We have often felt that Superminister Pierre Fitzgibbon is in a hurry to do battle with the monster of the energy transition. In addition to his obsession with our dishwashers, he regularly gave us snippets of a vision that in no way sought to sugarcoat things, not hesitating to go where François Legault refused to venture, for example on the dangers of cheap electricity, the relevance of a penalty or the capping of residential prices.
By means of shock phrases – on the automobile fleet (we need “half as many cars”), energy sobriety (in which we would be “the last in class”) or the modulation of prices (“that’s the very logic” ) —, we understood that he would not let our “flaws” deviate him from his objective. His bill 69 on “responsible governance of energy resources” still aims to make Quebec the first carbon-neutral state in North America by 2050. But the path he is drawing is more like that of his leader than the his.
The Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy sets the table for a shift in favor of sustainable development without going too far ahead of the menu that will be served there. He says he wants to take the time to have a good debate. We guess it’s more complicated, because his desire not to force anything contrasts too much with his past outings. The modest ambitions of its beefy PL 69 too.
The clarification of the role of the Energy Authority and the consideration of the energy transition in its activities mark a welcome, although timid, step forward. Yes, 2026 will see “an opening” to the modulation of residential electricity prices during peak periods. But everything will be “optional”, nothing will be “forced” except the debate, which will come… after the elections. Ditto for the capping of these same prices below the 3% mark, which the minister has until now guaranteed with a reprehensible sleight of hand “outside the law”.
Otherwise, we welcome the establishment of an integrated energy resources management plan (PGIRE) combining climate targets and economic ambitions. This will make it possible to determine the paths leading to the hoped-for decarbonization in order to select the one that will allow an ideal balance between social and economic costs. The transition path will also pay off for the consumer, with an average saving of $1,500 per household, calculates a recently published report from the Canadian Electricity Advisory Council.
The desire to cut in two the bureaucracy in which our decision-making authorities have become bogged down is also good news. Everything will depend on how we achieve this. The minister thinks he can “save a full year between the moment we decide to do a project and the moment we connect it”. At the cost of what shortcuts? The bill is not clear, and it is a problem that cannot go unresolved.
Pierre Fitzgibbon says he believes that we can “do that, while respecting environmental rules”. Difficult to give him our blessing, especially with a minister as non-combatant as Benoit Charette for the Environment. Their government has too often demonstrated its inability to lead by example so that we are content with wishful thinking, starting with the Northvolt saga, a poorly put together, poorly sold case and weighed down by unacceptable opacity.
There will be immense educational work to be done around the social acceptance that we present as the basis of this energy vision. Minister Fitzgibbon has repeated that it is “out of the question to privatize or denationalize anything”, his bill opens doors that he will have to mark much more carefully. Starting with the uncertain, even worrying, fate that awaits projects of 100 megawatts or less that we want to take out of Hydro’s hands and hand them over to the private sector.
Quebecers are ripe for the big conversation to which the CAQ government wants to invite them. It is to be hoped that the framework chosen to do so will allow them to ask whatever questions they deem necessary. Without being afraid to pronounce all the words they consider appropriate, even those which are conspicuous by their absence in the text of PL 69, such as “sobriety” or “degrowth”.
Decarbonizing society is not reduced to a question of megawatts to produce, to use the image of Nature Québec. As luck would have it, the 2024 edition of the Prospera barometer appeared a few days before the unveiling of the Fitzgibbon reform. It deplored the fact that in Quebec, “nearly half of the total energy was lost and brought no value to the economy”.
Years of surplus have nourished an energetic nonchalance with which we must break. Pierre Fitzgibbon himself repeats that “the best source of future energy supply” is “the one that we do not consume”. This must be part of the equation, just like this lost energy that we should stop producing in vain if it is to stupidly waste it to the four winds.