Quebec City – Page 2

Charlesbourg library to reopen after 10 months of renos

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / August 6, 2025 / librairies, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Charlesbourg library to reopen after 10 months of renos

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Paul-Aimé-Paiement Library in Charlesbourg will reopen on Aug. 10 after nearly a year of closure for extensive renovations, city officials announced at the end of July. The library closed in October 2024 for work including reconstruction of the foundation walls, restoration of brick walls, replacement and restoration of windows and rearrangement of the basement. The renovations cost the city a total of $9.2 million, city officials said in a statement.

The library will resume regular hours immediately after reopening: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. The book return chute, located near the main entrance, will be accessible at all times starting Aug. 4.

Work will continue on the site after the library reopens to the public, through fall of this year. Some services may be temporarily affected this fall, including access to the indoor restrooms and exhibition hall, as well as some parking spaces. Visitors can also expect occasional construction noise.

In other public library news, officials announced that the Étienne-Parent Library in Beauport would close on Aug. 11 for several months while workers replace its ventilation system. It is expected to reopen in March 2026. The Ville de Québec communications and citizen relations department said the renovations, with an estimated cost of $1.5 million, were essential to keeping the building operational. More extensive renovations, first announced in 2023, which would more than double the size of the library, are still under study as of this writing.

While the library is closed, city officials said measures will be put in place to ensure service continuity and minimize impacts on library users. A temporary collection point for returns and reservations will be put in place at the Centre Sportif Marc-Simoneau starting Aug. 18. The hours of the Chemin-Royal Library will also be extended starting Aug. 18, and the document chute will remain accessible at all times.

For more information on Quebec City libraries, visit your local library or the public library system’s website (bibliothequesdequebec.qc.ca).

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Interpreter service helps patients, health professionals overcome language barriers

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / August 6, 2025 / CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, language, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Interpreter service helps patients, health professionals overcome language barriers

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

If you speak limited French and you need help communicating with staff at a hospital or public clinic anywhere in the region, help is available. The Banque d’interprètes du réseau de la santé et des services sociaux (Health and Social Services Network interpreter bank) provides free interpretation at health facilities in more than 60 languages, including English. The CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale is trying to make the bank better known, after Santé Québec data suggested it was being underused by the English-speaking community.

Stéphanie Fiset, assistant establishment director at Jeffery Hale–Saint Brigid’s (JHSB), explained that when a communication issue arises at a hospital or clinic, a health professional can request an interpreter via an app. “There is still training to be done” to ensure all health professionals know how and when to use the bank, she said. However, the tools are in place, and facilities with a particularly large immigrant clientele, such as the Jeffery Hale refugee clinic, are used to using them.

Requests are made by a health professional on a secure online platform; they fill out a form explaining what the interpreter needs to do and whether they need to be present in person, over the phone or via videoconference. Although patients and caregivers can’t make a request themselves, they can ask the professional to make a request on their behalf.

Requests are made in advance of an appointment when possible, and about 70 per cent are in person. “We’re working on finding alternatives for situations [such as emergencies] when we can’t have an interpreter present quickly,” Fiset said. Strict requirements around data security mean AI and other technological tools need to be carefully considered before implementation. “We need to ensure that we use [technology] in the right way, at the right time and for the right reasons.”

In the past, Fiset added, health professionals didn’t necessarily ask for an interpreter when they came up against a language barrier, especially when the patient was English-speaking. “We say, ‘I listen to my shows in English. When I travel, I can get by in English, so I’m likely to be able to make myself understood. Or often, there will be someone with [the patient] who may be better at French, so we’ll rely on family. But we’re really trying to promote the use of [trained] interpreters.” She noted that an employee who’s comfortable doing basic intake in English may still need an interpreter to discuss complex health issues or informed consent with an English-speaking patient. “This is really what we’re working on, to help people better understand the circumstances in which to ask for an interpreter, and the importance of doing so as well.”

Directive brings clarity

In July 2024, the Quebec government issued a directive as part of the Bill 96 implementation process, laying out a list of situations where English and other languages could be used in health care. The directive alarmed advocates for access to services in English, who saw an attempt to restrict English in health care. A revised directive, published in September, clarified that a language other than French may be used whenever “the user or their representative requests it, expresses that they do not understand or do not seem to understand French, or according to the judgment of the [health professional].” It states that health professionals can communicate in English or another language with a patient or their representative if they’re able, or work with an interpretation service if they aren’t. It also clarifies when translated documents should be provided. If translations aren’t available, professionals need to find a way to provide the patient with the information in a language they understand.

JHSB establishment director Mélie De Champlain said the new directive “is actually a big help.

“It clarifies things, it gives us tools to get where we’re going and [see] how we can support people who want to have access to care in the language of their choice,” she said. “We are working much more on promot- ing it so that people know how they can access services in the language of their choice.”

“We always want users to communicate their needs. If you have a need [for an interpreter or for translated written information], communicate that to the professional working with you,” Fiset said.

Interpreter service helps patients, health professionals overcome language barriers Read More »

Critics say city neglect degrading Jardin Jean-Paul L’Allier

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 29, 2025 / Peter Black, Quebec City, Saint-Roch

Critics say city neglect degrading Jardin Jean-Paul L’Allier

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Pressure is mounting on the administration of Mayor Bruno Marchand to act immediately to address the serious deterioration of Jardin Jean-Paul L’Allier in Saint-Roch.

A report in Le Soleil last week on the state of the public garden sparked a torrent of criticism and accusations the park’s decline is a symptom of the neglect of the Saint-Roch district by city hall.

Named in 2017 for the late former mayor who led the effort to revitalize the Saint- Roch district, the park is in decrepit condition 30 years after it was opened.

The waterfall no longer works, nor the fountains in the pool; graffiti marks most surfaces; gardens and lawns are badly maintained and lighting is inadequate in the area.

The decline of the park has been a festering issue for the Saint-Roch neighbourhood council. President Thomas Brady told the QCT the topic has come up several times at meetings in recent months. He said Pierre-Luc Lachance, the city councillor for Saint-Roch–Saint-Sauveur and executive committee member, was in attendance at meetings when the state of the garden was discussed.

“We are aware of the concerns about the park. Its condition does not create a sense of welcome. The occasional problems here and there, the cohabitation issues and consumer waste make people less inclined to go there,” he said.

Brady said the council would be meeting after the summer break to come up with a formal request to the city to take action.

The QCT requested a response from the city and received this reply from Cédrik Verreault, a spokesperson for the mayor: “There’s no doubt the Jardin Jean-Paul L’Allier is a central, even emblematic, location in Saint-Roch. However, after more than 30 years, some of its infrastructure, such as the fountain, needs to be replaced. And it’s only right to co-ordinate this work with the other major investments planned in the area, which will, among other things, help restore the garden to its former splendour.

“In the meantime, we are already working with the neighbourhood council, organizations and merchants to develop a broader vision for beautifying and revitalizing our city centre. We will announce the prioritized actions in the fall.”

The “other major investments planned in the area” is a reference to the tramway project. Jardin Jean-Paul L’Allier is slated to be a major station on the tramway route, the point where the train would enter a tunnel to climb to Upper Town.

The garden, formerly called Jardin Saint-Roch, is considered a symbol of L’Allier’s efforts during his 16 years as mayor to revitalize what had become a rundown neighbourhood, featuring a block-long mall that covered some distinctive architecture.

Le Soleil contacted L’Allier’s widow, Johanne Mongeau, for her reaction to the decline of the garden. “It’s an honour that the city has given him by naming it after him, and now it’s almost a pity. It’s embarrassing to say that it bears his name. Jean-Paul doesn’t deserve this,” she told the newspaper. “It’s a respect that we owe him, and for now, we can’t say that it lives up to the respect he deserves.”

Opposition and Québec d’Abord Leader Claude Villeneuve convened a press conference at the park on July 23. He said, “The state of the garden is a symbol of the Marchand administration’s abandonment of Saint-Roch.” Villeneuve said the tramway work is still years away, so the city should act now. “I’m calling for mobilization. I want the city to do its job. I call on the administration; if the mayor isn’t interested in this part of the city, let the administration take care of it.”

Another of Marchand’s mayoral rivals, Leadership Québec chief and former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister Sam Hamad, issued a statement saying: “What I see today in the Jean-Paul-L’Allier garden is a symbol of abandonment. The heart of Saint-Roch is beating slowly, and the March- and administration is looking the other way. When such an emblematic place for our city deteriorates to this extent, it is more than just a lack of maintenance: it is a clear signal that the city has lost sight of what makes our neighbourhoods so rich.”

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‘Huge potential’ in commuter rail link from QC to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré: Blair

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 29, 2025 / Charlevoix, David Blair, Peter Black, Quebec City, rail service

‘Huge potential’ in commuter rail link from QC to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré: Blair

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Only a few months after getting the financially troubled Chemin de fer Charlevoix (CFC) tourist train back on the rails, company president and transportation lawyer David Blair is working on a plan to bring commuter train service to the east of the city using the same tracks.

“The tracks are already there,” Blair told the QCT. “Tomorrow morning we could run a train from [the] Gare du Palais to Sainte-Anne de Beaupré. It wouldn’t go very fast, but the rail infrastructure is there.”

The main shareholder of CFC, Groupe Le Massif, the owners of the ski resort in Charlevoix, also owns the 150-kilometre-long right of way from Quebec City to Clermont along the Saint Lawrence River, what Blair describes as “one of the most beautiful railway lines in North America.”

The key to the plan, Blair said, is to upgrade the track to be able to increase the speed of the train from the current 30 km/h to 60 km/h, making it much more attractive to potential commuter traffic.

Blair said he has already met and had positive responses from potential players in such a project, including Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault, Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand, VIA Rail, and officials from Canadian National (CN) which controls the tracks entering the Gare du Palais.

Another key player, Blair said, could be the Commission de la Capitale Nationale du Québec (CCNQ) which recently unveiled ambitious plans for Phase 4 of the Promenade Samuel-De Champlain waterfront redevelopment in the Beauport area. “It would be a perfect time to be part of that,” Blair said.

He also sees an interconnection between the commuter train and the eventual Phase 2 of the tramway project which foresees a line to D’Estimauville.

At the moment, CFC uses only the section of the tracks from a station for the tourist train at Montmorency Falls with stops at Sainte-Anne-de- Beaupré, Petite-Rivière-Saint- François, Baie Saint-Paul, Les Éboulements, Saint-Irénée and La Malbaie.

Blair said some 90,000 passengers took the tourist train last year, but the attraction ran into financial problems and there was a serious risk the train would not operate this season. A partnership with tourism company Groupe Voyages Québec, which took over management of train packages, allowed the excursion to start up operations again in June.

Blair said. “Everyone thinks it’s a good idea,” but the project, which he acknowledges is “an embryonic idea,” needs financing and partners. He said the plan would need “some kind of equivalent” to the Exo public transit operator in Montreal, which manages commuter trains and bus routes.

A city spokesperson said, “We have indeed had constructive discussions with the developer. We remain open to studying projects that help combat congestion in the greater Quebec City area.” Another key partner, Blair said, could be the Quebec ministry of transport which has “invested heavily to upgrade infrastructure” on the railways it owns, notably the Gaspé line and the former Quebec Central Railway line from Lévis to Thetford Mines (see article in this edition). Blair said the commuter train project, as preliminary as it is, would be but the first of other possible uses for an upgraded line. “If we get the speed up, all of a sudden taking a train from downtown Quebec to the ski hill would be a different perspective.”

He said, “The guy from VIA Rail was so excited” when discussing possibilities for new rail ventures. “This is fantastic. You could get off the train from Montreal, cross the platform and get on the train for Charlevoix.”

Blair said, “In order for the tracks to be viable, we really need to find other uses for them. There’s potential there, huge potential.”

Blair said he hopes to meet again with CN Rail in the coming weeks to discuss how to move forward with the plan.

‘Huge potential’ in commuter rail link from QC to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré: Blair Read More »

Arts Alive! Québec to bring festive vibes to Morrin Centre

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 29, 2025 / canadian heritage, Morrin Centre, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Arts Alive! Québec to bring festive vibes to Morrin Centre

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

On Aug. 15 and 16, the courtyard of the Morrin Centre will come alive for Arts Alive!, the library and cultural centre’s annual celebration of local English-language arts and culture. The 11th edition of the festival will have a “heroes” theme, to fit in with the Morrin Centre’s ongoing summer Book Quest activities for grade school children.

Cultural programming co- ordinator Noora Heiskanen explained that the theme was chosen because it was inspiring and cut across different genres of children’s literature. “There is so much variety and diversity … and you can be a hero in so many different ways.” Heiskanen said a series of fun games and challenges would be organized for kids and adults, and participants would be able to take pictures of themselves atop the “hero podium.”

On the afternoon of Aug. 15, the festivities will open with a multidisciplinary art installation in College Hall in partnership with the UNESCO City of Literature network, where participants will be able to listen to and interact with recorded poetry and write some of their own. That evening, the Marie Desneiges duo (traditional Québécois accordion and fiddle melodies with a dash of classical and blues) and local bluegrass, ragtime and jazz manouche icon Bosko Baker will perform from 6 to 8 p.m., while local visual artist Elbé (Laurence Bélanger) creates a painting inspired by the music, in front of the audience.

The second day of the festival will feature a special edition of storytime for children aged three to seven, a body percus- sion and gumboot (South African clogging) performance for all ages and live music by the festive bands Fanfaronetta and Vent du Sud, who will fill Vieux- Québec with their Balkan- and Latin-inspired rhythms in a street fair atmosphere. There will also be performing arts workshops, including a theatre workshop led by Michael Bourguignon of the Quebec Art Company, Heiskanen said. The traditional artisan fair will also return to the Chaussée des Écossais, with several local artists and craftspeople – including visual artists, ceramicists and a weaver of traditional sashes – on hand to present, share and sell their art. “There’s something for everybody, there really is, no matter your age or background,” Heiskanen said.

The festival began more than a decade ago as one of several similar events around the province, organized by the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) to highlight locally produced English-language arts and culture in Quebec City, the Outaouais, the Eastern Townships and the greater Montreal area. When the ELAN program ended, the Morrin Centre “repatriated” the Quebec City festival and now organizes Arts Alive! annually with support from the federal government and corporate sponsors including Desjardins and Quebecor. Putting a new spin on the festival, which began as a celebration of local anglophone arts and culture, festival organizers are counting on the universal language of instrumental music to celebrate local English-language creativity while creating connections between anglophone and francophone communities, locals and tourists and people from different parts of the city. “I’m already dreaming of seeing everybody dancing and mov- ing around with the marching band!” Heiskanen enthused.

All events at the Arts Alive! festival are free. In the event of rain, concerts, workshops and the artisans’ fair will be moved inside the Morrin Centre. Reservations are not required. The library will remain open during the festival, and guided tours will be ongoing at the usual price. Heiskanen cautioned that parking in the Old City may be a challenge.

Arts Alive! Québec to bring festive vibes to Morrin Centre Read More »

American preacher-singer moves concert to Montreal after Quebec City pulls permit

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 29, 2025 / freedom of expression, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka, Sean Feucht, secularism

American preacher-singer moves concert to Montreal after Quebec City pulls permit

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

An American singer and preacher known for inflammatory statements against abortion, gay and transgender rights, pandemic-era public health restrictions and the principle of separation of church and state was unable to perform at ExpoCité last week after the Ville de Québec revoked a permit for the performance over hate speech concerns.

Sean Feucht, who rose to prominence in American evangelical circles in 2020 by holding crowded revivals in open defiance of COVID-19 restrictions, was supposed to hold a free outdoor event at ExpoCité on July 25 as part of a wider Canadian tour. However, the city pulled the plug two days beforehand.

“The presence of a controversial artist was not mentioned in the contract between ExpoCité and the promoter of the concert scheduled for its site this Friday. With the new information brought to its attention, ExpoCité has decided to terminate the contract and therefore the holding of the event on its site,” the city said in a brief statement.

A city official said the permit was granted to a third-party promoter who paid and signed a rental agreement to use the space, as is standard practice. They added that Feucht was not named on the rental agreement, and the city was initially unaware of who Feucht was. They said they were not in a position to comment further because the issue could end up in court. Similar concert-revivals which Feucht planned to hold on public property in Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton and Vaughan, Ont., were also cancelled or moved to friendlier venues – often evangelical churches – after local officials pulled permits.

After the ExpoCité cancellation, Feucht moved the concert to an evangelical church in Montreal. The City of Montreal slapped the church, Église MR, with a $2,500 fine for hosting an unauthorized show. In a brief exchange with a Radio-Canada reporter, Feucht said he considered the event a church service rather than a concert, “and I don’t think you need a permit to worship inside a church.”

Feucht, a vocal supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, has referred to members of the LGBTQ+ community and those who advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion and visibility as “groomers,” compared people who are in favour of access to abortion to “demons” and spoken out against state secularism, call- ing for the fusion of church and state.

“ExpoCité is a place where neighbourhood families gather; it’s an open space where a beautiful diversity of citizens come together to enjoy themselves in the park. Hate speech and intolerance have no place here,” said Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith, whose riding includes ExpoCité. “The city should not make its spaces available to propaganda groups that insult our communities and seek to divide us based on our identities. We don’t want this hatred in our neighbourhoods.”

In a later interview, she acknowledged that deciding who can and cannot perform on public land according to their ideology is “an incredibly slippery slope,” but said it was important for public officials to take a stand against hate speech. “You don’t want to be accused of censorship or cancel culture, but at the same time, you want to create a public space that’s safe for everybody, so you need to make choices. Do we want to open up publicly funded spaces to allow people who are encouraging the violation of other people’s human rights?”

“As elected officials, we’re not allowed to use public spaces for partisan political activities,” she added. “This guy [Feucht] has a political message that I would describe as hateful, so the same rules need to apply to him and others like him.”

The Régroupement des femmes de la Capitale-Nationale, a feminist group that had been among the first to criticize plans for a Feucht concert on city land, said they were “not against freedom of expression” but believed the city had “made the right decision” by following in the footsteps of other Canadian cities and revoking the permit. “We invite [cities] to show more vigilance in the future.”

