On February 3, 110 organizations and academics sent Prime Minister François Legault and the ministers who are members of the Committee on the Economy and Energy Transition a letter asking them to take the necessary measures to trigger a “generic BAPE” on the Quebec’s energy future. Like many other voices who have also called for a broad dialogue on energy issues, the signatories thus took the Prime Minister at his word, who, during his opening speech in November 2022, had pledged to hold a “real social debate” on this subject.
While the government is slow to unveil the terms of the major collective discussion to which the Premier has invited Québec, we are impatiently awaiting the response from the Minister of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parcs, Benoit Charette, concerning the request to entrust the BAPE with a mandate for an inquiry and public hearings.
We heard the opinion of the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, who said he was against the idea of a BAPE on energy on the pretext that a BAPE “takes two, three years”, which is false. However, this decision is not his, since it is the responsibility of the Minister of the Environment under the Environment Quality Act. In addition, it should be recalled, the Act mainly to ensure effective governance in the fight against climate change and to promote electrification confers on the Minister of the Environment the responsibility “to coordinate all government action in in the fight against climate change”.
The decarbonization of the Quebec energy system is therefore in no way a file that the Minister of the Economy and Energy can claim to manage alone. This is very appropriate, because the eventual development of at least 100 TWh of additional electricity — whether from wind, hydroelectric or solar sources — as well as the production of hundreds of millions of cubic meters of so-called renewable natural gas would involve major environmental and social issues. However, while we wait to know what the parameters of the promised societal debate on the energy future will be, the file is evolving at breakneck speed.
The imminent replacement of Hydro-Québec’s two most senior executives — Jacynthe Côté, Chair of the Board of Directors, and Sophie Brochu, President and Chief Executive Officer — is being prepared based on future directions that have not been discussed audience. And, while Hydro-Québec has never officially approved the idea of developing new rivers and no assessment has been made of the potential for reducing electricity demand through ambitious public policies encouraging the energy sobriety, the very first proposal made to the CAQ’s Regional Tables in anticipation of the party’s 2023 General Council, which will take place next May, is “to recommend the construction of new hydroelectric power stations to achieve the electrification of Quebec”.
This is a very cavalier way to begin the historic shift to which Quebec is invited. Did the Prime Minister invite Quebecers to a great conversation, or only the members of his party?
Our energy choices will have major impacts on the territories called upon to host renewable energy infrastructures. They will have repercussions on the waterways and ecosystems that literally bring these territories to life, as well as on the health and quality of life of the people who live there. They are inextricably linked to the modes of production, consumption, housing and travel that contribute to making Quebec an “energy ogre”. In addition, they must be adapted to the real socio-economic development needs of the communities. In other words, these choices will be extraordinarily complex, controversial and decisive.
This is why the debate on how to decarbonize Quebec must involve all stakeholders, including civil society from all regions, experts and scientists, the workplaces that will be affected by it, Aboriginal communities, most vulnerable populations and those in fuel poverty. It must address the file as a whole, taking into account the urgency of freeing ourselves from fossil fuels, certainly, but also the constraints posed by the depletion of resources and the collapse of biodiversity, issues affecting the workforce work, the rights of indigenous peoples and issues of social acceptability. It must include a lucid reflection on the role of pricing and regulation with a view to efficiency, but also social justice.
It is time for the Minister of the Environment to fully play his role in order to launch the essential social debate on the energy future of Quebec, which goes far beyond the field of vision of the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy.
*Also signed this text:
André Bélanger, Executive Director of the Rivières Foundation
Patrick Gloutney, President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Quebec)
Carole Dupuis, spokesperson for the UNEplanète eco-citizen movement
Bruno Detuncq, from the Québec Hydrocarbon Vigilance Group
Marc-André Viau, Director of Government Relations at Équiterre
Jean-François Boisvert, President of the Montreal Climate Coalition
Eric Pineault, professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences at UQAM
Maude Prud’homme, from the Quebec network of environmental groups
Jean-Pierre Finet, spokesperson for the Grouping of environmental organizations in energy
Patrick Bonin, Climate-Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada