How can we explain that CDPQ Infra has become the messiah of public transport development in Quebec?
The provincial government — not to mention the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) — continues to turn to this organization to study new public transportation options even though its roadmap is far from exemplary.
The most recent example of a mandate: the Quebec tramway. The latter has been studied for 20 years in the national capital by multiple experts, whose reports all point in the same direction: the tram is the most appropriate solution for Quebec City.
The most recent version is almost unanimously supported by the business community, transportation experts, urban planners and environmental groups. For three years, nearly a hundred professionals (architects, engineers, etc.) have been working on the project. The expropriations have already started, as well as preparatory work. All totaling $527 million as of today.
Certainly, the total bill has increased over the years. The costs of the construction market too, while labor is scarce. But is 8 billion so expensive, even scandalous, for such a tramway? Not according to the calculations of journalist Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot, who compared the project with other similar projects across Canada.
Despite everything, the government is passing on the palette of CDPQ Infra to ask it to redo the work already accomplished with millions in order to “identify a structuring transport project to improve public transport for the city of Quebec and improve mobility […], especially between the two banks. And this, within… six months!
How can the Fund meet this challenge in such a short time by coming to us with credible scenarios? How is she better placed to teach a lesson to the experts who have thought about, studied and re-studied the tramway intended for Quebec City? Another scenario would inevitably lead to even more years of waiting and, therefore, an increase in construction market costs. It’s hard to imagine that the Fund could come to us with a much more “economic” scenario, unless it reduces the scale of the project.
Lack of consistency
Not to mention a blatant paradox in this matter. The government is asking CDPQ Infra “to come to us with the best structuring project for Quebec City”, when that is not its role. CDPQ Infra’s mandate is to find the best return for Quebecers’ nest egg. In other words: make money. Important nuance.
Furthermore, CDPQ Infra has been widely criticized in recent years for having carried out its mandates in isolation, without really caring about other modes of public transport. Funny way to develop “structuring transport” when you think alone rather than in network mode.
On the other hand, on what basis does CDPQ Infra deserve so much confidence from the government after having offered a dismal architectural and landscape design for the first phase of the REM? Let’s just think of the catenaries that abound on the horizon, just like the rows of oversized concrete pillars along the entire route.
And what can we say about the same Quebec government which took the second phase of the REM (REM de l’Est) out of the hands of CDPQ Infra after the latter generated immense controversy among planning experts, Mayor Valérie Plante and of several groups of citizens? The scenarios presented were once again a disgrace in terms of landscape, urban planning and architecture, which would have had the effect of disfiguring the city center of the metropolis. All this after months of studies, several million dollars spent and the departure of the commissioned architects who abandoned the project… and so on.
Disappointing failure, right? If Mr. Legault has so much confidence in CDPQ Infra for Quebec City, why did he block his path for the REM de l’Est in Montreal?
Long live the lack of political coherence… towards a messiah who has not yet proven himself.