In a Facebook post on July 28, Feucht said he had returned to the U.S., and listed dates for events in several U.S. cities from Aug. 8-17. “Then back to Canada,” he wrote, using a Canadian flag emoji.

American preacher-singer moves concert to Montreal after Quebec City pulls permit Read More »

Quebec City, Lévis in cleanup mode after flooding

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 23, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, climate, extreme weather, Lévis, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Quebec City, Lévis in cleanup mode after flooding

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Photos by Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

Residents and business owners around the region are still in cleanup mode after close to 100 millimetres of rain fell in some areas of Quebec City and Lévis on July 17 and 18.

Environment Canada meteorologist Steven Flisfeder described the weather event as a succession of slow-moving summer storms which slammed parts of the city over the course of several hours. “Every storm is different. A run-of-the-mill summer storm would have a downpour over the course of 30 to 60 minutes, and then it would be over, but here we ran into a situation where it’s one after the other,” he told the QCT. The Lévis suburb of Charny received 93 millimetres of rain in a single day, and 87 millimetres were measured in Sainte-Foy.

The hardest-hit area was along Chemin du Foulon, in Sillery, where about 20 people were forced to evacuate, and placed in temporary housing by the Red Cross. Allison McCan, who lives in the neighbourhood, told Radio-Canada she and her neighbours were “in the muck as far as it goes.” Along Rue Champlain, near Cap-Blanc, more than 100 people had to temporarily leave their homes due to water infiltration. By Friday afternoon, all evacuees were able to return to their homes.

Chemin du Foulon was closed between Côte de Sillery and Côte à Gignac until Friday. Avenue Belvedère remained closed from Chemin Sainte-Foy to Côte de la Pente-Douce as of press time on Monday; police are asking cyclists who normally use the Belvedère bike path to detour via Ave. Chouinard. The Escalier du Cap-Blanc, threatened by erosion, remains closed until further notice. Much of the region was without power at the height of the storm, although power has since been fully restored, according to the Hydro-Québec outage tracker.

The city did not hold a press briefing on the storm or its aftermath, but released several statements over the course of the storm. City spokesperson François Moisan said a crisis response unit had been put in place with representatives from the city and emergency services, and plans were made to house evacuees in community centres – plans that ultimately weren’t necessary.

“As soon as the crisis unit was activated, all municipal departments involved swung into action to limit the impact on the population and provide assistance to affected residents and businesses,” said Mayor Bruno Marchand in a state- ment. “I would obviously like to thank the city’s teams for their remarkable work. I am thinking, among others, of the firefighters, police officers and municipal employees, particularly those from the Bureau de la sécurité civile, des transports et des travaux publics, who were deployed to the field at full speed and who were already working late yesterday to clear and clean the streets where traffic had to be restricted. Our priority in the coming days remains supporting citizens and restoring damaged streets and infrastructure.”

“As soon as the first alerts were received, we activated our public safety plan. Our teams were dispatched to ensure the safety of citizens and limit the impacts. We have the resources and teams necessary to respond to this type of situation and adjust quickly,” said Jean-Sébastien Gagnon, public safety co-ordinator at the Ville de Lévis.

Small businesses in Vieux-Québec were still in cleanup mode as the QCT went to press Monday evening. “The flooding had a significant impact on many businesses in Old Quebec. Businesses with basements and semi-basements experienced significant water accumulation. Some streets experience chronic sewer backups during heavy rainfall, particularly on Saint-Louis Street, where significant damage occurred,” said Xavier Bernier-Prévost, director general of the SDC Vieux-Québec, the area’s small business owners’ association.

A memorable downpour

Several longtime city residents told the QCT they couldn’t remember a downpour as heavy as the one on Thursday in such a short period, at least not in downtown Quebec City. “We’ve had heavy rainstorms before – the one that comes to mind right away was in 2004 when the Lorette River overflowed – but rain this heavy in this short a time, I personally have not seen anything like that in Upper Town,” said Moisan, who has worked for the city for more than 30 years.

Marchand, in a later statement on his personal Facebook page, said the experience showed the importance of investing to improve climate resilience. “As we can see, extreme weather conditions are increasing, intensifying, and changing with each season. We don’t know where they will strike next, but we must be prepared. This is why we have set up a financial reserve to adapt our infrastructure, and also why all of Quebec’s cities are calling for increased funding from the governments of Quebec and Canada to make our infrastructure more resilient to climate hazards,” he wrote. “With the right investments and technologies, we can at least mitigate the effects on citizens – and the associated costs.”

Quebec City, Lévis in cleanup mode after flooding Read More »

Guilbault gets $275 million to make third link bridge-tunnel irreversible

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 23, 2025 / Geneviève Guilbault, Lévis, Peter Black, Quebec City, third link

Guilbault gets $275 million to make third link bridge-tunnel irreversible

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault has said on several occasions her goal is to make the “third link” project ir- reversible.

With an election slated for October next year that polls suggest may oust the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, the window is closing for Guilbault to push the bridge- tunnel plan past the point of no return.

Last week, according to several media reports confirmed by Guilbault’s office, the CAQ cabinet approved $275 million in funding to allow the minister to move forward on the project, one the government has revised, cancelled and then revived again, arguing that a third bridge is necessary for economic and security reasons.

A spokesperson for the minister said the money accorded Guilbault was already in the 2019 infrastructure budget and not “new money.”

In June, Guilbault announced the government’s recommended route for the proposed link, a bridge from Autoroute 40 in Lévis to be connected to a tunnel to be bored somewhere in the Cap Diamant area on the North Shore and exiting to connect with either Boul. Pierre-Bertrand or Autoroute Robert-Bourassa.

At the time of her announce- ment of the route, Guilbault said, “In my mind, I want to make the project irreversible before the next election, and therefore protect it from the outcome of the next election.

“We’re no longer in the ‘for or against’ debate about the third link. We need to create a third link, and I’m working on how to complete it as quickly as possible. We’re going to create the best project at the best price.”

Guilbault said she will reveal more details on the route and the projected cost sometime in the fall. A recent Radio-Canada report cited experts who have pegged the cost of building the third link at between $5.3 and $9.3 billion, not including many associated costs.

The federal government has distanced itself from the project and possible financ- ing. Minister of Government Services and Procurement Joël Lightbound, the MP for Louis-Hébert, said at the time of Guilbault’s route announcement, “The federal government’s position doesn’t really change, because there isn’t a project that has really been put forward.”

In the past, the federal Liberals have said a third link project that gave priority to car and truck traffic as opposed to public transit would not be eligible for funding.

The quarter-billion dollars accorded Guilbault for the third link raised the ire of the Opposition Quebec Liberal Party. In a statement to the QCT, Monsef Derraji, critic for transport, said, “At a time when Quebec is facing serious financial challenges, it’s hard to justify allocating $275 million to a third-link project that lacks a clear route, timeline, or solid scientific backing.”

He said, “While the CAQ government is making cuts to health and education, it is pouring hundreds of millions into a project with no proven necessity. This isn’t just poor planning – it’s a matter of misplaced priorities.”

Radio-Canada also uncovered concrete evidence the third link project is advancing on the ground. It reported geotechnical drilling to determine the quality and composition of the ground is to be done on some 50 sites on both the south and north shores, as well as in the St. Lawrence River itself. The work started in early July and is expected to be completed in September.

The $46-million contract for the work was awarded in February to a consortium comprising French, American and Canadian engineering firms.

Guilbault gets $275 million to make third link bridge-tunnel irreversible Read More »

City bike rentals soar during Festival d’été

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 23, 2025 / active transportation, àVélo, bike rentals, Festival d'été de Québec, Peter Black, Quebec City, Réseau de transport de la Capitale

City bike rentals soar during Festival d’été

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Although it was obvious to anyone who observed the packed bike lanes during the Festival d’été de Québec, the data now proves the city’s àVélo bike rental service was a huge success – perhaps too much so.

The Réseau de transport de la Capitale (RTC), which man- ages the service through its Capitale Mobilité subsidiary, reported last week that users of the àVélo service took some 160,415 trips during the 11-day festival, an increase of 56 per cent over last year.

The biggest single evening for àVélo use was July 8, which featured the French rap duo Bigflo et Oli on the Plains of Abraham, with more than 19,000 trips.

Officials said part of the huge increase was due to the strike by RTC maintenance workers that deprived the city of bus service for 10 of the 11 days of the festival. Another factor was the major expansion of the bike fleet as well as the growing popularity of àVélo.

Coun. Maude Mercier Larouche, the city executive committee member who serves as RTC president, said at a July 15 news conference that the “exceptional context” of the bus strike “caused significant challenges for many customers. Under these circumstances, àVélo has represented a valuable mobility solution for thousands of citizens, who have adopted it in record numbers.” With the surge of 160,000 FEQ rides, the total so far for the àVélo season that began in May is 815,000.

Mayor Bruno Marchand, an avid àVélo user himself, said, “Exceptional circumstances or not, citizens’ appetite for àVélo is undeniable. We are convinced that the service will continue to be adopted by an ever-increasing number of people. That is why we remain committed to improving the àVélo offering throughout the territory, as we have done every year since its launch.”

Besides the huge spike in àVélo usage, city officials also tracked a major increase in traffic of personal bicycles on established bike paths, notably on Chemin Sainte-Foy, known as the VivaCité corridor.

On July 8 alone, according to city information, 4,300 bikes used the path, with a total of 32,000 over the course of the festival. The temporary bike lanes on Grande Allée drew more than 34,000 users during FEQ, more than double the traffic of the previous year.

The city plans to expand its fleet of àVélo bikes from the current 1,800 to 3,300 by 2028, and double the number of stations from 165 to 330.

City bike rentals soar during Festival d’été Read More »

City draws on colonial history for road safety campaign

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 23, 2025 / language, Peter Black, Quebec City, road safety

City draws on colonial history in road safety campaign

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Ville de Québec is using a catchy, if not controversial, theme in its newly unveiled street safety awareness campaign.

With the slogan Être colon sur la route, c’est dépassé!, the city launched the campaign on July 16 in Place de Paris in the Old City. The slogan plays on an amusing pair of homonyms in Quebec French. The word colon literally means “colonist” and refers to the first French settlers in New France, many of whom were poorly educated soldiers and indentured servants. In local parlance, a colon is an ill-mannered, unsophisticated, classless or ignorant person; the word can also be an adjective referring to ignorant, rude or sloppy behaviour – for example, “C’est colon de laisser tes déchets par terre.” (“It’s ignorant to leave your trash on the ground.”) The city’s slogan translates more or less to “Acting ignorant on the road is a thing of the past.”

In a release, the city said, “While the message is irreverent and striking, it also sends a clear message to the public: risky behaviour on the road no longer has a place.”

Actors in period costumes were on site to unveil the series of slogans to be “visible on various digital platforms, billboards, and radio to ensure broad reach to as many road users as possible.”

The campaign is to run from July 21 to mid-September.

City draws on colonial history for road safety campaign Read More »

Royal Canadian Naval Reserve welcomes new commandant

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 23, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, Naval reserves, Quebec City, Royal Canadian Navy

Royal Canadian Naval Reserve welcomes new commandant

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

Under a bright blue sky at Quay 22 on July 19, the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve gave a final salute to its outgoing commandant Patrick Montgomery and welcomed the newly appointed Commodore Beth Vallis. Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), presided over the Change of Command ceremony, which included a parade of Naval Reservists and band.

The Change of Command ceremony marks the transfer of leadership and management of the Naval Reserve. Naval reservists are civilians who work in various fields outside the military while having a military career through part-time service. They generally serve evenings, weekends and during the summer. The Naval Reserve includes 24 units, called divisions, from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Six of them are located in the province of Quebec.

Montgomery began his naval career in 1986 when he enrolled in the Naval Reserve. He has had a fruitful naval career, which included commanding the Maritime Coastal Defence vessels HMCS Edmonton (2008- 2010) and HMCS Saskatoon (2010-2012). As a civilian, he holds a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Alberta and teaches mathematics at Camosun College in Victoria, B.C. When he is not researching gravity currents or working for the Navy, he plays the tuba for the Greater Victoria Concert Band. In his retirement, he plans to continue to teach and do research.

“Commodore Montgomery, on behalf of the formation, the Navy, and all those you have served with such dedication, I extend our heartfelt thanks for your vision, commitment and exceptional service,” said Topshee. “You leave this command with honour, having strengthened the Naval Reserve for the future, and can approach your next chapter with confidence. Commodore Vallis, as you take command today, you do so with full authority, well-earned legitimacy and the trust of those around you. Your career stands as a testament to your unwavering commitment to the institution and your ability to lead this formation to new heights.”

To serve as Naval Reserve commander, a person needs to be able to juggle civilian life and military life while demonstrating impressive leadership qualities. According to an official biography provided at the ceremony, Vallis has extensive experience as a public servant within the Department of National Defence and as head of business development and property for Vallis Law and Strategic Solutions. She is actively engaged as a board governance, risk management and policy consultant for youth, sport and nonprofit volunteer associations. In recognition of her exemplary service and outstanding leadership, Vallis was awarded the Order of Military Merit.

Following tradition, Montgomery departed in a boat and was saluted by the troops standing on the quay as he sailed past them.

Royal Canadian Naval Reserve welcomes new commandant Read More »

Quebec City to celebrate Pride in August

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 23, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, LGBTQIA2S+ community, Quebec City

Quebec City will celebrate Pride in August

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

The height of summer is the perfect time for bright colours, celebrations and a season full of festivals. For four days, from Aug. 28 to 31, the 21st Festival Fierté Québec (formerly known as the Fête Arc-en-Ciel) will colour different areas of Quebec City and host a range of public events celebrating the two- spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (2SLGBTQ+) community.

According to the program, available online at fiertedequebec.ca/en, there will be free concerts and a Winter Carnival cooling station at Place D’Youville and the Passage Olympia, a Pride march along Rue Saint-Jean and a “Queer-tanic” celebration on board AML Louis-Jolliet. Renowned Quebec band Milk & Bone will get the party started on Aug. 29, with festivities on Rue Saint-Jean continuing throughout the weekend. On Aug. 30, festival-goers can enjoy storytime with Barbada at the Palais Montcalm at 10 a.m., a literary panel on growing up queer, a festive “100% Céline” cruise on the Louis-Jolliet ($65), the Pride Gala featuring Mona de Grenoble at 9:30 p.m. and a range of free outdoor performances starring local DJs, drag artists and other performers. For $50, VIP ticket holders get reserved seats to outdoor performances, food and drinks. For $75, they have access to the legendary Drague Cabaret Club.

On Aug. 31, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community and allies are invited to wear their brightest colours during the Pride march, starting at 1 p.m. “We want to remind the public that this is not so much a parade as it is a supportive march, meaning that members and their allies are invited to show and affirm their colours in support and celebration of equality and plurality of the 2SLGBTQ+ community,” said Béatrice Robichaud, president of Alliance Arc-en-ciel de Québec. There will be more entertainment and Zumba at the Passage Olympia, tattoos at the Marriott Downtown hotel on both days and the Queer Market along Rue Saint-Jean on Sunday.

For the first time, Fierté de Québec is partnering with the Winter Carnival. “Their expertise, recognized well beyond our borders, allows us to deliver a coherent, inclusive and ambitious program, while ensuring rigorous resource management and exemplary c-ordination with our various partners,” said Sara Gagné Somarriba, co-executive director of Alliance Arc-en-ciel.

Quebec City to celebrate Pride in August Read More »

New Laurier tower caps Medway’s formula mixing medicine with housing

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / housing, Peter Black, Quebec City, real estate

New Laurier tower caps Medway’s formula mixing medicine with housing

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

If things go as planned, in the not-too-distant future, a 28-storey tower containing apartments and medical offices will rise from a lot on Boulevard Laurier which was once home to Red Lobster and Burger King franchises.

The as-yet-unnamed $400-million project is the latest – and largest – venture of the Lévis-based Medway company, which already has four new major buildings slated to be delivered in the region over the next year.

They are the Complexe Santé Rivière Saint-Charles, on Boul. Wilfrid-Hamel; the Complexe Santé in Rivière- du-Loup; Le Kali, the site of a former restaurant of that name on Boul. Charest Est; and Le Taniata, in Saint-Jean-Chrysostome.

The projects are all products of Medway’s formula of combining medical administration services with commercial and residential development.

The latest project at 3000 Boul. Laurier typifies the company’s partnership with the medical community in providing health-care offices and infrastructure within a mostly residential complex.

Company founder and president Yan Boudreau explained in a phone interview how Medway has been working with the Groupe de médecine de famille (GMF) Laurier for about two years to devise the plan.

The GMF, comprising some 18 doctors and currently located across Boulevard Laurier in the Delta building, decided last year to cut ties with the local public Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux (CIUSSS) and hire Medway to handle its administration.

The Laurier GMF, which is also a Université Laval- associated teaching facility for family doctors, is the fifth out of six GMFs in the capital region to leave the CIUSSS administration, according to Dr. Caroline Laberge, spokesperson for the unit, as quoted in a Radio-Canada story. It will remain a public clinic.

Boudreau said the latest project follows the pattern Medway has specialized in for the past five years of combining residential housing with medical clinics. “It all starts with a public medical clinic,” in tandem with the city’s “interest in having mixed-use projects [given] all the housing needs.”

Boudreau said his company has worked closely with the city to ensure the project meets the criteria for speedy approval. An important factor, as well, is that the building would be close to the future tramway line.

The building will have 25 storeys with a total of 896 residential units, half of which, Boudreau said, would be designated as affordable housing with rents of less than $1,500 a month. The three bottom floors will be devoted to the GMF once it makes the move to the new building.

Boudreau said he hopes that once the project gets the city’s green light, clearing and excavation of the site would begin in the fall and construction in the spring. Completion is targeted for 2032.

With the Laurier project, Medway now has some 30 buildings in its portfolio, about half of which are mixed medical-residential projects now open or in the works.

Boudreau, 45, is a native of Havre Aubert in the Magdalen Islands who graduated from Western University’s business program thanks to a football scholarship. He left his job in banking 15 years ago and decided to get into real estate.

“When you want to start in real estate, you either have a lot of capital, which I didn’t have, or you find a niche and you find ways to deliver services and products maybe a lot of developers don’t want to take care of, like medical services, which is our core business.”

