Prime Minister François Legault denies any climate of tension with the outgoing president and CEO of Hydro-Québec, Sophie Brochu, but wishes to begin the process now to replace her.
The elected caquiste will not wait before launching the process to find a new CEO, “a competent person” to help him meet the “challenge” of electrification in Quebec. He is asking the state-owned company to increase its capacity by 50% to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
“I’m looking for someone who is going to be in development mode,” he said during a press scrum on Wednesday, moments before a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The upcoming departure of Sophie Brochu after only three years in office “saddens” Mr. Legault, he who “loved [t] very much Sophie. “She’s a brilliant woman, she’s a woman who had experience in the energy sector, she’s an excellent communicator,” he summed up when asked about the manager, about whom he himself had set his sights in April 2020.
But the decision of the leader of Hydro in no way demonstrates that the government and the state-owned company had embarked on divergent paths, hammered the Prime Minister. “Sophie did not have, contrary to what some have said, differences of orientation with the rest of us,” he said.
During an interview with 98.5 last fall, Ms. Brochu made a point of issuing a warning to Mr. Legault and to the Minister of Energy — who was not yet Minister — Pierre Fitzgibbon: Hydro would not become the ” dollar store” of hydroelectricity, despite the government’s desire to attract foreign investors with clean electricity from Quebec.
“As long as the governance framework within the government, within Hydro-Québec, is healthy, then that we are able to assert the major prerogatives of the need for the energy system, I will be there. […] If, for one reason or another, […] I saw that we were putting the evolution of the energy system at risk, I would have serious conversations with my shareholder, ”she added.
Since then, Prime Minister Legault has extended an olive branch to Ms. Brochu by inviting her to sit, with four other ministers, at the table of the committee on the economy and energy transition. She will continue to represent Hydro there until her departure in April.
In addition, Ms. Brochu will continue her involvement in discussions between Hydro-Québec and the Government of Quebec regarding the “robust” bill on energy restraint and the regulatory and tariff framework, promised by Minister Fitzgibbon. “Note, however, that there is not a single ball carrier in our discussions on this subject,” said spokesperson for the state-owned company Maxence Huard-Lefebvre. Many members of management and experts are involved in these crucial talks.
With Alexis Riopel
Further details will follow.