It’s hard to believe the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance when they say that the state coffers are empty when it comes to financing social and affordable housing. Didn’t they, as if by magic, find nearly a billion dollars as well as the necessary manpower (suddenly available) to rehabilitate the Olympic Stadium? An infrastructure, in my opinion, that should be thrown down rather than patched up.
On the Canadian discussion forum Skyscaper, a world reference on sports megaconstructions, it is said that the lifespan of these rarely exceeds 50 years. As we speak, the Olympic Stadium has more than 48. The exception that proves the rule? Too far from the city center, what’s more.
How can we not link the housing crisis, the priority reserved for the Stadium and its uncertain economic fallout that François Legault has dangled to sell this project? Even us, the inhabitants of the hinterland, whose taxes will also be used to finance the work. As if the taxpayer had not already spent enough money to fill this bottomless pit.
I suspect that François Legault, with his eyes focused on the next elections, wants to seduce the Montreal electorate with this controversial and very risky project. We all know that in Montreal, during the last two elections, the vote for the CAQ has never been cast. Without forgetting that the government is facing headwinds these days.
Apart from, of course, Mr. Legault and the former Minister of Housing, Andrée Laforest, for whom, as a reminder, the housing crisis is only seen in the mind, the world is unanimous: it is rife , in Quebec, a very serious housing crisis, which almost a billion entrusted to employers with available labor could help to combat. So much so that even the current Minister of Housing, France Duranceau, is ready to shake up the urban planning plans of cities, by legislating (bill 31) to allow the construction of housing to be accelerated.