Cost overruns on major projects are now inevitable and we will have to get used to them.
This is the candid admission made by the Minister of Economy and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, when questioned Thursday on the new delay in commissioning and the additional cost overruns of the REM, the Metropolitan Express Network.
The daily The Press reported on Wednesday that the REM will not come into service before the end of spring, as promised, but at the beginning of summer with a few days, even a few weeks delay.
As for the cost of 7 billion announced in June 2021, which was already up from the 6.3 billion announced in 2018 and the 5.5 billion initially forecast when the project was first announced in 2016, it will also be revised to the increase, of an amount which must be specified at the time of entry into service.
” We have to be realistic ”
“Do you think there are a lot of projects today that don’t have cost overruns? There are not any. All the projects have cost overruns,” said Minister Fitzgibbon when he came to announce government assistance of nearly $10 million to an NPO working in intelligent systems for public transit.
” We have to be realistic ; we live in an inflationary period,” he continued.
However, the Minister was unable to specify whether these overruns could result in additional disbursements from the Government of Quebec. “Generally, in these contracts, there are indexation clauses, but I have no idea. »
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
According to the Minister of Economy and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, “we are living in an inflationary period” which is driving up the cost of major projects.
As for the commissioning delays, initially scheduled for 2020 and then postponed a few times, Pierre Fitzgibbon did not hide a certain disappointment, while unreservedly supporting CDPQ Infra’s decision to complete its reliability tests.
“We would have liked to have it six months ago, that’s for sure, but we were told this morning that there are reliability issues, that they want to carry out tests. I am totally in support of that.
“It’s important that when the REM leaves, that people want to get in and go back. […] We want a reliable system. I appreciate the fact that CDPQ has decided that there are still reliability risks. Let’s wait; we will go there according to the experts. »
Telecommuting here to stay
In addition, Pierre Fitzgibbon, who is also minister responsible for the Montreal region, ruled out the idea of requiring state employees to return to full-time offices in order to help repopulate the city center. , although he is there on a daily basis.
“There is also a human issue. We learned about teleworking, we learned to respect family-work balance. To say that I want everyone in the office five days a week, we can’t go there. It is not right to do so. »
However, he said he believed that “the dynamism that we see in Montreal, the coming summer, the group meetings” could create a craze for the return to the workplace, but “probably not” on a daily basis.
As for companies, “I encourage it, but we have no authority,” he recalled.