Boudreau also credits the Medway team of professionals with a wide set of expertise as a reason for the company’s rapid growth.

When it’s completed, the Medway building on Boul. Laurier would be in a three-way tie for third tallest in Quebec City. The Hilton Hotel and Édifice Jules-Dallaire II on Boul. Laurier are also 28 storeys. The two tallest are Place Hauteville with the Delta Hotel at 34 storeys, and the Édifice Marie-Guyart, the Quebec government building which houses the Observatoire de la Capitale, at 33 storeys.

Boudreau said he felt “excited, to be honest” to be taking on “our biggest project ever.” He emphasized the social aspect of what will inevitably be a high-profile and prestigious building on the city’s main thoroughfare.

“We really want to address the capacity of the population to pay rent, and that’s our bet that we [can] deliver new and really nice-looking units with the affordable rent.”

New Laurier tower caps Medway’s formula mixing medicine with housing Read More »

FEQ declares success despite challenges of transit strike

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Festival d'été de Québec, Peter Black, Quebec City, Réseau de transport de la Capitale, SOCAN, transit, transit strike

FESTIVAL D’ÉTÉ DE QUÉBEC

FEQ declares success despite challenges of transit strike

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

As heavy weather threatened the final day of the Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) on July 11, organizers were declaring the 57th edition a “resounding success,” despite facing the first transit strike in the event’s history, and yes, unpredictable weather.

A sometimes emotional Louis Bellavance, head of content and artistic direction for BLEUFEU, the non-profit organization that runs the 11-day event, declared this year’s gathering a triumph for fans “who know what they want” and who “come for the music,” not just to take pictures. At the traditional wrap-up news conference, which began with a video montage of Shania Twain’s performance the night before, Bellavance said, “This year we conquered the entertainment industry.” He said FEQ organizers heard from “dozens and dozens” of artists and their teams who said the Quebec City event “is the best festival in the world.”

He said what happened this year was “a recognition without precedent” for the calibre of events FEQ organizes, which creates a special connection between the performing artists and the fans.

The success he described was despite the considerable obstacle of a strike by Réseau de transport de la capitale (RTC) maintenance staff, which paralyzed city bus service for the duration of the festival, and an unrelated strike which halted service on the Quebec City-Lévis ferry.

BLEUFEU president Nicolas Racine, now with his third festival as boss under his belt, said the threat of an RTC bus drivers’ strike two years earlier helped prepare organizers for the real deal this year.

“We put some measures in place to make sure that people would have less trouble coming in. So we just took that again, and maybe pumped it up a little bit.”

He said he was amazed at how the fans adapted to the transit challenges.

“The fans are great. They came earlier, they shared a car, they used their bike. They walked and parked further and they walked half an hour to come in. So why not – instead of staying in your car for half an hour, why don’t we walk? So that’s what happened. So the impact for us was less than expected.”

One silver lining of the transit strike, Bellavance noted, was that because more fans arrived earlier, there were bigger and more appreciative audiences for the “undercard” acts.

Now with 15 years as head programmer for FEQ under his belt, Bellavance listed some of his personal favourites among the more than 200 shows to take the stage, among them Richard Marx, Marjo, Alessia Cara, Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan and Wyclef Jean.

He had special praise for the artists who made themselves available on short notice due to sudden cancellations.

He singled out Slayer for a notable FEQ record: most T-shirts sold, more than previous top sellers, the Rolling Stones and Metallica.

Above all, Bellavance said, the most satisfying bookings for FEQ this year were Twain, whom the festival had pursued for years, and Benson Boone, the 23-year- old American pop sensation who organizers correctly bet could pack the massive Plains stage.

Racine said organizers are already planning for the 2026 edition, and the success of FEQ 2025 “is a motivation for us. We want to do better. We know we can do better. Our main goal is to make the fans happy.”

There was one sour note among the general good vibes of the festival, with the news that some performers are suing FEQ through SOCAN, Canada’s artists’ rights and revenues agency, for unpaid royalties for “carte blanche” shows for the previous three festivals.

FEQ responded to the public release of details of the federal court suit with a statement on July 12. “The FEQ deplores the timing chosen by SOCAN – in the middle of the festival – to initiate legal proceedings. Discussions between the two parties had been ongoing until very recently.”

FEQ declares success despite challenges of transit strike Read More »

RTC bus service resumes amid unanswered questions

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Festival d'été de Québec, Quebec City, Réseau de transport de la Capitale, Ruby Pratka, transit, transit strike

RTC bus service resumes amid unanswered questions

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

On July 13, the Réseau de transport de la Capitale (RTC) announced that city bus service would gradually resume the following morning, and fully return to normal by noon, putting an end to a 10-day strike by the bus mainte- nance workers’ union, timed to coincide with the Festival d’été de Québec.

A labour tribunal ruling in a separate dispute involving the RTC and its drivers’ union in 2023 found that the RTC was not an essential service. As a result, RTC service was completely halted for the duration of the strike, and people without easy access to a car had to rely on long walks, expensive backup plans, creative car-sharing arrangements, or àVélo bikes – assuming there were some available – to reach their destinations.

“We are relieved that the strike is coming to an end and that our customers will be able to resume services as of Monday [July 14], particularly those who rely on public transit and who were greatly impacted by the complete service disruption. We are also pleased that the drivers will be able to return to work,” said Maude Mercier Larouche, president of the RTC, in a statement.

An indefinite transit strike is not off the table. The collective agreement between the RTC and the maintenance workers’ union, the CSN-affiliated Syndicat des Salariés (ées) d’entretien du RTC, expired in September 2024, and no new collective agreement or agreement in principle has been signed as of this writing. The union held a two-day strike in late May, and in June, 100 per cent of members voted for a strike mandate “potentially including an unlimited general strike.” At the time, union president Nicolas Louazel accused RTC representatives of failing to lay out their demands clearly, “wasting time” and “being unable to respond to simple questions.”

Mercier Larouche said negotiations were ongoing between the city-funded RTC and the union. “We are making every effort to reach a lasting agreement that is viable for both parties and respects citizens’ ability to pay,” she said.

“As an organization that defends the rights of low-income people, we support union efforts to achieve better working conditions,” said Émilie Frémont-Cloutier, community facilitator and spokesperson for the Collectif TRAAQ, which advocates for low- income transit users. “However, we cannot ignore the negative social impacts that a complete shutdown of public transit will have on the most vulnerable populations. Thousands of people, primarily women, seniors, people with dis- abilities and those living in isolation, will be cut off from all means of transportation. This means they will be unable to get to the grocery store, the pharmacy, medical appointments or even community outreach centres. During the first strike on May 22 and 23, a Radio- Canada report highlighted these concrete impacts: reduced use of the La Bouchée Généreuse food assistance program, and families forced to pay for expensive alternative transportation to get to school or work.”

Mercier Larouche said bus pass holders would be reimbursed for the impact of the strike, but that a reimbursement system would only be set up once the RTC and the union reach an agreement in principle.

No one from the maintenance workers’ union or the CSN had responded to requests for comment from the QCT by press time.

Editors’ note: Transit users, how did you work around the strike? If you’d like to share your strike story with us, please email editor@qctonline.com.

RTC bus service resumes amid unanswered questions Read More »

Quebecers celebrate a damp 158th Canada Day

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Canada Day, Cassandra Kerwin, Quebec City

Quebecers celebrate a damp 158th Canada Day

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

From coast to coast to coast, Canadians celebrated the 158th anniversary of Confederation on July 1. In Quebec City, Mother Nature joined the fun by dropping more rain on Canada Day festivities. The ceremonial flag raising on Dufferin Terrace was cancelled, but crowds of people lined up in the rain to get their slice of Canada’s birthday cake prepared by the chefs of the Château Frontenac.

For almost an hour before the cake was served, people lined up outside and watched through large windows as the final touches of icing were applied.

Sticking to the schedule, at noon, some 2,000 pieces of the huge traditional cake, decorated to resemble the Canadian flag, were distributed from a side door of the hotel near the Champlain monument.

Regulars at the annual party tasted something different. Did the chefs dare change the recipe? Besides the usual 600 eggs, 360 egg whites, 11 pounds of white sugar, 50 pounds of flour and 90 pounds of butter, the head pastry chef added apple sauce to moisten the cake and used Quebec-made flour to make it more authentically Canadian. The result was delicious!

Slices of cake were served from under a tent by Jean-Yves Duclos, MP for Québec Centre; Lt.-Gov. Manon Jeannotte; Quebec City councillor David Weiser; and the director general of the Château Frontenac, Jean-François Vary.

While waiting for their cake, people waved their small Canadian flags. “I love coming to this event. I never miss it,” said Kasandra Pelletier. “I always meet people I know and haven’t seen in a year. Canada is a wonderful and welcoming country. I am so happy my grandparents chose to move here from Greece.”

On the Plains of Abraham, the National Battlefields Commission hosted an afternoon of family-friendly festivities. In the World Zone, families discovered various cultures that make up Canada’s multi- cultural society at the numerous booths, such as making bubbles at the SOIT (Service d’orientation et d’intégration des immigrants au travail) booth, traditional West African drums at the Djembé Québec booth or tasting tea while learning about Quebec’s English-speaking community at the Morrin Centre tent.

Children had their faces painted by the Kromatik Make-up before jumping around on the numerous bouncy castles. Parents had to keep a watchful eye due to the rainy weather making things more slippery. People were captivated by five performing acts on the nearby stage. Dragon and Drum, Kumquatz and the Old Men and the Sea roamed the site giving one-on-one performances. People stopped by the Trivia Canada table and photobooth for memorable experiences.

The sky finally cleared and the sun shone briefly over Quebec City before it set, just in time for the grand finale of the Canada Day celebrations. At 8 p.m., the duo Maxime Landry and Annie Blanchard gave a Western-style show at the Edwin Bélanger bandstand – The Country of Our Idols. They had the crowd line dancing in cowboy boots and hats to the tunes of the Daraîche Family, Patrick Norman and Renée Martel. The celebrations and the show ended with the Boréalis immersive laser show.

Quebecers celebrate a damp 158th Canada Day Read More »

Quebec City celebrates 417 years of existence and 40 years as heritage site

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Bruno Marchand, Cassandra Kerwin, Fête de la Ville de Québec, Quebec City

Quebec City celebrates 417 years of existence and 40 years as heritage site

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

On July 3, Quebec City celebrated its 417th anniversary since French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded the New France colony in 1608. This is also the 40th year since the historic walled district of Old Quebec was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

To begin the festivities, at 11:15 a.m., dignitaries, residents and visitors gathered for the official ceremony in the Jardins de l’Hôtel-de-Ville. As Old Quebec City is recognized as the only walled city in North America with a functioning military citadel, built by the British between 1820 and 1831, and home of the Royal 22e Régiment since 1914, members of the regal regiment and its band opened the ceremony with a colourful parade, including Bâtisse the goat, the regiment’s official mascot. This was followed by speeches, MCed by re-enactors portraying Samuel de Champlain and former mayor Jean Pelletier (1977-1989).

“Every summer, Quebec City’s anniversary is a unique occasion to assemble and to vibrate to the rhythm of our city,” said Mayor Bruno Marchand. “Whether it be in one’s district or in the heart of the Old City, I invite you to celebrate together what makes Quebec City strong: its energy, its creativity and its spirit of community. Together, we have preserved our heritage and our historic district. It is in our DNA to care for and promote our unique heritage.”

If it weren’t for pioneering city councillors and businessmen in the 1960s, the Old City of Quebec might have been lost to history. Under Mayor Jean Pelletier, they restored and preserved the historic district, and applied for the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, which it received in 1985. In 2017, under Mayor Régis Labeaume, the city was recognized for its unique cultural presence in North America and received its second UNESCO title as a Ville de Patrimoine Culturel, part of the Réseau des Villes créatives. Under Marchand, the city has applied for its third UNESCO designation as an international Biosphere Region.

To celebrate Quebec City’s culture, history and heritage, numerous free activities took place throughout the city.

Starting at Place d’Armes, guides led groups on tours around the Old City, recounting facts about the people and structures that marked its history and society. City Hall was open to visitors during the afternoon. Celebrations continued in the different districts of Quebec City during the late afternoon and early evening.

Quebec City celebrates 417 years of existence and 40 years as heritage site Read More »

Bus strike? They took a bike! FEQ fans find ways to attend shows

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Festival d'été de Québec, Peter Black, Quebec City, Réseau de transport de la Capitale, transit, transit strike

Bus strike? They took a bike! FEQ fans find ways to attend shows

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

There were nightmarish traffic jams, armies of pedestrians on long marches and thousands upon thousands riding bicycles. Others took taxis or ride-shared. Whichever way they used to get there, fans found a way to show up in the usual vast numbers to take in Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) events.

A strike by Réseau du Trans- port de la Capitale (RTC) mechanics and maintenance workers marked the first time ever the festival got underway without public bus service. Last year, for example, RTC buses, including special shuttle buses for the festival, transported some 300,000 people to the event zones.

The maintenance union, with 363 members, has been without a contract since September, and in May had staged a two-day strike as a negotiating tactic. Reports said the union was seeking a 30 per cent pay increase over five years, but other sources say the demand is between 18 and 22 per cent over five years.

Other work issues are also on the table, according to the union. Talks were set to resume on July 8. Members had voted massively in favour of a 10-day strike during FEQ and threatened an unlimited strike if no progress was made.

In the meantime, some 3,000 city bus drivers plus support staff are off the job.

The city’s popular àVélo service, managed by the RTC, was not affected by the strike. Two years ago, the bus drivers’ union threatened a strike on the eve of FEQ, but a last- minute agreement avoided a transit shutdown.

Not only is a bus strike complicating the lives of commuters, but another strike has shut down the ferry service between Quebec and Levis during FEQ for the second year in a row.

The 13-day strike by some 200 unlicensed workers also affects government-operated ferries serving Matane, Baie-Comeau and Godbout.

As for the bus strike, city officials say they cannot give in to union demands; Mayor Bruno Marchand said he is happy to be called a “dictator” by the union if it means dealing with taxpayer dollars responsibly.

While the city took some steps to alleviate the strike impact, such as expanding temporary bike lanes and drop-off zones, mayoral candidate Sam Hamad said the Marchand administration failed to be prepared.

In a statement, the head of Leadership Québec said, “It’s surprising that Quebec City didn’t see fit to have a real Plan B, even though it knew that a service interruption to the RTC was possible dur- ing the festival. In a context where the FEQ’s brand image and that of Quebec City as a tourist destination are at stake, this lack of preparation sends the wrong message.”

Hamad said if his party were in power it would have brought in such measures as working with FEQ to set up shuttle services, called upon businesses to make parking lots available and made parking free for carpoolers.

FEQ officials said they rejected the idea of having bus shuttles on standby, as they did in 2023, in the event of a strike, since the cost was prohibitive. A private bus company, meanwhile, has stepped into the void, offering rides for return trips from selected sites for $20 on buses used during the day for transporting day camp counsellors.

Bus strike? They took a bike! FEQ fans find ways to attend shows Read More »

The MCQ presents the human stories of the Titanic

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, History, Musée de la Civilisation, Quebec City, Titanic

The MCQ presents the human stories of the Titanic

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

Most people know the fatal story of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, but what about the people on board? For its latest exhibit, open until Jan. 11, 2026, the Musée de la Civilisation (MCQ) presents Titanic: The Human Story.

Even before stepping into the MCQ, visitors encounter Titanic written out in large red letters on a single blue block beside the replica bow, where people can mimic Jack Dawson from the iconic 1997 movie: “I’m the king of the world!”

Entering the exhibit, visitors travel through time to April 1912 to meet the workers, architects and engineers of the Titanic, the crew and pas- sengers on board and the ships that rescued the survivors. Listening to the audioguide, in French or English, they discover the stories behind the 200 displayed objects (clothes, jewelry, journals, tickets, docu- ments, life jackets, silverware, dishes and more); the models of first-, second- and third- class rooms; and the ship in all its glory and in its current condition, sitting in two large pieces at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. They also find authentic journals, leather shoes, postcards, papers and a diamond necklace that inspired the countless films and stories that have stemmed from the fatal night of April 14, 1912.

“Every time we’re able to host a major international exhibition here, the magic happens, and audiences from all over turn out,” said Julie Lemieux, MCQ executive director. “Titanic is the human story behind the great history, an approach faithful to what distinguishes the MCQ, a museum of society par excellence.”

The creative geniuses be- hind this exhibit are from the Spanish museum Musealia. To create Titanic: The Human Story, they worked with one of the world’s leading Titanic experts, Claes-Göran Wetterholm, who has made four research voyages to the wreck. “What moves us most about the story of the Titanic is not just the facts of its tragedy, but the lives tied to it: the choices, hopes, and consequences that shaped an era,” said Luis Ferreiro, president and CEO of Musealia. “With this exhibition, we attempt to go beyond the myth to reveal the world from which it emerged, and the people who embarked and perished on board during that voyage. Presenting it for the first time in Canada, within the walls of the MCQ, is a privilege – this is where this story should be heard.” It has been presented in Barcelona; Stockholm; London, England; Mexico City; New York; Brisbane and Sydney, Australia; and now, Quebec City.

“I have seen many exhibits presented at the MCQ. This is one of the best, if not the best,” said Laura Blouin. “Often, when I learned about the Titanic, I imagined the ship, the crew in the [crow’s] nest, the iceberg, the musicians, the freezing water and the wreckage. Now, I see beyond the steel and wood. I feel like I’ve met the passengers and crew, thanks in part to the extremely well-written and narrated audioguide. The enormous piece of ice in the middle of the exhibit is a nice touch and reminds people just how cold the waters were that night.”

For more information, visit mcq.org/en/discover/exhibitions/titanic.

The MCQ presents the human stories of the Titanic Read More »

28th Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France offer free access to history

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 15, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France, Quebec City

The 28th Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France offer free access to history

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

Quebec City is once again preparing to celebrate its rich history. From Aug. 7 to 10, Quebecers will step back into the 17th and 18th centuries for the 28th Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France (FNF).

Once again, the FNF is work- ing in partnership with various historic sites to offer visitors an interesting and interactive journey through history. In Lower Town, for the second straight year, the Îlot des Palais will host the Last Intendant’s Treasure activity for $50 per backpack ($20 off with the medallion).

