(Lévis) Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois warns Quebecers that they will have to get used to hearing words like “hurricane” when listening to their weather report. “It’s a rude awakening, not an easy awakening,” he said on Saturday as he saw the damage caused by the storm. Fiona in the east of the country, including the Îles-de-la-Madeleine. He promises to give more money to cities to adapt their infrastructure to climate change.
Posted at 3:44 p.m.
On the way to Rimouski, after having canceled a press briefing in the morning, in order to monitor the evolution of the storm Fionathe parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire pleaded for the government to invest massively to adapt public infrastructures to the climate which is unsettled.
“The word hurricane is a word that Quebeckers are used to hearing, but they used to associate it with what is happening in Florida, with what is happening in the West Indies, with what is happening in Asia sometimes. There, it is a brutal awakening, a not easy awakening. It is to realize that disasters like this, there will be more and more of them in the context of climate change,” he said.
Mr. Nadeau-Dubois proposes, among other things, to create during a potential first mandate a $1.5 billion climate emergency fund. The parliamentary leader of QS also welcomes the government’s intervention on Saturday, which promised to financially help the victims in the Magdalen Islands and in the regions affected by the Fiona in Quebec, for damage not covered by insurance. But according to him, this is not enough.
Adapt, and quickly
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois believes that “in the coming years, one of our national priorities must be to invest in adaptation to climate change”.
“It’s a reminder that we must not only fight to curb climate change, but that we must also invest more and more to adapt to climate change. Because even if we put all our efforts into it, and I hope we will put all our efforts into it, there is still a certain proportion of climate change that will occur, ”he said.
” [Il faut] help our cities which are going to have more and more difficulty coping with extreme weather events,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Saturday, the head of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), François Legault, once again refused the “green pact” of 2 billion per year over five years, requested by the cities, to adapt their infrastructures. to climate change. According to him, the State does not have the financial capacity to meet this demand.
“When there is damage, it is important to repair it, but what is even more important is to invest to limit the damage upstream. […] The best placed to answer these questions are the municipalities themselves,” said Mr. Nadeau-Dubois.