Exhausted by Monday’s electoral defeat in Jean-Talon, Prime Minister François Legault acted surprised by the negative reactions and jeers following the unexpected announcement of his desire to consult the population on the third link to Quebec.
On Tuesday, the day after the by-election, he took all observers by surprise by opening the door to a motorway component at the third link, affirming that nothing was excluded.
“It is important to consult the population and then not exclude the possibility of having a third link, whether it is a bridge, a tunnel for trucks. We have to look at all the possibilities,” he argued during a question period at the Salon Bleu, the day after his release.
Addressing the population on social networks on Saturday, Mr. Legault denies having given in to panic and having pulled a rabbit out of his hat.
“We added last April that we were going to revisit this decision every 5 years. So there is nothing surprising in my opening on Tuesday. We will think about another option, effective and less expensive,” he declares.
However, he said nothing about the project he advocated in the spring: a third link between Quebec and Lévis, certainly, but which would be solely dedicated to public transport. A firm commitment, he stressed at the time.
To defend his new release, the Prime Minister evokes an almost apocalyptic scenario where “one day or another, something will happen” which will cause a closure of the Pierre-Laporte bridge, whose venerable age (60 years) he recalls. , for a more or less long period.
“Maybe only in 10, 20, 30 years, but imagine the paralysis for an entire region! », Illustrates Mr. Legault.
He also defended the supporters of the third link. “We know that one day or another, we will have to build one [pont]. The will of the citizens of our National Capital is therefore perfectly sensible,” he says.
If the Prime Minister understands that voters in the greater Quebec region may have felt betrayed by the abandonment of the third highway link, in the spring, he refutes the accusation of having been dishonest in this matter. “And many even think that I was not honest, which hurts me deeply. I have many faults, but not this one,” he wrote.