Prime Minister François Legault took advantage of his opening speech of the new session to announce that his government was renouncing the exploitation of hydrocarbons. It is a message, intended for the foreigner, which does not cost him much anything, he calculates.
Since the beginning of the previous century, there has been a lot of exploration in Quebec with a view to discovering exploitable oil and gas deposits. Of this quest for the Grail, almost nothing remains. Oil, we hardly found any. There is currently only one active deposit, that of Galt, near Gaspé, whose proven potential is insignificant.
With the adoption of the Hydrocarbons Act and its regulations in 2017, the Couillard government has made oil and gas exploration in Quebec extremely difficult. At present, Gaspé Énergies, owner of the Galt project, has applied to the court to invalidate the by-law which prevents it from obtaining a permit to drill a well less than 1000 meters from a water environment. . However, in the Quebec forest, we find a lot of water environments.
With regard to natural gas, the economic potential is much more interesting. In the St. Lawrence Valley, shale gas is present, as in the subsoil of Pennsylvania, a major location for shale gas extraction for 30 years. But now, following strong and persistent opposition from the population, gas exploitation in the St. Lawrence Valley was formally banned. And on Anticosti Island, the government bought back all the exploration rights which, moreover, had never interested any major player.
In any case, the judicious decision of the Legault government to put an end to hydrocarbon exploration on Quebec territory will lead to compensation requests from companies that hold 182 exploration permits. As these companies have discovered nothing or almost nothing, the compensation will not be amazing. And the Quebec state, which, through Resources Quebec, still holds interests in the industry, will get away with losing its stake of a few million.
But the game is worth the effort. First on the economic front, oil and gas exploration in Quebec is going nowhere and its spinoffs are not significant if we disregard shale gas.
Above all, the Legault government saw a political interest in this complete withdrawal, both nationally – its environmental image is enhanced, which can only harm it – on the international scene.
From November 2 to 5, the Prime Minister will participate in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26) which is taking place in Glasgow, Scotland (in a statement sent to journalists, the Department for International Relations was satisfied with ‘indicate that it was in the United Kingdom, which gives an idea of the consideration that Quebec diplomacy gives to the Scottish nation).
François Legault will be able to boast of leading “the state which emits the least greenhouse gases per inhabitant”, as he did in his opening speech. But he will not be able to present the achievements that have enabled him to occupy this rank, apart from Robert Bourassa’s decision 50 years ago to bet on the construction of large hydroelectric structures. It will not be able to show how the Quebec government has been exemplary in taking effective, even courageous, measures to reduce GHG emissions. On the contrary, Quebec has failed miserably to meet the 2020 reduction targets. The Plan for a Green Economy, presented a year ago by the CAQ government, has certain merits, but it has not taken its course. go and it lacks scope.
Quebecers are champions of the green economy, but luckily, in a way. In Glasgow, François Legault will brandish his card of “incomparable welcome land”, as the expression goes, for companies that want to continue their activities without emitting GHGs thanks to green energy. More and more companies around the world are moreover concerned about their environmental image. The fact that Quebec has officially given up on extracting hydrocarbons from its subsoil – we know that there is little of it, but we don’t need to shout it from the rooftops – can only add to the consistency. sales arguments from our representative on the international scene. It is also a fine illustration of the economic and commercial turn that the Caquista government has made in Quebec diplomacy. For better and for worse.