In Upper Town, the Cathe- dral-Basilica Notre-Dame de Québec will offer self-guided tours, while the Garrison Club hosts history lectures for me- dallion holders. The National Assembly offers similar lectures for free.

The highly popular FNF Treasure Hunts at the Jardins and Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville are returning with five free new quests for children ages five to 13. At the same location, people will discover a range of audiovisual tours for all ages in the evening.

“Although access to our main sites is free this year, people who purchase the iconic medallion for $20 will receive benefits, including augmented reality with the Scan Your History app access and discounts,” said Marie-Ève Jacob, executive director of the festival. “By opening the sites to free admission, we are making it easier for the high number of tourists in Quebec City.

We can share our history and heritage with more people. It is a calculated risk.”

“It is really breaking away from traditional methods of presentation and present- ing history differently,” said Jérôme Déchêne, director of programming. “Yes, we have historical events; yes, we have musical performances; yes, we have more traditional activities, artisans, of course, but we try to surprise people.”

For more information, visit nouvellefrance.qc.ca/en/programmation.

28th Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France offer free access to history Read More »

Journalist Marianne White runs for Marchand team in St-Louis-Sillery

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 1, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Bruno Marchand, Marianne White, Peter Black, Quebec City

Journalist Marianne White runs for Marchand team in Saint-Louis–Sillery

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Veteran journalist Marianne White, most recently a senior editor at Le Journal de Québec, is leaping into municipal politics as the candidate for Mayor Bruno Marchand’s party in the Saint-Louis–Sillery seat.

White made the announcement on June 25 in front of the city library on Ave. Maguire, with nine other Québec Forte et Fière (QFF) candidates and the mayor at her side.

White, 47, will be seeking to succeed current QFF councillor Maude Mercier Larouche, the member of the executive committee responsible for transit, who announced she is not seeking a second term for family reasons.

In an interview with the QCT, White said she was very surprised she had been approached by QFF representatives about running for the party.

“We had lunch with two representatives of the party and when they pitched that to me, my jaw dropped, literally. I didn’t see myself doing that. But they made a really good pitch – and thinking back on it, I think they were right in the fact that I think I’m the right person to do this. I have what it takes to be there.”

White said, “They wanted to have someone who was from the community, and I‘ve been living here for six years. I think I could do that. I’m driven. I’m a good communicator.”

She told the party reps she would consider the proposal, and then she and her partner embarked on a planned three-week island-hopping vacation in Greece. “There couldn’t be a better place to reflect than Greece.”

After weighing the pros and cons, and keenly aware of the demands on politicians from having covered them as a journalist for many years, White decided to go for it.

“At the end of the day, what really drove my decision is I want to get more involved in my community. I want to be in a more active position … part of building the city for the future, for what we want to leave to the next generation.”

Upon her return, she handed in her resignation to Le Journal de Québec, where she had worked since 2012. Prior to Le Journal, White had worked in various French and English- language media for some 27 years after graduating from Université Laval with a communications degree.

In 2018, she wrote a book on Jean Lapierre, the politician and media commentator who died in a plane crash in 2016.

She has also written a foodie column, focusing on restaurants in the city.

White said she had no doubts that if she were to run, it would be for Marchand’s QFF. Part of that is the party’s commitment to the tramway project, which has relatively strong support in the Sillery district, according to polls.

“I think people are looking forward to this project going ahead. We’ve been talking about it for 20 or so years in Quebec,” White said.

“That’s not to say it’s going to be an easy project and there’s not going to be some problems when we try to put that into effect. There’s going to be roadwork and other inconveniences, but the job of the city is to try and make sure that this has the least impact on residents.”

White, whose father John White was a philosophy teacher at Cégep de Sainte-Foy, said her father encouraged her and her siblings to attend French school, and so, despite her anglo ancestry, she identifies as a francophone. Her precise English, however, has allowed her to work in English-language media.

She said she recognizes “there’s a vibrant English community in Quebec,” particularly in Sillery, and “people are proud of their roots.”

When the time came last week to step to the podium and announce her political baptism, White said, “It was fun, exhilarating even. I could say it was very different from what I’ve been doing for the past 27 years. I’ve been used to being on the other side of the podium for most of my life. But it’s a good thing. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I wanted to do something different in my life and now, I think, is a good time to do it.”

The addition of White to the QFF team brings to 17 the total number of candidates the party has in place for the 21 districts.

Municipal elections will be held across Quebec on Nov. 2.

Journalist Marianne White runs for Marchand team in St-Louis-Sillery Read More »

‘Galleon’ tower to be anchored at the peak of Grande Allée

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 1, 2025 / Peter Black, Quebec City, real estate

‘Galleon’ tower to be anchored at the peak of Grande Allée

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

After nearly 15 years of battles with City Hall and in the courts, developer Louis Lessard appears to be on the verge of realizing his ambition to build a luxury tower on Grande Allée Est.

Lessard was in attendance at a public consultation meeting on June 16 where he announced his plan for Le Galléon, a 20-storey building on the site where Saint- Coeur-de-Marie church stood until it fell into ruin and was demolished in 2019.

Lessard, who acquired the property in 2010, 13 years after it had been abandoned by the Catholic diocese, said in brief remarks that the building would be “absolutely magnificent.”

If the city grants a build- ing permit by August, Le Galléon, containing 200 residential rental units and a number of commercial spaces, would take 18 months to build. No dollar amount for the project has been made available.

The project website describes the building in grand terms: “Between sky, city and river, Le Galléon – a timeless design inspired by the site’s heritage. Anchored at the highest point of the iconic Grande Allée, Le Galléon is reinventing the art of living in Quebec City.”

Some 58 people attended the information session in person and another 60 online; both the Galléon project and a 10-storey addition to the 153-155 Grande Allée Est building were presented.

The city councillor for Cap-aux-Diamants and executive committee member responsible for urban planning, Coun. Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc, attended and explained how the two large projects on Grande Allée were being fast-tracked under a new law to accelerate housing construction in areas of high demand.

Coulombe-Leduc noted that buildings of 20 storeys and more are not uncommon on Grande Allée. “We’ll hear what people have to say. We’ll see if it directly affects the project or if there are indirect consequences that might allow us to work in a different way. We’ll weigh the pros and cons. We’ll see if there’s a need to make changes or not.”

The Galléon developers have already made several changes to the project design in response to comments from the city’s urban planning commission, said Jonathan Brisson, head of Circum Architecture, the firm heading up the project.

For Lessard, the city’s sudden enthusiasm for his proposal for a 20-storey tower marks a stunning reversal from what has transpired since 2010. In 2017, his company had proposed an 18-storey building, which was rejected by the city.

It had been, according to Lessard, the 12th design proposal submitted to the city since he bought the site, which included the abandoned church. Several of the early proposals included concepts that retained parts of the church structure.

Frustrated by the city’s refusal to accept a tower high enough to be profitable, in 2022 Lessard submitted a design for a nine-storey parking garage that he believed conformed to existing zoning. The city rejected the proposal and changed the zoning to block such a project. Lessard then took the city to court, but lost in a decision rendered in June 2024.

What happened between Lessard and the city after that court decision that led to the submission of a comprehensive architectural plan for a 20-storey tower a few months later was not discussed at the consultation session.

There were few questions about Le Galléon posed at the three-hour meeting. One did concern the process that would be used to excavate the four-storey underground garage. Brisson was not able to be specific but conceded blasting would likely be required, given the rock upon which the structure would be built.

‘Galleon’ tower to be anchored at the peak of Grande Allée Read More »

Possible transit chaos, Twain gift in busy FEQ buildup

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 1, 2025 / Festival d'été de Québec, food security, Peter Black, Quebec City, Réseau de transport de la Capitale, Ruby Pratka, Service de Police de la Ville de Québec, Shania Twain

Possible transit chaos, police weapons upgrade, Twain gift in busy FEQ buildup

Peter Black and Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative reporters

The 57th edition of the Festival d’été de Québec opens July 3 with another sell-out of the 11-day event, but with the threat of a transit strike looming and the presence of police carrying assault weapons.

Known as Canada’s biggest summer music gathering, with upwards of 200 shows on six stages, including the mammoth Bell stage on the Plains of Abraham, FEQ will welcome up to 80,000 fans for headliner performances.

This year’s marquee biggies include Canadian megastars Shania Twain and Avril Lavigne, as well as legendary crooner Rod Stewart, breakout American pop heartthrob Benson Boone and classic British rock band Def Leppard.

Just as a point of novelty, the program features Canadian pop star Alessia Cara, not to be confused with up-and-coming Quebec singer Alissa Clara.

This year, the alternating stages return to Place George-V in front of the armoury, where one highly anticipated show will be a tribute to the 30th anniversary of Céline Dion’s record-breaking D’eux album, featuring a parade of Quebec vedettes.

Dozens of shows are free on stages across from the National Assembly and in Place D’Youville. There’s a program for children, called Petit FEQ, happening on weekends.

Twain, perhaps the festival’s biggest draw this year, is not just bringing her top-selling repertoire to Quebec City. As part of her Shania Twain Foundation, the superstar is funding some 375,000 meals for people facing food insecurity.

Each of five tour cities – Calgary, Moose Jaw, Ottawa, Toronto and Quebec City – will receive a $25,000 donation for food programs. Twain plays the second Saturday show of FEQ on July 12.

A late replacement to the lineup is indie rocker Lauren Spencer Smith, subbing in for British singer/model Suki Waterhouse, who cancelled her gig opening for the Irish fusion band Hosier on the Bell stage on July 10.

New weaponry for city police

While most circumstances of the festival have stayed the same, one new and possibly disturbing element would be the presence of city police officers carrying the HK 416 semi-automatic assault rifle.

The Service de police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ) will deploy a certain number of officers trained in the use of the weapon as both a tactical device and a deterrent.

Capt. Alain Bernier, the officer in charge of weapons training, told Le Journal de Québec the guns “will provide increased precision, range, and ballistic capability compared to the service weapon. We will be able to take action more effectively and from a distance that would normally be inaccessible to us.”

The report said the SPVQ made the decision in response to recent incidents of vehicles driving into crowds, such as in Vancouver and New Orleans.

The SVPQ says the weapons had been available for use in the past, but for the first time, officers will be making them visible.

As yet unconfirmed is whether the city will also install vehicle-intrusion barriers for FEQ, as is the case in a pilot project on Rue Saint-Jean this summer.

Bus strike still possible

As this newspaper went to press on June 30, the threat of a transit maintenance workers’ strike, which would paralyze Réseau du transport de la Capitale (RTC) bus service, still hung over the festival. Unless an agreement is announced by 3 p.m. on July 3, the strike could begin as early as July 4, the second day of FEQ, and continue through July 13, shutting down both regular bus service and shuttles to the festival, Valérie Drolet, executive director of network development and customer experience at the RTC, told a City Hall press conference on June 30.

She noted that the strike could last anywhere from one day to the full ten, and service would return to normal gradually after a strike. “As soon as the RTC knows the union’s intentions, all its communication and information channels will be activated to inform regular customers and festival-goers,” Drolet said, adding that riders who bought Festibus passes and tickets would be reimbursed in the event of a strike. She would not comment on the ongoing negotiations.

The QCT requested an in- terview with a representative from the maintenance workers’ union – the Syndicat des salariés et salariées d’entretien du RTC–CSN – through several channels but did not receive a response by press time.

The àVélo bike sharing program, Flexibus service and adapted transit services will not be affected in the event of a strike, although the city is anticipating increased demand for those services. An additional àVélo station will be set up near the Joan of Arc Garden for the festival. The city will also put in place pick-up and drop-off zones for cars at the Gare du Palais and along Ave. Brown between René-Lévesque and Grande Allée.

City officials and FEQ organizers advised people driving to the festival to consider carpooling and leave plenty of time – at least an hour – to find parking. “We want people to get on board and come have fun with us, and I think that’s going to happen, but you just need to take a little more time to get there,” said FEQ CEO Nicolas Racine.

For up-to-date information on FEQ, go to the festival website at feq.ca/en.

Possible transit chaos, Twain gift in busy FEQ buildup Read More »

Sillery, Valcartier groups receive heritage funding

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / July 1, 2025 / Local history, Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka, Sillery, Valcartier

Sillery, Valcartier groups receive heritage funding

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Heritage preservation groups in Sillery and Valcartier are among the 15 organizations across the province that have received funding from the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) through the SHARE grant program, a Canadian Heritage-funded initiative to support projects “sharing the diverse history of English speakers in the province,” Sherbrooke-based QAHN announced last week.

SHARE program co-ordinator Julie Miller said she was “very pleased” about the diversity of the selected projects, which span the province from the Outaouais to the Gaspé, via the Laurentians, the Eastern Townships, the historically bilingual Pontiac region in Western Quebec, and Quebec City.

The Société d’histoire de Sillery (SHS) has received funding to contribute to the creation of a vast, bilingual archive of Quebec culinary history, from a multicultural, local perspective. “It’s an immense project to do an inventory of what exists in terms of culinary history, particularly anglophone and Indigenous culinary history – the Fédération Histoire Québec is doing a project on the scale of Quebec. We’re going to focus on the anglophone history of Sillery,” said SHS president Jean-Louis Vallée. The project will centre around inventorying, digitizing and translating recipes and stories about ingredients, traditions, communities and companies that have left their mark on local cuisine, writing articles which make those stories accessible to the general public, and indexing the content to make it easier to search. Vallée also said the SHS planned to conduct oral history interviews with older members of the anglophone community, to discuss culinary traditions and memories around food and cooking.

“Sillery has an interesting anglophone history that we haven’t made a lot of room for in the past 20 years,” Vallée said. “The population was 50-50 [francophone-anglophone] in the 19th century, and I don’t think we had a francophone mayor until the 1930s. There was a strong proportion of people of Irish ancestry, but every cultural community came here with its cooking methods and its recipes.”

Author Rose-Hélène Coulombe, a retired civil servant and self-described “memorialist” who has written three books on the culinary history of Quebec, is one of the project’s co-ordinators. She said the Sillery project will be the first step in expanding the wider project, dubbed Patrimoine ~ Identités, to the anglophone community. “We will have articles, recipes, updated recipes, talking about products and food that are key to identity,” she said. “We are working with students as well; I have a student who has done an article on the history of pouding chômeur, on how we used to use buttermilk, that sort of thing.” The ultimate goal, Coulombe and Vallée said, is to create a provincewide archive, using Sillery as a pilot project.

The Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier Historical Committee has received funding to finish a documentary about Valcartier Elementary School, to mark the school’s 75th anniversary. The project began shortly before the pandemic and was paused due to public health measures. “We finally finished the interviews last spring,” said historical committee president Debbie Chakour. “We have multigenerational families and seniors sharing their experiences. It was easy to find families where three generations went to the school. One of the seniors we spoke to was the daughter of a teacher; she was actually born in the school building and lived there as a baby!”

Chakour said the small school was deeply linked with the local English-speaking community and the growing bilingual community on the nearby military base. “Twenty- five years ago, there were about 50 kids; now there are closer to 120, and they almost sit on top of each other. They may need to build a new school in the next few years, which is another reason why we want to document it. Let’s celebrate the memories while we have them!”

Chakour hopes the film will be completed by the end of February, 2026. “The deadline is the end of March, but you can’t really do anything in March in Valcartier because there are too many Irish things going on,” she said.

Miller said there will be a third round of SHARE grant funding distributed to heritage projects in February 2026. Organizations must be members of QAHN to apply for funding. To learn more, contact her directly at julie@qahn.org.

Sillery, Valcartier groups receive heritage funding Read More »

Quebec High School honours the Class of 2025

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 27, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, Education, Quebec City, Quebec High School

Quebec High School honours the Class of 2025

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

As spring turned into summer on June 20, Quebec High School (QHS) congratulated the Class of 2025. Dressed in the traditional blue caps and gowns, graduating students lined the corridor of the school before entering the gym to celebrate with their friends, family and teachers.

This year, the school was honouring a special group, dubbed the “COVID Cohort” because they started high school amid the pandemic. Vice-principal JoAnne Arsenault reminded them of that challenging time, when each group was restricted to a classroom and colour-coded areas as indicated by the colour of their masks. They missed out on key aspects of a typical high school experience: mingling between classes, participating in extracurricular activities and sports and moving from classroom to classroom. That changed once pandemic restrictions were lifted, life returned to normal and students were able to socialize more freely; yet, this period left a mark.

These points were also mentioned in the guest speaker’s address. QHS graduate, retired teacher and vice-principal Gina Farnell gave several pieces of advice: “Learn to let it go! You will meet precious people that you will treasure, and you will meet toxic people; in both cases, you will have to learn to let them go. Life will throw you some curveballs. Life is not fair. You will have to learn to move on,” she said. “You will also have to learn to persevere. Fulfil your dreams, and set goals that can be reached. No one knows where life will take you. There is a difference between stubbornness and perseverance. You will have to figure it out.”

Following her wise words, the ceremony continued with the distribution of diplomas and gold cords for those with averages of 80 per cent or higher. Awards were then distributed; Victor Sweeney, Benjamin Rouleau, valedictorian Ophélie Bernier and Freya Turner-Dufour received five each, and salutatorian Cedrick Goulet-Ratté received four.

Bernier gave the closing speech. “I chose QHS because it is a small school, which means that your business is everyone’s business. This means that we know each other. That sense of closeness between the 63 of us is something special,” she said. “Tonight is the end of a road, one that we have been on for five years. Just as we are starting to know who we are, getting used to the routine and people, we are thrown once again into the void. The imprint of QHS ties us together.”

A reception in the cafeteria followed. A full list of graduates and award winners can be consulted on the QCT website.

Quebec High School honours the Class of 2025 Read More »

Mayoral hopeful Hamad proposes SRB transit plan rejected by Caisse

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 24, 2025 / Peter Black, public transit, Quebec City, Sam Hamad, TramCité, Tramway de Québec

Mayoral hopeful Hamad proposes SRB transit plan rejected by Caisse

Peter Black

peterblack@qctonline.com

Mayoral candidate Sam Hamad has unveiled his promised alternative to the tramway plan. It is based on the service rapide par bus (SRB+) plan initially proposed in 2015 but subsequently rejected.

