(Saint-Lazare-de-Bellechasse) The Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, ventures into hostile territory Thursday by going to Bellechasse to explain the abandonment of the third Quebec-Lévis highway link, a decision that is causing discontent in the region. She meets with elected officials and local business people who accuse the Legault government of having “fooled” them.
Moreover, at the entrance to Saint-Lazare-de-Bellechasse, the village’s electronic welcome panel shows an image of the underwater “bitube” promised by the Coalition avenir Québec during the election campaign. “The motorway link, we want it! “, can we read.
Geneviève Guilbault meets local elected officials and business people, at their invitation. Among them, the prefect of the MRC de Bellechasse, Yvon Dumont, who had not minced his words after the announcement of the abandonment of the highway tunnel.
“I was made a drunken promise. For six years, we have been promised that we would have a third and now it falls on the ass. Mr. Legault himself had promised it to us, ”he said after a meeting of the council of mayors according to a report by a local media, The Voice of the South. He said he had no interest in a tunnel reserved for public transport, the new CAQ commitment.
According to lines of communication prepared by those present at the meeting, and that The Press was able to consult, the frustration is great. “We believed so much in the promise of the government. We trusted, blindly trusted the government, so much that we are paying the price today,” it read.
“We have to admit that we were fooled. We are back to square one. One just hit the head of the snake like in a ladder snake game. »
Geneviève Guilbault will hold a press scrum in the afternoon.
Business people take part in the meeting, including the president and general manager of the Bellechasse-Etchemins Chamber of Commerce, Nathalie Roy and Frédéric Lajoie. The latter had a meeting with the conservative leader Éric Duhaime and his candidate defeated in the last elections Michel Tardif a few days ago.
The riding of Bellechasse has been held by the CAQ since 2018, but its majority halved in the last election. Stéphanie Lachance retained her seat ahead of Mr. Tardif by a still comfortable lead of 3,453 votes. It was mainly his two colleagues from Beauce who were threatened by the Conservative Party.
Stéphanie Lachance had not defended the idea of a tunnel reserved for public transport after its summary presentation by Mme Guilbault. “For Bellechasse, this is not a winning formula. Bellechasse, as you know, is a very large area that is served by cars. Bellechasse, it’s 35,000 citizens who travel by car,” she lamented.
Furious at the CAQ’s setback, the Chaudière-Appalaches chambers of commerce recently came out to ask the government to reverse its decision and keep its promise.
According to a Léger poll released by the Quebecor media this week, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) plummeted by 14 points in the greater Quebec City region compared to February: it went from 40% to 26%. The Parti Québécois (PQ) takes the throne, gaining eight points to 28%. The Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) is third and goes from 17% to 23%. In Quebec as a whole, the CAQ remains in first place at 36%, down four points. The PQ climbed by as many points and obtained a result of 22%, ahead of Québec solidaire (16%), the Liberal Party of Québec (14%) and the PCQ (10%).