The leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, has entered the fray of the debate on mobility in Quebec by announcing that he has no intention of financing a tram project, but rather “a third highway link” .
“If it doesn’t have cars, I’m not going to finance it. People need their tank,” the leader of the official opposition in Ottawa explained bluntly to host Dominic Maître of the Radio X station.
Pierre Poilievre did not wait for the government of François Legault, in Quebec, to officially relaunch its road link project between Quebec and Lévis to reaffirm his position. This was not shaken by the conclusions of a report from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), which instead recommended a tramway for Quebec.
The Conservative leader got up early on Thursday to denounce, on [Justin] Trudeau and the Bloc [québécois qui] are obsessed with car wars and ignore people in the suburbs and regions. » He promises to invest nothing – “not a cent of federal money” – in a tram project in Quebec.
In his subsequent media tour, he attacked the Liberal Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, whose legacy he promised to “throw in the trash” in Ottawa.
“I am not going to be constrained by the policies of another radical, incompetent, extremist who wants to ban cars, ban tanks, ban highways,” he added on Quebec radio.
Asked to react to these comments on Thursday, Minister Steven Guilbeault invited people to “read the studies” which show that the tram is a better option. He accuses Pierre Poilievre of lying about the figures he puts forward, and emphasizes that he has voted against environmental policies on numerous occasions.
“We are facing a leader of the opposition […] who is climate skeptic, who denies the reality of climate change and who never talks about it, believes Mr. Guilbeault. It is not surprising in this context that he continues to oppose any measure that improves the quality of the environment for the population. »
His colleague Minister of Public Services and Procurement of Canada, Jean-Yves Duclos, who is also a member of Parliament for Quebec, also welcomed the most recent study by the CDPQ. He assured earlier this week that the federal government is ready to finance up to 40% of the cost of a tramway.
The Trudeau government has been sending the signal since 2021 that it does not intend to finance new roads in urban areas in the country, including the highway part of a possible third link between Quebec and Lévis.