On the second day of his economic mission to France, the Prime Minister of Quebec François Legault went to the offices of Alstom where he jockeyed with the big boss Henri Poupart-Lafarge regarding the Quebec tramway project and the jobs he covets for the province.
“I suppose he wants the call for tenders not to be renewed, that the old one exists,” said Mr. Legault on Wednesday morning upon his arrival at the world headquarters of the railway manufacturer in Saint-Ouen-sur- Seine, in the suburbs of Paris.
Government lawyers are trying to determine whether Quebec should relaunch the call for tenders which was won by Alstom for the tramway project worth more than half a billion dollars. “There is no clear answer,” Mr. Legault repeated to journalists.
The prime minister noted that he wants to “grow the business together.” The day before, he had specified that he wanted to “talk about projects with jobs in Quebec”.
Questioned insistently by journalists, Mr. Poupart-Lafarge ended up saying that Alstom is “very happy, very honored to have been chosen by the city (of) Quebec for this tramway”.
“We have every confidence in the authorities to carry out this project,” he said.
At the start of their meeting, Mr. Poupart-Lafarge noted that the Prime Minister’s visit “underlines the importance of our Quebec roots, and underlines the importance of our activity in Quebec, even today — many factories, many centers engineering”.
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is Alstom’s largest shareholder with 17.5% of the shareholding. Mr. Legault also mentioned that it “hurt him a lot” when Bombardier Transport was sold to Alstom given that he had “big ambitions” for what was a Quebec flagship.
The railway manufacturer has three sites in Quebec where it employs a total of 2,000 people. The only place where Alstom could build a tramway is in La Pocatière, in Bas-Saint-Laurent. The Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville site is used for research and development, including engineering, design and electronic signaling. The one in Montreal is administrative and commercial.
In the middle of the day, Mr. Legault will speak at an “economic lunch” at the official residence of the new general delegate of Quebec in Paris, Henri-Paul Rousseau.
In the middle of the afternoon, he will meet with the president and CEO of Ubisoft. Then, in the evening, he will hold a reception in a Parisian hotel.