Hamad, a former Liberal provincial transport minister and engineer by profession, revealed details of SRB+, which he acknowledged was not a fully fleshed out proposal, at a June 18 news conference at a hotel on Boul. Laurier.

Hamad, vowing that the tramway would be dead if he and his Leadership Québec team win on Nov. 2, said his plan would be less disruptive to build, cost much less and provide greater service to the suburbs.

The key difference from the current tramway plan is the mode – a train of elongated buses in dedicated lanes instead of rail cars running on tracks – and the central trajectory – Boul. Charest between Université Laval and Saint- Roch, as opposed to Boul. René- Lévesque.

As a prelude to Hamad’s presentation, Daniel Lessard, former longtime head of engineering services for the city, gave an overview of transit plans dating back to 2015 under the administration of then- mayor Régis Labeaume.

Lessard concluded, “For over 25 years, I have planned and managed this city’s infrastructure. The SRB+ is the most realistic, technically robust and quickly deliverable project to meet the mobility needs of Quebec City residents.”

Hamad said the project, based on reams of previous studies, creating 29 kilometres of SRB lanes serving the Lebourgneuf, Charlesbourg, D’Estimauville and Le Gendre sectors, could get underway by 2029 and be completed in two years, at a cost of $4.2 billion.

He said, “It’s time to turn the page on the uncertainties sur- rounding the tramway and move forward with a realistic, credible project that’s resolutely forward-looking and based on the best available technical recommendations. This project is the modern, sustainable and immediate solution that Quebec needs.”

A plan for an SRB system running along Boul. Charest had been proposed in 2015 by the Labeaume administration, partly to accommodate the demands of the city of Lévis. At the time, Hamad was a minister in then-premier Philippe Couillard’s cabinet, responsible for the capital region.

When Lévis changed its mind about the project, as Labeaume recounted in his recent memoirs, Quebec City also abandoned the plan. In 2018, the city presented the first edition of the tramway plan, and quickly won support and a funding commitment from the federal government.

Since then, delays and associated mounting costs prompted the Quebec government to commission the Caisse de depot et placement infrastructure division (CDPQ Infra) to study the region’s transport needs and offer solutions.

In June 2024, that study was released containing the recommendation to build a scaled- down tramway system, with the central corridor running along Boul. René-Lévesque. The study rejected an SRB system as providing inadequate capacity for future needs, but did include the mode for subsidiary routes.

Whereas a key element of the tramway system is the complete electrification of the rolling stock, Hamad said the SRB system would not be powered by diesel, but when a call for tenders is made, “we’ll see what technology there is that responds to what we need. So hybrid (gasoline-electric) would be a good choice.”

He named several cities in the world that have electric SRB systems.

As for how he plans to convince the Quebec government that has committed to funding 50 per cent of the tramway to support his plan, Hamad said, “In my experience, usually the [Quebec] government responds to the mayor who is elected by the people.”

He said his plan’s $4.2-billion budget is half that of the current system, and given the government’s current financial situation, “This is an advantage for us.”

Mayoral hopeful Hamad proposes SRB transit plan rejected by Caisse Read More »

Critics slam Hamad’s transit plan as obsolete

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 24, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Bruno Marchand, Peter Black, public transit, Quebec City, Sam Hamad

Critics slam Hamad’s transit plan as obsolete

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Leadership Québec mayoral candidate Sam Hamad denies the coming election will be a referendum on the choice of transit system for the city.

Yet, given his vow to kill the current tramway system and replace it with one based on rapid bus service (SRB), transit is bound to be the central issue of the campaign.

A recent Segma poll showed Mayor Bruno Marchand leading Hamad by six points (38 per cent to 32 per cent) before Hamad released his transit plan last week. The poll also found nearly 30 per cent undecided, so the race for City Hall likely will be a battle to convince voters who has the better plan.

Hence, a day after Hamad unveiled his plan, Marchand delivered a harsh rebuke at a City Hall news conference. Marchand said Hamad’s proposal is “purely a political game. There are no facts, no science, no data to demonstrate that his project – without integration with a major axis – is relevant.”

Calling it a plan drawn up by “volunteers,” Marchand said it would do nothing to reduce the congestion problem in the most heavily populated corridor of the city, along Boul. René-Lévesque.

“We’re talking about Mr. Hamad’s feelings versus 20 years of studies, consultations, science and facts,” the mayor said.

“Do we want another election in Quebec City driven by nostalgia, a return to the past, the dream of 2015? I think the people of Quebec City are fed up,” Marchand said.

Opposition and Québec d’Abord Leader Claude Ville- neuve told reporters, “Who re- ally believes that Sam Hamad can deliver a mobility project? How many mobility projects have progressed in Quebec while Sam Hamad was minister of transport? How many in Quebec City? You know the answer: zero.”

Transition Québec Leader and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith said she “feels like [she’s] watching a bad comedy” with Hamad’s transit announcement.

“I don’t think what people want is to resume the debate where it was more than 10 years ago, when the idea Mr. Hamad is bringing back was rejected. The [CDPQ Infra] plan already includes the passage of an SRB on Boul. Charest; Mr. Hamad simply wants to start the plan backwards. The heart of the network congestion problem is on Parliament Hill and that’s what we’re tackling first with the deployment of the first phase of the tramway.”

Nora Loreto, co-founder and spokesperson for the pro- tramway citizens group Québec Désire Son Tramway, told the QCT Hamad’s proposal “shows that he’s got no clue about the growth of the city and the planned growth over the next 20 years. Seeing that he wants to push all the traffic onto Charest and leave the status quo in Upper Town is just not an option because at the end of the day the blockage for the traffic [stays] in Upper Town.”

Loreto said, “There’s a reason why all of the experts have not recommended this plan, and we think that it would be very prudent for Mr. Hamad, in an area where he is clearly lacking some knowledge and expertise, to listen to the experts on this one.”

Hamad’s plan did garner the support of Stevens Melançon, leader of Équipe Priorité Québec, who is reported to be considering joining Hamad’s team. He told Le Soleil, “I defend the citizen; I defend a project that respects the citizens’ ability to pay and that will serve my citizens.”

As for Marchand’s dismissal of Hamad’s plan, Melançon said, “I find it hard to understand why the mayor, whose project is not socially acceptable, is lecturing people.”

Critics slam Hamad’s transit plan as obsolete Read More »

Threat of transit strikes looms over FEQ

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 24, 2025 / Festival d'été de Québec, public transit, Quebec City, Réseau de transport de la Capitale, Ruby Pratka

Threat of transit strikes looms over FEQ

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The union representing maintenance staff at the Réseau du Transport de la Capitale (RTC), Quebec City’s public transport network, has formally raised the possibility of a transit strike during the Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ).

On June 19, the union announced in a statement that it had submitted a strike notice for a 10-day work stoppage beginning July 4, the first day of the festival.

The collective agreement between the bus maintenance workers’ union – the Syndicat des salariés et salariées d’entretien du RTC–CSN – and the city expired in September 2024; negotiations for a new agreement began in October, according to the union.

“The goal is not to strike at all costs, but to apply pressure on the eve of the busiest time of year to quickly reach a settlement that is satisfactory to both parties,” explained union president Nicolas Louazel.

Frédéric Brun is the president of the Fédération des employées et employés des services publics (FEESP), a division of the CSN union federation, of which the RTC maintenance workers’ union is a member. He and Louazel struck a reassuring tone regarding the likelihood of a strike.

“The parties are entering into an intensive negotiation blitz – day, evening, night, weekend – and experience tells us that it is entirely possible to reach a settlement quickly,” Brun said. “The concrete threat of a strike during FEQ is only an incentive to prevent the employer from falling back into its habit of marking time and dragging things out.”

The union had previously submitted a notice for a one- day strike planned for April 30, which was cancelled on April 25 after progress at the negotiating table.

The last time RTC transit service was halted was in July 2023, when the Syndicat des employés du transport public de Québec métropolitaine (SETPQM), the union which represents the RTC’s more than 900 drivers, went on strike. That strike ended with an agreement on July 6 – five days after it had begun and hours before the beginning of FEQ. No service was offered during that strike, after a labour tribunal ruled that transit was not an essential service, angering advocates for low-wage workers and people with disabilities who depend on the service.

RTC spokesperson Raphaëlle Savard said 13,000 people use the RTC every day during FEQ. She said the RTC had twice requested that the union “agree on a minimal level of service to offer in the event of a strike.”

“This request aims to limit the impact on regular RTC customers, many of whom rely on public transport to get around, as well as on occasional customers who use RTC services to get to FEQ,” she said.

“The RTC acknowledges the strike notice and will communicate the impacts on service delivery as quickly as possible to provide maximum predictability to its customers. The RTC reiterates its availability to negotiate at any time, including weekends, to reach an agree- ment and avoid any impact on customers,” Savard said. She invited people with questions about bus service to visit the RTC website or call customer service at 418-627-2511, option 1.

The union said in a state- ment that it would make no further comment for the time being, “in order to concentrate on the negotiations.”

Separately, the union representing personnel operating and maintaining the Québec- Lévis and Matane-Godbout ferries, also a CSN affiliate, gave notice for a strike beginning July 4. Members of the ferry operators’ union, which negotiates directly with the Treasury Board, have been without an agreement since April 2023. “The lack of serious progress at our negotiating table has made us understand more than once that for the government, we are not among its priorities,” said union president Patrick Saint-Laurent.

Threat of transit strikes looms over FEQ Read More »

Faubourg elevator reopens after major repairs

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 24, 2025 / Peter Black, Quebec City

Faubourg elevator reopens after major repairs

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Pedestrians will once again have more convenient access between Upper and Lower Town with the reopening of the refurbished Faubourg elevator.

Located on Rue Saint-Vallier, the historic lift and the compact café next to it had been closed since March 17 for major renovations to the interior and exterior.

The work was done in two phases, the first being last fall, with the cleaning of the adjacent cliff and repairing brickwork and windows on the structure.

The second phase involved the complete replacement of the elevator and entrance areas. Some work will continue until July 13, according to a city news release, but it will not affect use of the elevator by the public.

The overall cost of the project is $1.47 million. According to the city, the elevator, “designed in 1942 by architect Wilfrid Lacroix … has served both a utilitarian and indispensable purpose for over 80 years, as well as being a representative example of Art Deco public architecture. While 200 to 400 users use it daily, renovations carried out in 1997 gave it its current appearance.

Faubourg elevator reopens after major repairs Read More »

Government slashes funding to school boards, service centres

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 24, 2025 / Central Québec School Board, Education, Jean Robert, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka, school boards

Government slashes funding to school boards, service centres

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec’s English school boards reacted with alarm and frustration after the Ministry of Education imposed at least $510 million in across-the-board cuts to the public school system. Education Minister Bernard Drainville told reporters last week that the ministry’s expenses have grown by seven per cent per year since 2018, a rate he called “unsustainable.” Next school year’s increase has been capped at 1.8 per cent – below the rate of inflation – as part of a wider effort by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government to rein in the growing deficit.

“The direction I have given to school service centres is to make this money work better, to be more efficient, to respect budgets without touching student services, or without touching them as much as possible,” Drainville said.

“School boards and service centres across the province were informed [June 12] that a staggering $510 million in additional cuts would be expected throughout the Quebec education system, on top of the $200 million already slashed earlier this school year,” the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) said in a statement. “These new cuts are expected to take effect in July, allowing only one day of consultation for school boards and service centres to react.”

“This government is expecting us to make these astronomical cuts on the backs of our students, which is completely unacceptable,” said QESBA president Joe Ortona. “The government has given school boards just 24 hours to respond to what can only be described as a direct assault on the viability of our public education system. This financial crisis was not created by school boards, and we will not allow our school system’s integrity to be sacrificed to solve this government’s deficit.”

Jean Robert is the chair of the council of commissioners of the Central Québec School Board (CQSB), which oversees English-language public schools in the Quebec City region, Mauricie, Saguenay and parts of northern Quebec. On June 20, he estimated the board would have to cut about $6 million from its budget. That was later revised downward to around $3 million, but the board was told it could not run a deficit or dip into its surplus. Robert said officials were still looking at ways to tackle the problem.

Robert expressed frustration at the ministry’s decision to announce the cuts in mid-June, after school boards had confirmed staff contracts for the coming year. “Because of the collective agreements, we need to do our staffing for September by June 1,” he said. “Had we been given a little more time, we would have been able to make adjustments like having one class of 34 [students] instead of two classes of 17, but we can’t do that at this point. … Why did they decide, at the last minute and without consultation, that they were going to cut?”

Education ministry spokesperson Bryan St-Louis said the board had been asked to “optimize its expenses” by eliminating $2.37 million in spending. He said boards had been informed of the cuts as soon as information was available.

Robert told the QCT boards would normally dip into their surpluses to absorb the impact of the cuts. The CQSB “does have a surplus … and it’s there for unforeseen circumstances, but now we’re being told we can’t use it.” He said the restriction on the use of surplus funds was contrary to the spirit of a recent Superior Court ruling affirming the English-speaking community’s right to govern its own schools. (Last month, the Quebec government announced its intention to apply for leave to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.)

Robert said the ministry could limit the impact of the cuts by allowing boards to use surplus funds or spread the cuts out over several years. “We’re hopeful that the government will see how this will impact student learning, and then we will have to look at whatever options are available.”

The QCT contacted Drainville’s office for comment but did not receive a response before press time.

Government slashes funding to school boards, service centres Read More »

KWE! celebrates Indigenous cultures at the Grand Spectacle

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 24, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, Indigenous, Indigenous Peoples' Day, Quebec City

KWE! celebrates Indigenous cultures at the Grand Spectacle

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

On the Summer Solstice, Canadians celebrated National Indigenous Peoples Day. In Quebec City, the eighth KWE! Meet with Indigenous Peoples festival crowned the celebrations with a free concert, this time, on the steps of the National Assembly.

All day, people stopped to listen to the soundchecks. Artists jokingly said, “If you want to hear the rest of the songs, you’ll have to come back this evening.” They did and in great numbers, filling every space from the stage, around the Fontaine de Tourny to the remparts, even climbing on top of them. Hundreds of spectators watched and listened in awe, admiration and respect.

As the hot, cloudless first day of summer came to an end, KWE! celebrated the 11 First Nations and Inuit of Quebec with a free concert in partner- ship with the Quebec govern- ment. Public officials including Quebec minister responsible for relations with First Nations and Inuit Ian Lafrenière; Ghislain Picard, the former grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations Québec-Labrador; Wendat Grand Chief Rémy Vincent; Lt.- Gov. Manon Jeannotte, former chief of the Mi’kmaq Nation of Gespeg and the first Indigenous lieutenant governor of Quebec; and city councillor Maude Mercier Larouche were present for the opening ceremony.

Northern Voice set the beat on a ceremonial drum to the breathtaking throat singing by Sandy Emudluk and Janice Parsons as dancers performed a traditional powwow dance.

Internationally renowned violinist and composer Geneviève Gros-Louis then came on- stage. From her first note to her last, she captivated the growing audience under the setting sun. The Wendat composer skilfully and melodically blended music inspired by Indigenous traditions with modern elements. Through her work and art, she addresses important concerns such as mental health and women’s issues. She has composed music for the National Geographic Channel series Life Below Zero and the Cannes Film Festival event presenting the Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, honouring the Osage people. This evening was all about her heritage and that of the 11 First Nations and Inuit of Quebec. Singer Keyara Gros-Louis and traditional dancers accompanied her performance.

Following this outstanding opening set, Abenaki actor and entertainer Xavier Watso got the crowd laughing. “We are here this evening to celebrate our culture with you and to show everyone that we are strong and proud,” he said. “Let’s make enough noise to make the statues on the Parliament building behind me shake!” He then named the different First Nations to discover who was from where, with the loudest cheer coming for the nearby Wendat Nation.

Members of each nation stepped onto the stage to sing in their native language. Punctuated by throat singing, one by one, they sang “Un musicien parmi tant d’autres” by Serge Fiori, to enthusiastic applause.

They then left room for the performers of the evening: Florent Vollant and his guests, including Zachary Richard, Maten, Dumas, Ivan Boivin- Flamand, Hauterive, Scott-Pien Picard and Vincent Vallières.

KWE! celebrates Indigenous cultures at the Grand Spectacle Read More »

Hamad recruits two sitting councillors for City Hall team

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 18, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Anne Guérette, Bruno Marchand, Claude Villeneuve, Isabelle Roy, Jackie Smith, Louis Martin, Peter Black, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka, Sam Hamad, Stéphane Lachance

Hamad recruits two sitting councillors for City Hall team

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Mayoral candidate Sam Hamad now has two sitting municipal councillors on his own slate of candidates.

Isabelle Roy, councillor for the Robert-Giffard district in Beauport, and Louis Martin, councillor for Cap-Rouge–Laurentien and former speaker of the city council, will run under Hamad’s Leadership Québec banner.

Both were councillors for the opposition Québec d’abord party, but in March leader Claude Villeneuve booted Roy from the caucus when reports surfaced she had talked to Hamad about joining his party. Martin, who had also had discussions with Hamad, quit the party on his own shortly afterwards.

As members of Québec d’abord, both councillors supported the tramway project, an initiative of the previous administration of Régis Labeaume. Hamad opposes the project in its current concept as a costly system citizens do not want.

Both councillors, when the QCT contacted them, offered explanations for the change of position. Roy said, “I don’t think I’ve been the biggest cheerleader for the tramway project in the last three years. The abandonment of the D’Estimauville branch of the tramway was the breaking point for my support.”

She said, “The citizens of Quebec deserve efficient mobility across the entire territory, and the project Mr. Hamad will be putting forward is a step in that very direction.”

Martin said, “I’ve always been in favour of improving public transit in the city. It does not matter what vehicle – tramway, subway, bus – we need more transit, quickly. I saw Mr. Hamad’s proposal and I am convinced that it’s the best project to improve public transit in the city, quickly, for all neighbourhoods, at a price we can afford.”

Martin said Hamad plans to unveil his alternative transit plan as early as this week.

As far as why she joined Hamad’s team, Roy said the former provincial Liberal MNA and minister “is an authentic leader, capable of bringing people together and moving major issues forward by rallying the right people around the table.”

