Resumption of shale gas exploitation, end of subsidies for electric vehicles, support for the third link: the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) has its environmental plan. Filed on Wednesday, it aims to “act proactively but also rationally in relation to the effects of climate change caused or not by human activity”.
Conservative leader Eric Duhaime made public during the afternoon his proposals for tackling climate challenges by making a “compromise with the extremist discourse of certain environmentalists”.
“The Conservatives are optimists, not alarmists,” reads it.
“We take into account a number of catastrophic forecasts formulated in the past which have turned out to be simplistic and erroneous models”, they add, without specifying which ones.
Concretely, Eric Duhaime’s party wants to accelerate the exploitation and exploration of Quebec’s natural resources, “such as shale gas”, under certain conditions such as “social acceptability” and “the minimization of pollution”.
“There is an economic and social cost to delaying material progress and the development of our natural resources,” argues the PCQ.
In 2018, Philippe Couillard’s government put an end to the shale gas industry. More recently, François Legault made a commitment to stop exploration for all kinds of hydrocarbons in Quebec. The CAQ minister Jonatan Julien must table a bill to this effect by winter.
In the eyes of Eric Duhaime, there is also an obsolete system in Quebec: the deposit. If elected, the Conservative leader wants to abolish it. The recycling system does the job, he argues.
Reforming transport
The PCQ’s plan does not stop there. To ensure the economic survival of Quebec, “we do not need austerity and degrowth”, ensures the political formation. Mr. Duhaime wishes in particular to enlarge highways 20 and 40 by one or two lanes each, to end subsidies to electric vehicles and to “reiterate his support for the third link”.
He puts forward the idea of increasing speed limits to 120 km / h on certain sections of the motorway to “improve the flow of traffic”.
“Artificially low speed limits become pretexts to issue tickets to finance governments”, we read in his report.
A conservative government will “suspend[it] »Also the tramway project in Quebec. Even before entering politics, Eric Duhaime has repeatedly expressed his disagreement with the structuring network.
The PCQ will hold its members’ congress at the end of the month. They will be able to express themselves and discuss these proposals.