Premier François Legault promises that if his party is re-elected, he will create a fund of $650 million for the health of the various bodies of water in Quebec.
Part of this funding would come “from an increase in royalties from industries that use our water”, indicated François Legault, specifying that we must “send the signal” that water is important and that we must reduce waste. water industry.
Since 2011, industries that withdraw or use 75 cubic meters or more of water per day must pay a fee.
The “Blue Fund” would make it possible to finance existing measures, but also new initiatives, because “our lakes, our rivers and our river lack love”, indicated the Prime Minister Tuesday morning on the edge of the St. in Trois-Rivieres.
It will be used in particular to fight against invasive plants, introduce a new program to bring individual sanitary facilities up to standard, improve the financing of the Voluntary Lake Monitoring Network, create a shoreline cleaning program, prevent water shortages, improve characterize the composition of municipal discharges, support farmers in the revegetation of riparian strips, and fund research on water, indicated François Legault.
The Prime Minister recalled that with “its tens of thousands of rivers and more than three million bodies of water, Quebec has 3% of the planet’s renewable freshwater reserves”, but that “various issues affect the accessibility and quality.
For example, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) points out in a press release that “the availability of groundwater varies according to the regions of Quebec and according to climatic conditions”, consequently, municipalities are increasingly experiencing water shortages. water.
“When I go around Quebec, there are regions or sub-regions where we are afraid of running out of water, so we have to do research to prevent and take action,” said François Legault.
The CAQ also justifies the creation of this fund by the fact that the portrait of contaminants in the wastewater of the main cities and municipalities of Quebec is incomplete, and that it is therefore necessary to invest and finance research on this subject.
Lakes and rivers also have to deal with “invasive alien aquatic plants, excessive phosphorus levels, episodes of blue-green algae, not to mention the growing impacts of climate change”, but also high levels of pesticides and a decline in biodiversity, reads the summary of the “Blue Fund”.
“Over the years, we have perhaps taken this wealth a little too much for granted. We have to be more careful with our water in Quebec. When we see the drought in France, the United States, Mexico, we realize how strategic this water is for the future,” said the Prime Minister and head of the CAQ.
François Legault made this campaign promise accompanied by the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, who stressed that “water protection is a complex issue that must be tackled in many ways”.
The President of the Treasury Board, Sonia Lebel, the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, and other candidates from the region also accompanied the Prime Minister.