The addition of Roy and Martin now gives Leadership Québec seven confirmed candidates so far for the 21 districts. Hamad does not plan to run for a council seat as some mayoral candidates have chosen to do.

Québec d’abord now has only two sitting councillors who plan to run again, Patricia Boudreault-Bruyère in Neufchâtel–Lebourgneuf and Véronique Dallaire in Saules–Les Méandres. Longtime councillor Anne Corriveau announced earlier this month she does not plan to run again in her Pointe- de-Sainte-Foy district.

Besides the two incumbents, the other Québec d’abord candidates are Rosie-Anne R. Vallières in Vanier-Duberger, a seat being vacated by Alicia Despins, and Sophie Gosselin in Lac-Saint-Charles–Saint-Émile. Villeneuve, who is running for mayor for the first time, is the councillor for Maizerets-Lairet.

The large field of mayoral candidates became even larger over the weekend when former City Hall opposition leader and mayoral candidate Anne Guérette announced she was running for mayor again under the banner of the newly created Parti du Monde – Équipe Anne Guérette. Since stepping down as leader of the now-defunct Démocratie Québec party in 2017, Guérette, an architect, has become a vocal opponent of the tramway project. She joins incumbent mayor Bruno Marchand, Villeneuve, Hamad, Transition Québec leader Jackie Smith and Respect Citoyens leader Stéphane Lachance on the lengthening list of candidates. Municipal elections will be held across Quebec on Nov. 2.

With files from Ruby Pratka, LJI reporter

Hamad recruits two sitting councillors for City Hall team Read More »

First step of Promenade Champlain Phase 4 to feature pedestrian bridge

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 18, 2025 / Peter Black, Promenade Champlain, Quebec City

First step of Promenade Champlain Phase 4 to feature pedestrian bridge

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Coalition Avenir Québec government is moving ahead with the fourth and final phase of the Promenade Samuel-De Champlain shoreline redevelopment plan.

Phase 4, spanning from Rue D’Estimauville to Montmorency Falls, would complete the project, which began as a legacy gift to Quebec City from the Quebec government to mark its 400th anniversary in 2008.

The 8.1 kilometre length of the final phase is longer than the combined total of the first three phases, running from the bridges to the yacht club along the promenade. Phase 3, completed in 2023, comprises a beach and pool area.

Phase 4 itself comprises redevelopment of five zones in separate stages.

Jonatan Julien, the minister for infrastructure and minister responsible for the capital region, made the announcement June 10 at Le Pivot community centre in Beauport, alongside the vice president of the city executive committee, Coun. Pierre-Luc Lachance (Saint-Roch-Saint-Sauveur); Montmorency MNA Jean-François Simard; and André Roy, director general of the Commission de la Capitale Nationale du Québec (CCNQ), which manages Promenade Samuel-De Champlain.

The Phase 4 plan was selected from three consortia who were finalists in an “ideation” com- petition to stimulate concepts for the projects. A total of 32 teams from around the world submitted concepts. The winner is a Montreal-based group comprising Atelier L’Abri, Écoterritoire, Ghost and Le Picbois.

The centrepiece of the first stage of Phase 4 will be a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists to be built between Rue D’Estimauville and the Baie de Beauport, where a privately managed beach area has been in place for several years. It will pass over tracks for a CN railway marshalling yard.

The bridge, Julien said, “is the first step toward enhancing this fantastic site. This ambitious project will improve active mobility and enhance the quality of life for residents.”

Julien said he hopes to see the pedestrian bridge completed next year, with $5 million already invested in preparing plans. As for other components of the project, Julien said he was not in a position to provide a specific timetable, except that it would take several years. No overall budget has been drawn up either.

Besides the D’Estimauville sector, the four other sectors are defined as Rivière Beauport, Boul. des Chutes, the former cement works and Étang de la Côte.

A key component of the project is the transformation of the Autoroute Montmorency in the target sector into an “urban boulevard” making the shoreline more accessible and reducing the impact of a freeway.

The objective of the project contains five principles, as outlined in briefing documents: “Reclaim the shoreline and balance mobility, preserve existing biodiversity and natural environments, regenerate and rewild the shoreline, reconnect neighbourhoods to the shoreline, and create a resilience laboratory for urban development.”

Although CCNQ is the lead agency on the Promenade Samuel-De Champlain project, other partners include the ministry of transport, the Port of Quebec and the Quebec City administration.

Details of the project are available on the CCNQ website.

First step of Promenade Champlain Phase 4 to feature pedestrian bridge Read More »

CELEBRATING THE CLASS OF 2025: CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence honours graduates and teachers

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence, Education, graduation, Quebec City

CELEBRATING THE CLASS OF 2025: CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence honours graduates and teachers

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

The Class of 2025 of CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence (SLC) entered the darkened hall of Le Montmartre on June 6 to the sound of Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” Hundreds of graduates dressed in caps and gowns, and their families and friends, attended a ceremony to mark a milestone in their academic lives.

Graduates and parents lingered outdoors for photos be- fore being called into the hall. At 7:30 p.m., the ceremony began with speeches given by communications advisor Emma Lawrence and director of the constituent college and director of studies Edward Berryman.

Before the graduates and student award winners were named, the school honoured its dedicated faculty. This year, the AQPC Excellence in Teaching Award went to history professor Geneviève Ribordy. The students selected her fellow history professor Thomas Welham for the SLC Student Association Recognition Award.

The Highest Academic Achievement awards went to Hirad Haghbayan (science), Ève Richard (social science), Charlie Tremblay Groleau (P.W. Sims Business Program) and Harun Trtak (arts, literature and communications). Haghbayan also received the Highest Overall Academic Achievement Award, the Champlain Regional College Board of Governors’ Merit Award and the Governor General’s Medal. The prestigious Loran Honour Citation went to Tristan Massicotte. The Lieutenant-Governor’s Award went to Merrick Marshall and Paloma Calleja.

Of the 30 awards presented, Tremblay Groleau received four: the Puissance Onze Award, the Ernst and Young Award, the Beneva Resilience Scholarship and the Highest Academic Achievement Award in the P.W. Sims Business Program. As president of the SLC Student Association, he also gave the closing speech.

“I am truly honoured to have this chance to speak on behalf of the Class of 2025,” he said. “After our time here, we have come to understand that St. Lawrence is much, much more than an anglophone CEGEP in a francophone city. It is because we are small that we were able to have such a memorable and personal CEGEP experience, whether it was with our classmates or the dedicated faculty through extracurricular activities, studies, sports and clubs.” He concluded, “On behalf of the class, I thank you, St. Lawrence, and to the Class of 2025, continue to make a positive reputation.”

A full list of graduates and award winners follows below the photos.

CELEBRATING THE CLASS OF 2025: CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence honours graduates and teachers Read More »

Quebec City prepares for the Grand Spectacle de la Fête Nationale

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, Fête nationale, Quebec City

Quebec City prepares for the Grand Spectacle de la Fête Nationale

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

With summer just around the corner, Quebecers are preparing to celebrate Fête Nationale, which marks the summer solstice and honours the patron saint of French Canadians – Jean Baptiste, or John the Baptist.

On June 23, the annual Grand Spectacle on the Plains of Abraham will feature Garou, Claude Dubois, Ariane Moffatt, Sarahmée, Alaclair Ensemble and Bleu Jeans Bleu, among others, to celebrate Quebec culture and honour legendary singer-songwriter Gilles Vigneault. The show will be broadcast on TV and radio for all to enjoy.

“The Grand Spectacle de la Fête Nationale in the capital is part of a 25-year tradition for Télé-Québec,” said Télé-Québec CEO Marie Collin. “This year, the excitement is at its peak as we also take the production reins with various partners. True to our mission of promoting Quebec culture, we are delighted to bring together and excite the entire province of Quebec by sharing this immense moment of pride … We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Quebec’s unofficial anthem, ‘Gens du Pays,’ a tribute to Gilles Vigneault.”

“Our national holiday celebrations on the Plains showcase the artistic talent of Quebecers throughout the province,” said Mayor Bruno Marchand. “This annual musical event in the heart of the capital kicks off the festive season in Quebec City, a vibrant season in every corner of the city.”

This year, the traditional patriotic speeches will be delivered by television and radio personalities Sébastien Diaz and Bianca Gervais. “The 2025 celebration falls at a pivotal moment. Let’s face it, our world is a bit turned upside down,” said Gervais, co-spokeperson of the 2025 celebrations. “It’s a good reason to celebrate our expertise, our talents, to let our personalities shine, to pull together, to buy local and to rekindle our pride in our identity.”

Street performers, dancers and face painters will entertain passersby on Avenue Cartier and Grande Allée. The party continues on the Plains of Abraham when the gates open at 6 p.m. The Grand Spectacle begins at 9:30 p.m, with warm- up acts beginning at 7:30.

For the occasion, the Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC) will increase its regular service on June 23 from 6:30 p.m. to 12:45 a.m. on June 24. In addition, free park-and-ride lots will be available. For more information, visit rtcquebec.qc.ca.

Télé-Québec will broadcast the show live on TV, online at telequebec.tv and on the Télé-Québec mobile app. Local radio stations Rouge FM and iHeartRadio will also broadcast it live. There will be a rebroadcast on June 24 at 6 p.m. and on June 27 at 10:30 p.m. On June 25, TV5Monde will broadcast the show on its digital platforms throughout the French-speaking world. Festivities continue on June 24 with the official flag-raising ceremony at the Grand Marché.

Quebec City prepares for the Grand Spectacle de la Fête Nationale Read More »

Women march for equality and an end to poverty

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Bread and Roses, Cassandra Kerwin, feminism, gender equality, Quebec City, women's rights

Women march for equality and an end to poverty

Cassandra Kerwin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

cassandra@qctonline.com

To mark the 30th anniversary of the historic 1995 Bread and Roses March, women across the province held commemorative events. In Quebec City, women and men assembled beside the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec on June 7 for speeches before marching along Grande Allée to the National Assembly and to the Parc de la Francophonie for celebratory cake and refreshments.

Françoise David played a key role in the 1995 march as president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ) and later became an MNA, serving as co-spokesperson for Québec Solidaire. She said she still feels there is much work to be done in the name of gender equality and the fight against poverty, despite the progress made over the last three decades. “On the legal level, in terms of laws, we can’t say that women have taken a step backwards in Quebec,” she said. “The creation of a network of childcare centres was essential for women to be able to work, and recently, given the rise in reports of sexual assault against women, the creation of a specialized court. So, there has been progress for women.”

“It is a good thing to celebrate this milestone now, especially in these international political times,” said social worker Elizabeth Lopez. “We cannot allow the toxic masculinity and patriarchy rising from the south to undo all the work we have done in the past decades. That is why I skipped school to march back then and that is why I am here today.” She added, “It is great to see so many men among us and support[ing] us.”

“It is amazing to see how much has changed in 30 years,” said Amélia O’Connor, a retired social worker and volunteer in a women’s shelter in Montreal. “The demands we made back then still resonate with us today.” According to the FFQ, the marchers’ main de- mands included pay equity, social programs for women with potential jobs, security benefits and unemployment insurance, social housing, and an automatic child support collection system. This year, women walked for equality, social justice and an end to poverty.

Much has improved for women since the initial Bread and Roses March in 1912, a strike of immigrant workers at a textile factory in Lawrence (near Boston), Mass. Over the past century, women in North America have gained the right to vote, hold office, have careers outside the home and keep their jobs after giving birth and while raising young children. The gender salary gap has decreased, abortion has been legalized and shelters for women who have escaped domestic violence have become more accessible, although challenges remain.

Much remains to be done, as demonstrated by the hundreds of women and men present in Quebec City this past weekend. Among them were some of the original 1995 “godmothers” (sponsors and co-organizers) and newly appointed “godmothers,” including freelance journalist and broadcaster Ariane Émond, Sen. Chantal Petitclerc, Indigenous rights activist Michèle Rouleau, artist Marie-Claire Séguin, Radio- Canada anchor Marie-José Turcotte, and former executive director of the Maison d’Haïti and Montreal-based immigrant rights activist Marjorie Villefranche.

Women march for equality and an end to poverty Read More »

TRAM TRACKER: Prep work ramps up; consortia compete for big contracts

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Peter Black, Quebec City, tram tracker, TramCité, tramway, Tramway de Québec

TRAM TRACKER: Prep work ramps up; consortia compete for big contracts

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

There will be several visible signs and a foretaste of the level of disruption over the coming months as preliminary work for the tramway project ramps up. At the same time, the selection process for principal contractors for the project has reached an important milestone.

Last week the city unveiled a list of worksites mostly along Bouls. René-Lévesque and Laurier, as well as in Saint-Roch, involving the relocation and modernization of underground networks for water, natural gas and telecommunications.

A few examples of the projects are the installation of valves for the water supply network on streets perpendicular to Boul. René-Lévesque as well as near 1ère Avenue in Limoilou and Charlesbourg; reconstruction of three access shafts for telecommunications networks at Avenues Holland, Brown and Cartier; and creation of a temporary connection zone at Parc Victoria and Rue de la Maréchaussée.

The city says it will inform affected residents and businesses as work rolls out and take measures to “maintain access to homes and businesses, ensure mobility and safe travel in neighbourhoods and reduce nuisances, such as noise and dust, caused by construction sites.”

Any questions about these projects can be directed to the city’s citizens’ relations centre by calling 311.

Meanwhile, the process to build the actual tramway net- work has taken a leap forward with the selection of consortia that will bid on the two biggest contracts of the project.

The Caisse de Dépôt et Placement de Québec infrastructure division (CDPQ Infra), which the Quebec government has commissioned to manage the tramway project, has picked three consortia of companies each to bid on the contracts for civil construction and for systems.

In a June 5 release, CDPQ Infra describes the civil work as including “the excavation of the tunnel under Parliament Hill, construction of buildings, construction and repair of bridges, viaducts and other engineering structures.”

The systems contract covers “railway tracks, traction power systems, as well as electrical, communication and road and railway signalling systems.

The six qualified consortia will have until the end of the year to submit proposals for evaluation by project manage- ment experts. Once the winning bidders are chosen early next year, the implementation stage will be set in motion towards a 2027 start for full- blown construction. The system is targeted for completion in 2033.

Some companies – Pomerleau and AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin), for example – are contenders for both contracts.

Phase 1 of the $7.6-billion TramCité project comprises 19 kilometres of track for electric trains, with 29 stations from Cap-Rouge to Charlesbourg.

TRAM TRACKER: Prep work ramps up; consortia compete for big contracts Read More »

Developer vows to limit inconvenience in adding 10 floors to Grande Allée building

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Peter Black, Quebec City, real estate

Developer vows to limit inconvenience in adding 10 floors to Grande Allée building

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Work could get underway soon on a project to add 10 storeys to an apartment building on Grande Allée that already has 11 floors.

The city is expected to grant approval in the coming weeks for Bildodeau Immobilier to raise the roof on 153-155 Grande Allée Est, a building that was completed in 2020. Bilodeau also owns the apartment building behind the new one, Le Montmorency, on Avenue Wilfrid-Laurier.

As for the seeming negative impacts of a construction site on top of a building housing several hundred tenants, the developers say, “During construction, several elements are being put in place to mitigate inconveniences.”

In an email exchange with the QCT, Éric Bilodeau, general manager of the family-owned company, said the building had been designed with an addition of up to 12 stories in mind.

“The structure, configuration and anchors are already installed and planned for this purpose. The structure has the capacity to accommodate the additional 10 floors without any worries,” Bilodeau said. “The same is true for the interior installations, as a third elevator shaft already exists and is ready to accommodate the third elevator, among other things.”

As for the actual construction, Bilodeau said the impact will be contained largely by the building work going on “at height.” This will limit “the footprint on public roads and sidewalks.”

He said, “A protection will be installed over a width of about 10 feet, all around the building from the 13th floor, during exterior construction. This protection will make all balconies accessible and walk- ing on the sidewalk possible. A demarcated sidewalk will be installed, with open containers and a construction flagger will be present on site as much as necessary to assist with crossing and traffic.”

Bilodeau said steps will be taken to keep Rue Galipeau, which borders the site on the west, open to traffic and pedestrians. Construction workers’ vehicles will be parked further away at designated lots.

As for the usual convoy of de- livery trucks for a construction site, Bilodeau said a system will be in place so that “trucks will have to wait to be called in turn, from a parking lot that will be established on our Boul. René-Lévesque property.”

Because there is no excavation work to be done, issues of noise and dust will be limited, he said.

Another mitigating feature, Bilodeau said, would be that the usual trailers for construction workers will be cantilevered over the build- ing. “Movement between the ground floor and the building will therefore be limited. They will use the fire escape leading to Rue Galipeau, but will have no access to the interior of the upper floors.”

Bilodeau said, “We intend to make this construction a success both in its method of execution and in the final product.”

Among the company’s other properties are the Woodfield- Sillery condo-apartments and the recently acquired Catholic diocese building and land on Boul. René-Lévesque.

Developer vows to limit inconvenience in adding 10 floors to Grande Allée building Read More »

Union federation calls on St. Lawrence to drop Birch appeal amid cuts

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Union federation calls on St. Lawrence to drop Birch appeal amid cuts

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The union federation which represents thousands of CEGEP teachers in the province is calling on CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence to drop its contestation of a labour tribunal ruling, amid wider provincial cuts to CEGEP funding.

The Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN) is “dismayed by the misuse of public funds by Champlain Regional College St. Lawrence Campus,” FNEEQ-CSN vice president for CEGEPs Yves De Repentigny said in a statement. “Although arbitrator Julie Blouin delivered a strong and unequivocal decision against the college on May 1, 2024, finding that teacher Lisa Birch had been subjected to psychological harassment, the administration continues to pursue costly proceedings instead of taking the necessary corrective action.”

Blouin, a Tribunal d’arbitration du travail (TAT) arbitrator, ruled last year that the college had failed to ensure a safe workplace for Birch, a long- time teacher and former union representative. The ruling stated that in January 2022, Birch was told she was being investigated for psychological harassment. In response, supported by the faculty union, she filed three grievances alleging psychological harassment and failure to ensure a safe workplace. She alleged that the college never made clear what she was accused of, and subjected her to a drawn-out investigation including no-contact protocols that isolated her from colleagues. She was also led to believe multiple people had filed complaints against her when only one person – director of studies Edward Berryman – had. “The investigation should never have happened,” Blouin ruled.

