Geneviève Guilbault

Anger at City Hall as CAQ nixes transit projects

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Anger at City Hall as CAQ nixes transit projects

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) govern- ment has quietly killed or postponed indefinitely at least four major traffic improvement projects in Quebec City, valued at some $2.5 billion.

The moves provoked a storm of reaction at City Hall and the National Assembly, with calls for Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault and Minister for the Capital Region Jonatan Julien to be held accountable.

The iced projects are the creation of reserved traffic lanes in the suburbs, a component of the overall tramway plan; the next phase of the reconfiguration of the “spaghetti” of access ramps to the Pierre-Laporte and Quebec bridges; the long-awaited overpass to relieve traffic congestion at the intersection of Boul. Lebourgneuf and Autoroute Robert-Bourassa; and the garage for the city’s new fleet of electric buses on Ave. Newton, which is already under construction.

In the wake of the revelations, Guilbault, claiming a communications error, said the Lebourgneuf overpass project would be reconsidered.

The cancellation of the reserved lanes first came to light when journalists took a close look at documents about infrastructure spending released as part of Finance Minister Eric Girard’s big-deficit budget on March 25.

The 104 kilometres worth of reserved bus lanes had been included in the CAQ government’s global plan for transit in the Quebec City region. At an estimated cost of some $850 million, the lanes would have been introduced on autoroutes Henri-IV, Robert- Bourassa, Laurentienne and Félix-Leclerc.

The Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC) reacted by way of a news release, saying it had not been informed of the change before the tabling of the budget.

The cancellation of the massive Newton garage project, under construction on the site of the former Simons distribution centre, caused the city to convene a news conference on April 3 to denounce the move, which the government said was due to the high cost, estimated at $647 million. Instead, the transport ministry is recommending a large shelter for the fleet of 180 electric buses the city was planning on acquiring.

Nicolas Girard, director general of the RTC, said, “It should be remembered that the Newton Centre project stems from the government’s decision to finance only the purchase of electric buses by public transit companies starting in 2025. In line with these government guidelines, the RTC is committed to carrying out this project, respecting all the required steps. The authorizations obtained to date have led us to spend several million, significant investments that have now been abandoned.”

According to the RTC, $94 million of the $146 million already approved for the project has been spent. Liberal MP Jean-Yves Duclos, speaking at an unrelated news conference April 4, said he wants to know what is happening to the $203 million Ottawa has committed to the Newton garage project. “In December 2024, the provincial government confirmed the federal grant to the RTC. We’re in a state of uncertainty.”

Mayor Bruno Marchand, who had not been officially informed of any of the CAQ government cuts to city projects, told reporters, “It’s been a hard week for Quebec City.”

The mayor said, “Planning a city, planning transportation and mobility can’t be done in the short term. You can’t plan for one month, two months, or three months. These are projects that take years to build, years to think about, design and then implement.”

Opposition and Québec d’abord Leader Claude Villeneuve said, “We talk to all the MNAs in the region, including the CAQ MNAs – and no one tells us the same thing. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

Transition Québec Leader and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith, calling the CAQ “une gang de colons” (a bunch of morons), said, “They take us for idiots. The CAQ doesn’t respect the intelligence of the people of Quebec.”

At the National Assembly, Parti Québécois MNA for Jean-Talon Pascal Paradis said, “What a pathetic week for transportation and sustain- able mobility in the Capitale- Nationale region.”

Liberal interim leader Marc Tanguay said at a National Assembly news briefing, “They’re out of money, so the garage has been shut down. François Legault, to the garage! The CAQ, to the garage; let’s put them in the garage.”

In various media reports, Guilbault defended the CAQ government’s actions, saying it had committed large amounts in the Quebec City region to such projects as the new bridge for Île d’Orléans and the pro- posed “third link,” a new bridge across the St. Lawrence River.

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Guilbault: 23 companies interested in third link project

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Guilbault: 23 companies interested in third link project

Peter Black

peterblack@qctonline.com

Calling it “excellent news,” Transport Minister and Louis- Hébert MNA Geneviève Guilbault announced last week that 23 companies have responded to the “international call for interest” in the proposed project to build a third link between Quebec City and Lévis.

The minister convened a news conference on Nov. 27 to make the announcement, less than seven weeks after she had issued the call on Oct. 11. Companies had 30 days to submit a proposal to take part in the process.

Guilbault said 29 companies had requested the required documentation to prepare a proposal, and 23 of those officially threw their hats in the ring.

“Twenty-three companies is a lot,” Guilbault said. “When we look at this type of call for interest procedure, we don’t do it systematically in all projects, we do it occasion- ally in major projects … Of all the times we’ve made calls for interest, this is the time when the most companies have shown interest.”

The transport ministry has engaged consultants KPMG to “organize interviews between interested companies and representatives of the ministry. The results of these meetings will then be analyzed independently,” according to a news release.

Guilbault said that with the application process, “We were ultimately testing two things: interest in a project and inter- est in doing this project in a collaborative mode with the Quebec government, and the response was more than positive. I must tell you, obviously, when we launch these types of procedures, we do not know in advance what the result will be.”

