Geneviève Guilbault

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

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’

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 »

Scroll to Top