TRAM TRACKER: Federal support for tramway in hands of voters
Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
peterblack@qctonline.com
The fate of Quebec City’s tramway project is at stake in the April 28 federal election.
With the choice of the next federal government, between the Liberal Party of Canada, which supports the project, and the Conservative Party of Canada, which opposes it, in essence, the voters of Canada will decide whether Quebec’s capital gets a structured urban transit system.
It’s uncertain whether the $7.6-billion project could proceed in its current form without federal funding. The federal government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, and now current Prime Minister Mark Carney, has committed a total of $1.4 billion to the project, an initial $1.1 billion in 2019 and an ad- ditional $332 million in early March.
The city would like Ottawa to top that up to reach 40 per cent of the cost, the same as what the Coalition Avenir Québec government has promised.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, however, has been adamant about not putting “one cent” of federal money into the tramway. Further, he would take the money already committed and put it towards the Quebec government’s plan to build a third bridge over the St. Lawrence River.
At a March 26 rally in Quebec City, Poilievre repeated his vow “to end the war on cars.”
He took a shot at the position on urban transit taken by Carney and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet. “The Bloc and the Liberals refuse to build a third link – an important project for mobility and the economy of the greater Quebec City region. Worse still, Carney and Blanchet want to impose a tramway on the people of Quebec City – a project that the people of Quebec City reject.”
Poilievre said, “The tramway – it’s a white elephant worth over $7 billion, an unaffordable project, a project that the people of Quebec City don’t want. As prime minister, I will respect your wishes [and] refuse to waste your taxes on this unpopular project. The people of Quebec City need their trucks to get to work, to drive their children to the arena. That’s why I’m going to invest the federal money earmarked for the tramway in a third link.”
The two Conservative MPs in the central Quebec City ridings, Poilievre’s Quebec lieutenant and Charlesbourg– Haute-Saint-Charles MP Pierre Paul-Hus and Louis–Saint– Laurent–Akiawenhrahk MP Gérard Deltell, met Mayor Bruno Marchand last month before the launch of the election campaign. According to the mayor’s office, Poilievre has yet to meet with Marchand.
On the same day as Poilievre’s visit to the Quebec capital, Jean-Yves Duclos, the Liberal MP for the downtown riding of Québec-Centre, issued an open letter denouncing the Conservative leader’s policies for the city, particularly the tramway.
“The Conservative leader wants to steal our money and send it elsewhere in the country, like to his hometown of Calgary – where he proudly celebrates the Canadian government’s investments in public transit that reduce congestion and create housing and good jobs,” wrote Duclos, who is running for a fourth term.
Duclos said, “Pierre Poilievre talks about ‘responsible government,’ yet he is prepared to blindly fund a third link project whose route, de- sign or budget are unknown.”
Duclos recalled, “In September 2010, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives pulled this trick on us. They disguised themselves as Nordiques players wearing hockey jerseys to promise to fund the Videotron Centre. A few months later, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives broke their promise by not contributing a single cent to the centre, leaving Quebec City and the Quebec government to shoulder the entire bill.”
Carney, when he visited Quebec City in January as part of his Liberal leadership campaign, declared his support for the tramway as the kind of infrastructure investment needed in a time of economic crisis.
Simon Bérubé, the Bloc candidate in Québec-Centre, said in an interview with the QCT, regarding the Conserva- tive position on the tramway, “We’re against any interference from the federal government into the decisions of the city of Quebec and the government of Quebec. The project is quite underway, it’s ready to go, so we’re asking that, without any interference, that 40 per cent of the cost will be guaranteed by the federal government.”
Bérubé said the project will bring a lot of investments in the riding, through stimulation of housing developments, for example.
Asked what would happen to the tramway project in the event of Quebec declaring sovereignty should the Parti Québécois win the next election and a promised referendum, Bérubé said the federal money committed to the tramway “belongs to Quebecers who sent it to Ottawa through all kinds of taxes.”