions head off to the rivers of North America and Europe.

There, way too many of them are trapped and shipped to Asia to be grown and fattened as a $5,000-a-kilo delicacy.

If indeed the repulsive but magnificent eel is on its way to extinction, those fascinating nets on the banks of the Saint Lawrence will become wistful reminders of what was once a thriving livelihood and culture.

Around the world and from Matane to Quebec City for new JHSB boss

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

(This is Part One of a two-part feature)

Strange as it may seem, combating leprosy in the Amazon jungle, treating flood victims in Mozambique, helping desperate Syrian refugees in Greece and providing health services in the Far North were experiences that Mélie de Champlain says prepared her for her new job as head of Jeffery Hale -Saint Brigid’s care services.

De Champlain was hired in December 2023, and now that she’s settled into the job, she was happy to speak to the QCT about the extraordinary background that led her to Quebec City’s English-language health service hub and the challenges and opportunities the job presents.

The interview took place in de Champlain’s office on the second floor of the Jeffery Hale pavilion, adjacent to the hospital of the same name. 

De Champlain’s official title is director of Jeffery Hale – Saint Brigid’s grouped institution of the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux (CIUSSS) de la Capitale Nationale.

Her path to a job in the upper strata of the Quebec government health bureaucracy was an unorthodox one but somehow destined for an ambitious, care-driven and world-wise young woman from Matane in the Gaspé region. 

De Champlain said it was the influence of her father, the accountant at the Cégep de Matane, that opened her eyes to the world. “Dad was always talking to my brothers and sisters about the world. He’d always bring us newspapers and talk about the news of the world.” 

In the same vein, he insisted the children learn English. De Champlain said she spent summers at an English camp in Nova Scotia and joked her English has a Nova Scotia accent.

Upon graduation from the local Cégep’s nursing school, de Champlain’s first job was at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, an experience she describes as “a real bath in anglophone culture and international culture at the same time.”

She earned advanced degrees in nursing at Université de Montréal and Université Laval, getting her master’s specializing in heart disease and infectious diseases. 

She also did some volunteer work with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF – Doctors Without Borders) and attended a conference whose guest speaker was a humanitarian worker who had just returned from Angola. It was a fateful encounter.

The humanitarian was Vancouver native Michael Klobuchar; the two clicked, and in 1998 she headed off to join him in Brazil’s Amazon basin to work with a United Nations non-governmental agency combating leprosy.

Upon her return to Canada a year later, she found a public health job in another climatic extreme, in Puvirnituq, in Nunavik. After a few years working there, separated from Klobuchar, she decided to join him in working with MSF in hotspots around the world, including the war zone in Angola and epic flooding in Mozambique.

In 2001, pregnant with her first child, de Champlain and her husband returned to Canada, first to Vancouver, then moving to Toronto where she worked at the MSF office there. 

De Champlain then made the switch from globe-trotting humanitarian work to health care administration in regional Quebec, taking a job with the health network in Matane – where her second child was born – and then later in nearby Amqui in the Matapedia Valley. 

While in Amqui she completed a master’s degree in health management. She also discovered that “all this humanitarian work shaped me as a leader.”

The family then returned to Klobuchar’s home turf in B.C., where de Champlain, despite her doubts about getting a job in English, landed a major position with Vancouver Island emergency services.

“It was quite a leap,” she said, “being responsible for three major hospitals in Victoria and Nanaimo plus regional hospitals.”

In 2016, during the Syrian refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea, she used her Christmas vacation time to fly to Greece to join in the humanitarian effort. Inspired by another B.C. woman, she contacted an NGO on the ground, crowd-sourced the trip and raised more for the relief effort.

Upon her arrival she found herself managing health care for refugees arriving in boats. “I was working on the beach on the island of Lesbos. When families arrived we would triage them and treat hypothermia.” 

De Champlain said she has kept in touch with some of the refugees she cared for, and recently heard from one who had moved to Burlington, Ontario.

In 2018, de Champlain took a job with B.C. Coastal Health in Vancouver which lasted for five years – and then the COVID-19 pandemic struck. That set the stage for a fateful road trip that brought Mélie de Champlain to Quebec City and Jeffery Hale – Saint Brigid’s. 

That story next week.