It is very rare that we have to resolve to walk on such a thickness of paint. We usually realize that we have painted in the corner before having applied the tenth coat.
After defending the third highway link between Quebec and its south shore with rare stubbornness for years, the Legault government’s volte-face is spectacular. In the end, there will only be one tunnel and it will be reserved for public transport.
We will probably never know to what extent the Prime Minister really believed in this pharaonic project, in which Ottawa would undoubtedly have refused to participate, or if he was looking from the beginning for an excuse to back down, but it is better to see the light later than ever.
Ridicule may not kill you, but it will be quite entertaining to witness the skating of ministers who have been hugging the walls for two days after having put all their weight, even their seat, in the balance.
However, the effects of the pandemic and telecommuting on traffic were already clearly visible during the last election campaign, when Bernard Drainville described the hell that his constituents were going through, stranded on the bridges, of which a highway tunnel was the only lifeline. . He will now have to use his remarkable communication skills to make them understand the benefits of public transit. Definitely, his return to politics forces him to swallow many snakes.
Mr. Legault is absolutely right to say that going back on his promise was the “pragmatic and responsible” decision to make. If it is indeed absurd to spend billions when the need does not justify it, he still seems unable to see the contradiction, however obvious, between a third motorway link and the fight against climate change.
The warning signs of this decline may well have multiplied, but one can understand the disappointment and anger of those who believed in it and who will have the impression of having been fooled. Returning to common sense does not excuse previous cynicism.
The natural reflex of an opposition party is to try to present good news as bad. The interim leader of the PLQ accused the government of having “silly” the people of Quebec for five years, but he would have been more credible if his party had itself clearly indicated its intentions. As in almost all issues, the Liberals’ position on the third link seemed rather to change with the wind.
During the last election campaign, Dominique Anglade said he was in favor of a tram that would cross the river, but without specifying whether it would pass over a bridge or in a tunnel, its location, the schedule for the work and its cost.
For Éric Duhaime, the government has downright “betrayed” the people of Quebec. “Elected on lies, how many CAQ deputies from the Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches will now leave the caucus? he asked. To join the Conservative Party, of course.
Whether we like it or not, walking on paint leaves traces. If Mayor Bruno Marchand did not hide his satisfaction, the disappointment will certainly be great in the Quebec region, particularly on the south shore, where the approval rate for the third highway link remained very high. In search of a new raison d’être since the election of last October 3, Mr. Duhaime will undoubtedly find in this “betrayal” a better theme than the hunt for drag queens.
Until now, the debate had remained largely theoretical. The project continued to evolve, the cost remained very approximate and many were those who doubted – and still doubt – that it would see the light of day.
We will never know what the political price to pay for the CAQ would have been if the work had really begun and the population throughout Quebec had been able to take stock of the damage caused to the environment, at a time when the struggle against climate change would have become a real obsession. This price would probably have been higher than what his about-face will cost him.
If the new project is indeed realized, posterity will be grateful to Mr. Legault for having been able to discern where the real progress lay. But he will be retired. For the moment, he must be a little mortified to receive the congratulations of QS and the PQ, whom he reproached for wanting to deprive the Quebec region of a project to which it was entitled, after having always been neglected for the benefit of Montreal.
Just like the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, who would undoubtedly have done without the tip of the hat from Mayor Plante. To his constituents in Louis-Hébert, this is not necessarily the best recommendation.