Guilbault rejected talk of adapting the Quebec Bridge, recently repatriated by the federal government, as an op- tion for heavy vehicle traffic. “[D]espite everything I hear from the federal government … about the Quebec Bridge, the reality is that it is not an option for trucking, and we need a third link to ensure the security of freight transporta- tion in particular.”

The minister said she would report back on the results of the vetting process “in early 2025.”

Of the 23 interested companies, Guilbault said 65 per cent are engineering firms, 30 per cent contractors and the rest management firms. Some 13 of the companies are identified on the government’s publicly accessible tender website, although Guilbault only named two, Ingerop, a British-French firm, and Construction Demathieu & Bard, whose head office is in Saint-Jérôme.

If all goes according to plan, Guilbault hopes to see a contract to build the link signed in 2027, construction start the next year, and the structure open in 2034-2035. No budget has been set for the project.

Guilbault: 23 companies interested in third link project Read More »

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

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TRAM TRACKER

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Four months after the Coalition Avenir Québec government announced its approval of the first phase of Quebec City’s tramway project, a deal is yet to be signed to restart construction.

The prolonged delay has the Quebec Liberal Party transport critic and MNA for Nelligan Monsef Derraji wondering whether the CAQ government is stalling in the hopes a Conservative federal government under Pierre Poilievre will kill the project if it comes to power in the coming months.

Derraji and other opposition members grilled Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault for two hours in the National Assembly on Sept. 27 on the tramway project.

In an interview with the QCT, Derraji said the problem for the CAQ government is “they have no money.” He said the government has been cutting programs and now Guilbault “said she’s waiting for money to come in from the federal government” for the tramway project.

He said Premier François Legault had called on the Bloc Québécois to support a Conservative non-confidence motion to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. The premier “wants as soon as possible an election on the federal level.”

Poilievre has said on several occasions “he would give nothing to the tramway project,” Derraji said. The way he sees it, Legault and Guilbault “are waiting for a federal election, and after that they will say we don’t have the money for this project.”

Derraji said Guilbault had promised in June to give a mandate to the Caisse de dépôt et placement infrastructure division (CDPQ Infra) to restart work on the first phase of the $5.1-billion project.

“Why is she waiting? Next year we’ll have Pierre Poilievre.” Derraji noted that while Poilievre opposes the tramway, he has said a Conservative federal government would help finance the CAQ’s plan for a “third link” bridge across the St. Lawrence River.

Besides Derraji, opposition MNAs Étienne Grandmont of Québec Solidaire — whose riding would be home to several tramway stations if the project goes ahead — and Joël Arseneau of the Parti Québécois questioned Guilbault.

For her part, Guilbault said sending a mandate letter to CDPQ Infra is not a simple matter. “They [the opposition] just talk about the letter, but I don’t know if they understand how it works, the preparation and design of a major project. There are several things happening at the same time.”

She said meetings have been taking place between government officials and CDPQ Infra since June, when the agency submitted a report the CAQ government had requested that recommended a sweep- ing urban transit project for Quebec City and Lévis, to be called Circuit intégré de transport express or Cité.

Guilbauilt said the project transition committee last met on Sept. 24. “It’s important for people to know that the project is moving forward,” the minister told the opposition members at the National Assembly session.

As for federal funding, Guilbault said there are “certain people in the current fed- eral Liberal government who claimed in the newspapers that they were on target. That’s their usual claim: ‘We’re on target.’ But what does that mean in real life? For me, a target is money … I negotiate with them, I make my requests and I wait for the cheque, and the cheque doesn’t arrive.”

Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal minister of public services and procurement and MP for Québec, denied Guilbault’s claim (see separate story).  

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays Read More »

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , ,

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Federal minister and Liberal Quebec lieutenant Jean-Yves Duclos has sharply refuted Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault’s claim Ottawa has yet to “send a cheque” to help finance Quebec City’s tramway project.

Duclos responded to Guilbault’s comments at a media scrum on Oct. 4 following a Quebec City announcement about loans for small busi- nesses. The minister had taken the swipe at the federal govern- ment a week earlier in front of a National Assembly session focused on the tramway project. “I wait for the cheque and the cheque doesn’t arrive,” Guilbault said, in the context of answering questions from opposition MNAs about the CAQ government’s delay in mandating the resumption of construction of the first phase of the tramway project, as promised in June.

Duclos told reporters the federal government has put “$1.5 billion and more in a bank account for the Quebec [City] region for the tramway.”

As for Guilbault’s comments, “I say this with respect, but sometimes I need to say things more clearly … I explained to her again last week what she should have understood a long time ago. I told her several times. I don’t know why it’s not getting through.”

Duclos, who recently took over as Liberal lieutenant for Quebec in the wake of Pablo Rodriguez’s decision to seek the Quebec Liberal Party leadership, said, “To claim that there is no money from the Canadian government is false, and I think everyone should admit that, including Ms. Guilbault. We have to stop diverting attention and going back over old issues that have been clarified for a long time.”

Duclos said when Guilbault sends the bill for the tramway, “we’ll send her a cheque.”

As for the threat of a future Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre, who has said he would not fund the tramway project, Duclos said the Conservative leader “wants to steal money from the tramway bank account of people in the Quebec City region. We can’t imagine that he would want to do that, but knowing Pierre Poilievre, it’s pure Pierre Poilievre.”

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’ Read More »

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