The college mandated lawyers to appeal the decision in June 2024. The college is also separately contesting a decision by the province’s workplace health and safety board (CNESST) on Birch’s disability claim be- fore the TAT, according to the FNEEQ-CSN, of which the St. Lawrence faculty union is a member.

The Champlain Regional Col- lege (CRC) board, which oversees operations at St. Lawrence and the two other CEGEPs in the CRC system, in Saint-Lambert and Lennoxville, decided at the time to “acknowledge [its] shortcomings,” commission a workplace climate survey for St. Lawrence and explore alterna- tive conflict resolution methods. The survey, obtained by the QCT, raised concerns about teachers’ schedules and workloads and teacher-management relations; it is unclear what has been done in regards to conflict resolution methods.

“It has been a year since [the initial ruling], and we see that not only has [St. Lawrence] not put corrective measures in place, but it’s contesting the TAT decision and the disability [claim] granted by the CNESST,” De Repentigny said. “We don’t understand this insistence. It makes no sense that in a period where we’re imposing budget cuts and hiring freezes, they are wasting taxpayer money to pile onto a teacher who has been a victim of harassment.”

Last month, the Fédération des Cégeps said CEGEPs would have to cut more than $151 million in spending as a result of government cutbacks, an “unprecedented” amount. De Repentigny said St. Lawrence would have to absorb an estimated $325,000 in cuts, although the QCT could not independently confirm that number.

“For 12 months, instead of admitting its faults … [St. Lawrence] has poured its efforts into contesting the arbitration decision, hiring investigators and lawyers, throwing tens of thousands of dollars after the hundreds of thousands it has already spent on this saga. This is money that won’t be spent on serving its students,” De Repentigny said.

CRC corporate affairs administrative agent Nathalie Couderc said the college would not comment on eventual budget cuts. The CRC administration had not responded to a separate request for comment on the Birch appeal by press time.

Union federation calls on St. Lawrence to drop Birch appeal amid cuts Read More »

Quebec City native, astronaut Marc Garneau dies at 76

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Jean-Yves Duclos, Joël Lightbound, Marc Garneau, Morrin Centre, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Quebec City native, astronaut Marc Garneau dies at 76

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Quebec City native, former cabinet minister and Canadian space pioneer Marc Garneau died on June 4. He was 76.

Marc Roy, Garneau’s former communications director, shared a brief statement from Garneau’s wife, Pamela Garneau, announcing the news.

“Marc faced his final days with the same strength, clarity and grace that defined his life. He passed away peacefully, surrounded by the love of his family,” Pamela Garneau wrote. “We are especially grateful to the medical team which provided such dedicated and compassionate care during his short illness.”

Garneau was born in Quebec City in 1949 – “in the old Jeffery Hale Hospital, the one in Vieux- Québec,” as he recounted to CBC’s Alison Brunette during the 2023 Literary Feast at the Morrin Centre. When he was a child, his family moved frequently due to his father’s military career. He studied engineering at the Royal Military College before completing a PhD at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, England, and joining the Navy as a combat systems engineer. In 1983, he was named one of Canada’s first six astronauts. The following year, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, he became the first Canadian in space.

“Take me back to that moment, you’re sitting there – 10, nine, eight … what’s going through your mind?” Brunette asked Garneau at the Literary Feast.

“If you imagine yourselves tipped over backward looking at the ceiling, that’s what your seat is like,” Garneau said as guests tipped their heads back. “There are people who sit you in your seat … and connect your radio, your oxygen, so you’re ready to go. Then they say good luck and close the hatch … You’re left there for two and a half hours before launch, the longest two and a half hours of your life. A lot of things go through your mind – do I really want to do this? Am I ready? … You realize you are ready, and you’re going to live something that very few people have ever experienced.

“When you see the entire planet, your perspective starts to change,” he said. “You see that this planet is the cradle of humanity … there’s nowhere else to go, and we have to find a way to get along with each other.”

The Challenger mission was the first of Garneau’s three trips to space. In 2001, he was named president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Garneau resigned from the CSA to run for Parliament as a Liberal in 2006. He lost on that first attempt, but won comfortably in Westmount–Saint Louis on his second try in 2008. His engineer’s directness and attention to detail made him popular with journalists and colleagues. He ran for the Liberal leadership in 2013 before throwing his support behind Justin Trudeau. Trudeau named him transport minister in his first cabinet, later promoting him to foreign affairs. He resigned in March 2023; at the time, he said he had promised his family he would step down after the joint committee on medical assistance in dying, on which he sat, had tabled its final report.

In retirement, he wrote an autobiography, A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream. One of his last public appearances was at the Morrin Centre, during this year’s Imagination Writers’ Festival, promoting the book.

Barry McCullough, executive director of the Morrin Centre, described his death from cancer as a “huge shock.”

“He was interesting and interested,” McCullough remembered. “He seemed like a really genuine person, and he had a lot of curiosity, which would be a good quality for an astronaut. He was born in Quebec City, went off and did all kinds of things, and then came back and connected with the English-speaking community, which is cool, because he has lived in both languages so he’s a really good spokesperson for bilingualism.”

Local Liberal MPs Jean-Yves Duclos and Joël Lightbound served alongside Garneau in Parliament. Lightbound called his passing “an immense loss for Canada.”

“I owe a lot to Marc,” Duclos wrote in a social media post. “He generously offered me his mentorship when I first became an MP. I will always remember his intelligence, his sense of duty and respect, and his commitment to his family. He repeatedly expressed to me his pride in being from the Quebec City region – a region whose interests he always helped me defend.”

Quebec City native, astronaut Marc Garneau dies at 76 Read More »

Geophysicist and bell-ringer Micha Horswill runs for Transition Québec

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Micha Horswill, Peter Black, Quebec City

Geophysicist and bell-ringer Micha Horswill runs for Transition Québec

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

If being a geophysicist on city council wouldn’t be a first, Micha Horswill might well be the first church bell-ringer with a council seat, should she get elected in November.

Horswill, who on June 5 launched her campaign for the Cap-aux-Diamants council seat at a bar on Rue Saint-Jean, is a woman of many interests, now including municipal politics.

Her day job is as a research professional with Université Laval’s geophysical instrumentation group, but she still finds time to attend neighbourhood council meetings, make TikTok videos about “the city’s hidden gems,” and, yes, ring church bells.

As she explained in an interview prior to her launch party, friends had encouraged her to consider a city council run, which she initially rebuffed, but the idea “grew on me and I kept thinking about it and I said ‘why not?’ I was born here, I live here … and I have ideas. So, I decided to jump into the pool.”

Horswill, 31, said she only knew Transition Québec lead- er and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith from media reports, but she “loved” the social and environmental values of the party. She said the municipal politics bug took hold thanks to her experiences at neighbourhood council meetings.

One of those experiences was pushing for the creation of a mural on a side street off Rue Saint-Jean; the effort was a success and taught her a lot about how things get done in a city bureaucracy.

As she says on her Facebook page: “I’m in love with Quebec City–and I dream of it. I see it bigger, more vibrant, more avant-garde and more fair. I allow myself to dream, but I don’t just have my head in the clouds.

“I have my feet firmly planted, with my geophysicist’s perspective, which requires rigour, consistency and pragmatism. I’m trained to analyze complex systems, read between the layers and find the root causes of problems. I want to bring that perspective to the city as well.” Though her father is an anglophone from British Columbia who moved to Quebec City when he was young, Horswill was raised and educated in French. She said she learned her (fluent) English in school and perfected it in the years she worked in Europe, where “everything was in English.”

She recalls a high school rivalry with Quebec High School, but she said, “Now I’ve made peace with QHS and accepted that my basketball team wasn’t exactly the best.”

Her more recent interaction with the city’s anglophone community was with bell-ringers, a largely English-speaking group. She got involved about two years ago when she heard the bells being rung at the former St. Matthew’s Church on Rue Saint-Jean (now a public library, Bibliothèque Claire-Martin), was intrigued, and after some internet searching, found the change-ringing group and signed up.

“I discovered a nice community that is very vibrant,” she said. She was happy to participate when the city recently welcomed change-ringers from around the world.

“We’re the only city in Canada that has two bell-ringing towers,” Horswill said with some pride. The other bells are in the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the Old City, where she lives.

Horswill is proud of the his- tory of her city to the extent she highlights many aspects through brief videos on her TikTok channel. One of them features the top three libraries in the Old City, one of which is that of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec at the Morrin Centre.

Horswill said it “pains her to see” not enough local residents live in the Old City. “It’s the birthplace of an entire nation. People should be living there, we should see children, neighbours.”

She said one measure to encourage people to live in the Old City would be to improve public transportation. “Having a walled city is great for tourists, but it keeps [residents] captive.”

Among other issues on her agenda are homelessness in the central city, the lack of trees in the Saint-Jean- Baptiste neighbourhood and the lack of a large grocery store for Old City residents.

Horswill said, “I think I will win,” although she does have competition in the form of Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc, the incumbent councillor from the ruling Québec Forte et Fière (QFF) party and member of the executive committee for heritage, planning, tourism and quality of life in the Old City.

QFF has announced candidates for all but two of the 21 council seats. Two notable additions to the party’s slate are Marchand’s media attachée Élainie Lepage, running in Saint-Roch–Saint-Sauveur, and Manouchka Blanchet, who was actually elected in 2021 in Beau- port’s Sainte-Thérèse-de-Lisieux district as the running mate of Jean-François Gosselin, the unsuccessful mayoral candidate for the now defunct Québec 21 party.

Sam Hamad’s Leadership Québec party added three more candidates to its slate last week: Mégy Gagné in Val-Bélair; Donald Gagnon in Louis-XIV and former Équipe Labeaume candidate Émilie Robitaille in Neufchâtel-Lebourgneuf.

Municipal elections are held across the province on Nov. 2.

Geophysicist and bell-ringer Micha Horswill runs for Transition Québec Read More »

Cathedral garden construction should begin this summer

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 11, 2025 / Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Cathedral garden construction should begin this summer

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Construction for the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity garden project is expected to kick into high gear this summer.

Rev. Christian Schreiner, dean of the cathedral, told parishioners in a recent news- letter to be prepared for “a number of major works” over the next few months, including continued landscaping of the cathedral close, renovations to the wall facing Rue Sainte-Anne, archeological excavations in the vicinity of the wall and completion of exterior painting work on the cathedral.

As a result, the newsletter warned, some areas will be inaccessible, there will be more foot and vehicle traffic around the cathedral as construction and excavation crews move in and out, and no-parking signs may be posted. Parishioners will still be able to access the lot for Sunday services, and the cathedral’s summer crafts market will go ahead. Construction of the cloister garden will get underway in early August, subject to the availability of a city archeologist. By law, any construction site in the Old City must be inspected by archeologists before planned work can go ahead.

The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the oldest Anglican church outside the British Isles, was built between 1800 and 1804 on the site of a Récollet monastery which had been destroyed by fire. The Récollets grew vegetables, flowers and medicinal herbs in a large garden on the land where the cathedral now stands. The Ursuline convent had its own garden just up the street, and the Jesuits had one nearby. Today, all that remains of the gardens are the names of the street in front of the cathedral and City Hall – Rue des Jardins – and the public square behind City Hall – Les Jardins de l’Hôtel- de-Ville. In 2022, the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Foundation announced plans to build a public garden on the cathedral property, with support from the Ville de Québec, the Anglican Diocese of Quebec and individual donors. Last spring, a work by Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz was unveiled on the site of the future garden; at the time, Schreiner said the project’s goal was to “bring the gardens back to Rue des Jardins.”

Historian David Mendel, president of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Foundation, explained that the foundation planned to build two gardens – a main garden in front of the cathedral and a smaller “cloister garden” in the former enclosure between the church hall and the former bishop’s residence. The cloister garden “is inspired to a certain extent by the French formal gardens, which the Récollet friars had on the site prior to the construction of the cathedral,” Mendel said. “It’s … a smaller, intimate contemplative garden, which will complement the bigger garden, which will be more English-style, more informal.” Mendel said he expected the cloister garden to be inaugurated later this year.

Meanwhile, Mendel said, work will begin on the wall along Rue Sainte-Anne, “which is in bad shape and was never intended to support the earth which comes up against it.” An underground concrete support will be built to shore up the centuries-old wall. “The stone outside wall will be removed temporarily and put back in 2026.”

“Almost everything is in place, but nothing can start until we have confirmation of when the archeologists are available, because they have to be there. Once we have that, then the rest falls into place,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of work on the cathedral and the church hall over the years, but we haven’t had to co-ordinate it with so many other moving parts as is the case right now. Everyone is working together to iron out the inconveniences as much as possible.”

He said he expected construction of the main garden to get underway in earnest in late 2027 or early 2028.

“It’s part of the philosophy of our congregation to be welcoming, but also we are stewards of something that is very special,” he said. “This is one of the most important historic sites in Canada. The cathedral is filled with history and beauty, but it’s surrounded by a very unattractive, muddy mess. So [we have] a sense of responsibility to improve that, but also an opportunity to do something special which will be inspiring to people – and if people know about a place, then they want to get involved,” he concluded.

To learn more about the cathedral gardens or to donate to support the project, visit jardinsdelacathedrale.ca/en.

Cathedral garden construction should begin this summer Read More »

Quebec applies to appeal Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 4, 2025 / Bill 40, Central Québec School Board, Education, Jean Robert, Quebec City, Quebec English School Boards Association, Ruby Pratka

Quebec applies to appeal Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec’s English-language school boards are preparing to defend their continued existence before the Supreme Court of Canada. On May 30, multiple sources confirmed that the Quebec government planned to request leave to appeal a ruling in support of the school boards to the country’s highest court.

In February 2020, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government passed Bill 40, which replaced elected school boards in both the francophone and anglophone sectors with government-run service centres overseen by volunteer boards with limited power. At the time, English boards argued the new law infringed on the English- speaking community’s right to control its education system, afforded to official-language minority communities in the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) took the government to court, obtaining first an injunction which suspended the law’s application to English boards, then a ruling by a Superior Court judge which found the law did infringe on the community’s charter rights. The government appealed that decision, and in April of this year, an appeals court panel essentially upheld the Superior Court ruling. At the time, QESBA and its member boards hoped the government would accept the ruling and lay the groundwork for a new working relationship with school boards. That hasn’t happened.

The association said its members were “deeply disappointed” by the government’s decision to appeal.

“We were hopeful that the government would accept the unanimous ruling of the Court of Appeal and finally respect the rights of the English-speaking community,” said QESBA president Joe Ortona. “At a time when Quebec faces serious financial pressures, it is disappointing to see public funds used to continue a legal battle that so clearly infringes on the rights of minority communities.”

“As I said at the time, [the Appeals Court ruling] was a really wonderful decision for the English boards – there was a recognition that the Constitution gave us the right to govern our schools,” said Jean Robert, chair of the Council of Commissioners of the Central Québec School Board (CQSB), the QESBA member board which oversees English-language public schools in the Quebec City region and on the South Shore as well as in Mauricie, Saguenay and large swaths of northern Quebec. “The environment is such that I wasn’t surprised [an appeal was made] … but we were really hopeful that at the end of the day, the government would see that the decision was clear.

“I don’t know the timeline, but we’re talking about years of time and expenses and uncertainty,” he added. “We are convinced we will win – we have the two judgments in our favour, the last one was unanimous and they supported us on nearly every point.”

Robert told the QCT school boards would have to “rely on the generosity of the community” to continue the court challenge.

“They [the government] have all the legal resources in the world, and in our case, we’ll have to do fundraising for this,” he said. “When you go to the Supreme Court, you’re talking about over $1 million in expenses. The government has a slew of lawyers at their disposal, but we have to hire our own lawyers and do fundraising.”

Robert said representatives of QESBA member boards would meet on June 2 to plan next steps. “We will be looking at potential donors in the community, parents and graduates who are ready to donate,” he said. “We always said we didn’t want to use money that has been set aside for services to students. There have been some generous donors for the last Bill 40 case, but we can’t always [turn] to the same people … and the money has to come from somewhere.”

In the coming weeks, “our role will be to inform people on what this really means – it is about being the master of what we do,” Robert said. “It is a slippery slope to having our schools potentially become wings of the francophone system … we will continue to fight this with everything we can.”

The Quebec government does not generally comment on ongoing court cases.

Quebec applies to appeal Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court Read More »

Hamad announces first two candidates for City Hall campaign

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 4, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Peter Black, Quebec City, Sam Hamad

Hamad announces first two candidates for City Hall campaign

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Mayoral candidate Sam Hamad introduced the first two candidates for his Leadership Québec party, both of whom have backgrounds working within the provincial government.

At a news conference held in a crowded chauffeur’s cottage at Domaine Cataraqui on May 29, Hamad said Justine Savard and Jean-Stéphane Bernard “embody the strong, unifying leadership we want to offer the citizens of Quebec City. They each have an impressive track record, deep roots in their communities, and are ready to fully invest in improving the quality of life in their neighbourhoods.”

Savard, a lawyer who has worked in the office of Coalition Avenir Québec ministers Sonia LeBel and the late Nadine Girard, ran for the party in the 2022 election in the Montreal riding of Viau.

Savard will be running in the Beauport district of Sainte-Thérèse-de-Lisieux, a seat currently held by executive committee member and former mayoral candidate Jean-François Gosselin, who has announced he will not run again for city council.

Bernard, a CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence graduate who went on to earn degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP) and Université Laval, is a former deputy minister of international relations and Canadian relations, who has also served as Quebec’s representative in Washington and New England.

Bernard will run in the Saint-Louis–Sillery district, currently held by executive committee member Maude Mercier Larouche, who has also said she is not running again.

Bernard, a resident of Sillery since he was a child, said the leap into politics is “just a continuity of what I’ve been doing for the last 30 years, working for the people of Quebec City, working for the people of the district that I wish to represent.”

In an interview with the QCT, he said he is “honoured, to be honest, to have this op- portunity to work with some- one who’s the leader that Quebec City needs.”

Savard, for her part, said she got back into elected politics at the municipal level, because “I’m a working mom and I’m really, really fond of my community and I saw a couple of things in the city that weren’t sitting well for me. So I decided that may- be with Sam Hamad we can change the course of things.”

