Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com 

Quebec City’s transit authority says it “deplores” last week’s provincial budget for failing to provide adequate funding for more environmentally sustainable urban transport.

Coun. Maude Mercier Larouche, the city executive committee member who heads the Réseau de transport de la Capitale (RTC), issued a statement in the wake of the March 12 budget, denouncing “the absence of a stable, indexed financial framework consistent with the objectives of the government’s sustainable mobility policy.”

What Mercier Larouche was referring to obliquely was the modest increase in the budget “to improve mobility and electrify public transit.” The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government spending plan includes just $700 million on top of the $13.8 billion allocated over 10 years.

Despite the lack of a big spending increase on modernizing urban transit, Mayor Bruno Marchand remains confident the Quebec government is still committed to funding a major “structured” transit project, notably the tramway.

He told reporters after the budget speech in the National Assembly, “We were told that there was still capacity in the budget [for the tramway]. We will see what they are able to do. If there is no launch in the next year, the region has lost.”

The minister responsible for the capital region and for infrastructure, Jonatan Julien, said the CAQ government is still committed to a transit project for the Quebec City region. He told a parliamentary committee studying spending credits in the budget, “We have not abandoned this firm and clear desire to create a structuring network for the national capital. We believe in it ardently.”

Julien said the tramway project is still included in the government’s infrastructure plan and the financing is secured. 

Julien also told the committee that several “red flags” prompted the CAQ government to pause the tramway project in November and ask the Caisse de dëpot et placement infrastructure division to study the region’s transit needs and file a report by June.

The red flags included the “tripled” estimated cost of the project, from $3.3 billion to at least $10 billion, the lack of consensus on “social acceptability,” and the fact no company had submitted a bid for the major infrastructure contract.

In a related story, Liberal party critic for the capital region, Montreal-area MNA Marwah Rizqy, blamed Julien, a one-time right-hand man to former mayor Régis Labeaume, personally for the lack of major projects in the region. 

Addressing the minister at a National Assembly committee session on March 13, she said, “They [the CAQ government] made many promises, they talked a lot, but they delivered nothing. Honestly, for the capitale nationale, it’s embarrassing.” 

“He [Julien] is the problem,” she said.

While the city awaits the outcome of the deliberations of the Caisse, RTC head Mercier Larouche said the CAQ government is thwarting the long-term goals of the transit body as “a leading player in achieving the GHG [greenhouse gas] reduction targets of the Quebec government, particularly in Quebec City where the share of emissions linked to transport is higher than elsewhere in the province.”

Mercier Larouche said, “We must demonstrate ambition to maintain and improve our service offering.… Without a stable, indexed and recurring financial framework, we will eventually have to make difficult choices, which go against our mission which aims to facilitate the travel of thousands of people daily, throughout the territory.”

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Photo below  

RTC president Maude Mercier Larouche “deplores” the lack of funding for transit in the CAQ budget. 
Photo by Peter Black from QCT archives