The president of the BAPE leaves for Hydro-Québec

The president of the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) du Québec will leave his post four months before the end of his mandate, in mid-July, to go to work at Hydro-Québec.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

Philippe Bourke will occupy a new position of Director of activation and integration of sustainable development within the state-owned company.

“The intention is that we go to another level,” he says, referring to the issue of climate change and that of biodiversity.

Ironically, Hydro-Québec is one of the organizations that has accumulated the most environmental sanctions in Quebec over the past decade, reported The Pressin January.

The state-owned company and its subsidiaries were sanctioned 24 times between 2013 and 2019, receiving fines totaling more than half a million dollars.

“Obviously that’s going to be a concern and that’s going to be one of the things that I’m going to want to watch out for, [mais] sustainable development is not the same thing as the environment”, replies Philippe Bourke.

“We must integrate the economy, the social, I have made it a duty since the beginning of my career”, explains the man who for 20 years was the director of the National Grouping of Regional Environmental Councils of Quebec.

No voltage

Philippe Bourke leaves the BAPE when he was the first president who could have sought a second term, a possibility introduced in the reform of the Environment Quality Act (LQE) of 2017.

“I needed new challenges”, he explains, assuring that he leaves the organization “in serenity”.

The resigning president says he is proud of his career at the BAPE, which he considers to have been able to transform.

He mentions in particular the digital shift of the organization, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are talking about an organization whose business is to make gatherings of citizens in rooms, and there, we could no longer bring people together, ”recalls Mr. Bourke.

The changes made will stay in place because they provide new opportunities and improve people’s ability to participate in public consultations, he said.

turbulence

Philippe Bourke also had to come to the defense of the BAPE, particularly during public hearings on the Énergie Saguenay natural gas liquefaction plant project, from GNL Québec.

“There was turbulence,” he metaphorizes, believing that it was necessary to “correct misperceptions. »

The resigning president also says he is proud of the two generic mandates carried out by his organization, that on asbestos and that on waste management.

These reflections are “carrying and structuring”, he believes.

“We see it in The Press this [jeudi] morning, again, that we needed this reflection and I hope it will be used to correct the shortcomings in the residual materials sector,” he said, referring to the Lachenaie landfill site, which closes its doors to certain customers, for fear of exceeding its authorized limit.

The vice-president will act as interim

The Council of Ministers announced on Wednesday the appointment of the current vice-president of the BAPE, Marie-Hélène Gauthier, as interim president, effective July 16. Ms. Gauthier, who is a lawyer and has taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal and at the Université de Montréal, was a part-time member of the BAPE from 2012 to 2018, then a full-time member from 2018, and vice-president since September 2021. The recruitment process to officially fill the presidency should be launched after the elections next October.