Asked what she learned as a provincial candidate three years ago, Simard said, “I think I’m a better listener now,” having had the experience of knocking on doors to hear what citizens have to say.

During the news conference, neither candidate was willing to venture a specific opinion on the tramway project, whereas Hamad, who op- poses the plan, said he would release his party’s detailed platform “before the [summer] holidays.”

Hamad also responded to questions about the CAQ government’s “third link” bridge project, the location of which is supposed to be announced in June. He downplayed a comment he had made previously in favour of a bridge to the west near the current spans.

He said, “I will let the specialists decide technically where it should go, with acceptability and [the least] in- convenience” for the citizens of the city.

Hamad, incumbent mayor and Québec Forte et Fière Leader Bruno Marchand, Transition Québec Leader Jackie Smith and Québec d’abord Leader Claude Villeneuve are the declared candidates for city hall so far. Respect Citoyens Leader Stéphane Lachance has also said he plans to run for mayor, although recent reporting by Radio-Canada has cast doubt on whether he meets the residency requirement.

Municipal elections will be held across Quebec on Nov. 2.

Hamad announces first two candidates for City Hall campaign Read More »

City to install anti-ramming barriers in Rue Saint-Jean pedestrian area

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 4, 2025 / Quebec City, Ruby Pratka, security

City to install anti-ramming barriers in Rue Saint-Jean pedestrian area

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Ville de Québec is investing nearly $100,000 in a pilot project involving barriers to prevent car- and truck- ramming attacks on the city’s pedestrian streets, officials announced on May 30. Over the next few weeks, the barriers will be placed along the section of Rue Saint-Jean that is being pedestrianized for the summer.

The pilot project comes in response to concerns raised by residents and tourists about the vulnerability of the city’s pedestrian streets to terrorists or rogue drivers using cars, trucks or vans as weapons – an increasingly common threat. In 2016, 86 people were killed when a terrorist drove a truck through a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France. In 2018, 10 died when an anti-feminist extremist drove a van down a Toronto pedestrian street; in March 2023, two people were killed and nine were injured in Amqui, Que., by a man with untreated mental health issues behind the wheel of a small truck; and on April 26, in Vancouver, 11 people were killed when a man behind the wheel of an SUV ploughed through a Filipino heritage festival.

“We have an obligation to protect people who participate in events,” Marc Des Rivières, director of transport and intelligent mobility at the Ville de Québec, said on the Radio-Canada drive-time show C’est encore mieux l’après- midi. “We’ve been evaluating the risks for the past several years and deploying various means. However, we have to acknowledge, events like these are multiplying around the world … whether it’s religious radicals, lone actors, impaired drivers or people with mental health issues. It does create a risk, because ‘zero risk’ doesn’t exist. So we have the obligation to put in place adapted measures.”

City crews will install four Swiss-made Armis One antiramming barriers and nine concrete planters on the road and along the pavement of the pedestrianized portion of Rue Saint-Jean, at the corners of Rue D’Auteuil and Côte du Palais. According to a city information document, the barriers can stop a nine-ton truck, but don’t create any additional obstacles for pedestrians, cyclists or wheelchair users, and don’t require constant surveillance. First responders who need ac- cess to the street will be able to deactivate them remotely, Des Rivières explained. When activated, the barriers deploy “big red metal teeth” which rip through the front of a vehicle.

“This pilot project will assess the effectiveness of the device during assembly and disassembly operations, as well as access for emergency vehicles. The city will then be able to evaluate the feasibility of deploying this system on a larger scale,” the city’s communications and citizen relations department said in a statement.

City to install anti-ramming barriers in Rue Saint-Jean pedestrian area Read More »

Avenue Maguire springs into festivities with Les Printanières

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 4, 2025 / Cassandra Kerwin, local business, Quebec City

Avenue Maguire springs into festivities with Les Printanières

Cassandra Kerwin

cassandra@qctonline.com

Celebrations of Avenue Maguire’s 125th anniversary continued with Les Printanières de Maguire on May 30 and 31. The shops, restaurants and performers adjusted to the evechanging weather.

Despite rain in the forecast for May 30, the sun was out, yet not many people showed up. Due to the forecast, the SDC Maguire announced a change in the schedule. Festivities ran from noon to 5 p.m. on both days, rather than 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on May 30 and 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. on May 31. These changes displeased some people who planned to celebrate on the terrasses and in the shops on Friday or Saturday evening.

MP for Québec-Centre Jean-Yves Duclos, MNA for Jean- Talon Pascal Paradis, city councillor Maude Mercier Larouche and director general of the Caisse Desjardins Saint-Louis- de-France Kathleen Bilodeau visited Avenue Maguire on Friday afternoon. SDC Maguire director general Brian Aubé gave them a tour, visiting a few merchants.

“It is important to start the spring and summer season on the right foot,” said Aubé. “The weather has not really been on our side, these past few weeks, dropping buckets of rain over our heads. For our events, we have taken measures. We modified the schedule a bit, and we are ready to set up tents. We asked certain merchants and shops to hold their kiosks inside rather than on the side- walks.” This explained the lack of crowds on the streets on Friday, despite the sun and warm temperatures. On Saturday, rain poured down.

“My grandmother has been doing the family grocery shopping at Roset’s since it opened in 1947,” said Alexandra Bélanger. “I have so many memories on this street that I am happy to share them with my own daughters.”

During the weekend, visitors sampled foie gras and duck rillettes from Canard Goulu, shopped at Boutik Suisse, savoured chocolates at Eddy Laurent or enjoyed a refreshing ice cream at Chocolats Favoris or the Bar Laitier Maguire. Street performers were invited to showcase their skills and talents.

The history of Avenue Maguire dates back to 1900, when Father Alexandre-Eustache Maguire requested a shorter route to the St-Colomb–St- Michel de Sillery cemetery on Boul. St-Cyrille (now Boul. René-Lévesque). Over time, businesses opened along this newly constructed road. The first tramway reached it in 1910, passing along another new street, Rue Sheppard. Today, RTC bus 11 follows this route.

Since his passing in 1934, Father Maguire has been forgotten by the general public, and the pronunciation of the name of the street has shifted from “Maguire” to something closer to “Magoirre.” No matter how it is pronounced, it has a lot of options for local shopping and dining.

Editor’s note: To learn more about the history of Avenue Maguire, see Bill Cox’s July 7, 2021 Street Views column.

Avenue Maguire springs into festivities with Les Printanières Read More »

‘Unique’ school for deaf students plans $7-million expansion

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / June 4, 2025 / disabilities, Education, Peter Black, Quebec City

‘Unique’ school for deaf students plans $7-million expansion

Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

It’s called the only school of its kind in North America, dedicated to giving francophone children with hearing and speech impairments a chance to get a normal education and have a fulfilling life.

The École Oraliste, located on Boul. René-Lévesque across the street from Collège Saint-Charles-Garnier, is a victim of its own success in providing specialized education for deaf children.

The school’s board has embarked on an expansion project to allow it to accommodate dozens more students whom it currently has to refuse for lack of space. Students at the school are from four to 18 years old, with either a hearing disability or a non-deafness-related speech impairment.

The Fondation Sourdine unveiled the $7-million project earlier this month at a fundraising gala which featured some 59 of the school’s 76 students hopping on stage and performing roles at full voice.

Foundation executive director Sandra Ferguson, herself the mother of a 22-year-old deaf son now completing studies in administration at Université Laval, said she was moved by the moment when students received a standing ovation for their performance.

“They get confident. ‘I can do that.’ They realize it’s possible to do something,” instead of facing rejection or ridicule for their disability.

The foundation has been working on an expansion project for the past three years, and has architects’ designs and engineering plans ready to go.

The school, founded by a group of researchers at Université Laval, was authorized by the Quebec government in 2002. In 2012, the foundation acquired the building where the Institut St-Joseph private primary school was located. That school moved into a new building on the grounds of the college.

Symptomatic of its need for expansion, the École Oraliste has been renting space at Collège Garnier to accommodate some 35 students. The maximum class size is four to six students.

“This is the next step,” Ferguson said of the expansion plan. “Now people know the school better, know that this is a unique place for those kids. Since the past five years, 95 per cent of the kids who come [here] go back to a regular school with success.”

Ferguson has been lobbying government officials to obtain a substantial financial commitment to the project, but faces the same situation of financial scarcity as public schools. Regardless, she is confident the government will recognize the unique role the school plays, particularly with public schools struggling to provide services for students with additional needs.

The school receives funding from the Quebec government per student, including an amount for specialized education, but Ferguson said there is no government program for infrastructure for such a school.

She said, “We’ll cross our fingers” that the Ministry of Education will come through with funding that will encourage other private donors to contribute. Should government funding come through promptly, she said, “We’re ready to go.”

The building would be erected along Ave. Joffre in a section of the current parking lot and play area. The foundation has acquired an adjacent property on Ave. Cardinal-Rouleau to give it space for an expanded play area and courtyard.

The addition will contain 10 classrooms, a library and other multi-purpose spaces, bringing the classes together under one roof and boosting the capacity of the school to 125 students, a 40 per cent increase.

Ferguson said the school is having to refuse more and more students as awareness of its success spreads. Last year, 24 students were turned away, and so far this year, more than 30 have been denied a space.

“Our objective,” Ferguson said, “is to make these kids future contributors to society.”

With the end of the school term around the corner in June, Ferguson said the students “are not happy to go. They want to stay here. They don’t want to go because for the first time, it’s fun to learn.”

‘Unique’ school for deaf students plans $7-million expansion Read More »

Local shadow cabinet appointments ‘show respect for Quebec,’ Deltell says

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / May 27, 2025 / 2025 federal election, Gérard Deltell, Lévis, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka

Local shadow cabinet appointments ‘show respect for Quebec,’ Deltell says

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Nearly a month after the federal election which painted much of the greater Quebec City region Tory blue, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has named two Quebec City-area MPs and three members of the South Shore caucus to the 48-member shadow cabinet led by House Leader Andrew Scheer.

On April 28, Conservatives were elected in four of the seven ridings in the Quebec City area (the exceptions being the central Liberal strongholds of Québec-Centre and Louis-Hébert, and Beauport-Limoilou, where the Liberals defeated a Bloc Québécois incumbent), in Beauce and in all three ridings on the South Shore. The Conservatives picked up one seat (Montmorency–Charlevoix) from the Bloc Québécois and kept their hold on the other area seats.

The shadow cabinet announced on May 22 included Luc Berthold (Mégantic– L’Érable–Lotbinière) as deputy house leader, Pierre Paul- Hus (Charlesbourg–La Haute-Saint-Charles) as Quebec lieutenant, Gérard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent–Akiawenhrahk) as shadow minister for national revenue, former Quebec Liberal MNA Dominique Vien (Bellechasse–Les Etchemins– Lévis) as shadow minister for women, gender equality and youth, and Jacques Gourde (Lévis-Lotbinière) as shadow minister for agriculture. All are veteran MPs.

Deltell, a former CAQ MNA who made the jump to federal politics in 2015, told the QCT in a brief English-language interview that he and his colleagues were “blessed to be part of this team.”

“I was pleased [to be named to the national revenue portfolio]. I got into politics – both provincial and federal politics – for fiscal issues, and I am motivated by spending people’s tax money correctly,” said Del- tell. “My opposite number [in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet] is François-Philippe Champagne. I know him very well. We have a frank and honest relationship, and I’m looking forward to working both with and against him on specific issues. I spoke with him yesterday and we are excited to work together.”

The Conservatives won 144 seats to the Liberals’ 169 in last month’s election, leaving the balance of power in the hands of the Bloc Québécois (22 seats) or the NDP (seven). Deltell seems unruffled by the uphill battle ahead with regards to pushing the Conservative agenda. “Anyone can have influence as long as they have good arguments – the important thing is not your position; it’s the depth of your argument.”

Deltell said he believed the Carney government “did not get off to a good start” when Carney announced plans to wait until fall to table a detailed budget.

“Autumn is too late,” Deltell said. “We need to do a budget right now. We are ready to sit in the House in the summer to achieve some of our agenda; we’re opening the door to sit in the House as long as we can to get a serious budget. This is what Canadians are asking for … and it’s what Canadians deserve.”

“Affordability and housing is our biggest priority – we talked about that during the campaign and we’ll keep talking about it,” he added. “We will welcome it if the government incorporates our priorities – they took inspiration from our platform [during the campaign] and they can do it again.”

Deltell said the appointment of five MPs from the region to the shadow cabinet represented “a show of respect for Quebec” from the party leadership.

“As local MPs and as francophones, we have a job to do, and we have a lot of people with a lot of experience. Most of us were elected 10 years ago, and the leader appreciates our contribution,” he said.

Parliament is expected to resume sitting this week.

Local shadow cabinet appointments ‘show respect for Quebec,’ Deltell says Read More »

City signs deals to clarify TramCité project management

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / May 27, 2025 / Peter Black, Quebec City, tram tracker, TramCité

TRAM TRACKER: City signs deals to clarify TramCité project management

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

It may still be many months before any tramway track is laid, but the city has now put in place an agreement on how the project will be managed going forward.

In an apolitical statement released May 22, the city’s executive committee announced “two agreements representing important operational and administrative milestones for the advancement of the TramCité project.”

The agreements between the city, in co-ordination with the Réseau de transport de la capitale (RTC) and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec infrastructure division (CDPQ Infra), set out joint responsibilities in four areas.

These include collaborative decision-making, allocation of roles and responsibilities in the planning phase and beyond, interface management to ensure co-ordination on technical aspects, and commitment to the community to “maintain regular communication with citizens and to implement measures to mitigate the impacts of the work on daily life.” The statement notes that the city and the RTC “retain responsibilities related to their expertise (acquisitions; work on urban and municipal technical networks, operating and mobility systems; project manager support activities).” A second agreement, between the city, the RTC and the government of Quebec, spells out the details of financing of the project regarding “activities and works during the planning phase, which runs until June 2027.”

Some preparatory work for the $7.6-billion project will be underway this year, and then ramp up in 2026, to make ready for the full-blown construction phase in 2027, lasting five years.

The all-electric tramway system will run a total of 19 kilometres, with 19 stations connecting the Le Gendre, Sainte-Foy, Université Laval, Parliament Hill, Saint-Roch and Charlesbourg sectors.

Overall management of the project, as per a December 2024 agreement, is in the hands of CDPQ Infra, as decided by the Quebec government.

City signs deals to clarify TramCité project management Read More »

Two 20-storey towers on Grande Allée among city’s housing surge

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / May 27, 2025 / housing, Peter Black, Quebec City

Two 20-storey towers on Grande Allée among city’s housing surge

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The city administration is accelerating approvals of 18 residential projects in many sectors of the city, including two towers on Grande Allée, aimed at addressing what it identifies as a looming housing crisis.

Armed with statistics showing significant population growth in the coming years, Mayor Bruno Marchand announced at a May 20 news conference the fast-tracking of construction that will create some 2,850 housing units.

The projects are to receive approval from city council over the next two council meetings, and be under construction over the next year. Some 420 of the units are to be designated social housing.

Marchand, making the announcement at the Videotron Centre, said, “The housing crisis in Quebec City requires us to make a major push for housing creation, not only to meet current needs, but also to anticipate future needs.”

A chart contained in a presentation at the news conference showed the city’s population grew by 40,000 people over the past three years, an increase of 2.4 per cent.

Coun. Marie-Pierre Boucher, executive committee member responsible for housing, said Bill 31, which gives municipalities the power to ignore some regulations to encourage the construction of housing, also allows the city to “require construction conditions that ensure a distinctive architectural quality as well as the implementation of innovative and sustainable features, among other things, in terms of development, mobility and planning.”

She said the units being jump-started, after negotiations with developers, are part of the city’s grand plan for housing, which aims to build 80,000 new units by 2040.

Part of the criteria for approval of the projects was their proximity to urban transit services, including the proposed tramway.

Of the 18 projects, with a total estimated value of $819 million, the one destined to create the most units is that planned for 3155 Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois, a site now occupied by a deconsecrated church, where a 401-unit structure is to be built.

Two of the projects are on Grande Allée, and both of them have controversial aspects. One of them will be a new building on what is now an empty lot on the corner of Rue de l’Amérique-Française and kitty-corner from the Hôtel Le Concorde. The long-deconsecrated Saint-Coeur- de-Marie church had been on the site since 1920 until it was demolished in 2019 due to its deteriorating condition.

The property owners, Société Immobilière Lessard, had proposed several residential projects for the prime location, but the city refused each as being too high for that site. The developers’ latest proposal, a nine-storey parking garage, was also rejected, and the stalemate ended up in the courts.

Now the city has dropped its opposition to height restrictions for the site and will authorize a 20-storey residential building which could be under construction as of next year. The building would contain 200 residential units, according to the city.

Loïk Lessard, president of the development company, declined to comment on the project pending a public consultation session scheduled for June 16. All 18 projects will be presented to the public over the coming weeks, with details available on the city’s website.

A few blocks west, the city is prepared to approve a 10-storey addition to the new 11-storey apartment building at 155 Grande Allée Est, adding 74 units to the existing 150 units.

According to a building resident who did not want to comment publicly, the developers, Bilodeau Immobilier, informed tenants of the impending project at a recent meeting. A request to the company for comment had not been answered as of press time.

Bilodeau also owns the building behind the Grande Allée property, the Montmorency, as well as several other rental buildings around the city. The company recently purchased the Catholic diocese’s property on Boul. René-Lévesque with plans for a residential complex.

The city’s acceleration of these particular housing projects did not receive unanimous plaudits. Transition Québec leader and mayoral candidate Jackie Smith, the councillor for the Limoilou district, said Marchand had “sold his soul to developers.”

Official Opposition and Québec d’abord leader, mayoral candidate and councillor for the Maizerets-Lairet district Claude Villeneuve said the jump-started housing initiative smelled of “pre-election panic.”

Marchand denied charges of “giving the keys to the city to developers.” He said, “If cities start building housing themselves, it is a financial disaster. This is not our level of expertise, this is not our level of competence. We must work with people who have this level of competence and who take the risks.”

Two 20-storey towers on Grande Allée among city’s housing surge Read More »