In 1972, Hydro-Québec planned the construction of a pumped storage hydroelectric power station on the Jacques-Cartier River. The works would have created a reservoir that would have submerged a spectacular gorge. Alerted, citizens and elected officials are mobilizing to counter the project. The government of Quebec ends up agreeing to hold a parliamentary commission whose work makes it possible to establish that this project is difficult to defend. What is known as the Battle of Jacques-Cartier is won by the citizens.
The following year, the destruction of the Van Horne house on Sherbrooke Street showed Montrealers that they could not count on the Drapeau administration to preserve their heritage. As for the Quebec government, it prefers to look elsewhere. Meanwhile, a promoter undertakes to raze the Milton Parc district, with the blessing of the City of Montreal. The realization of the Cité Concordia project would require the destruction of several hundred dwellings. The citizens are mobilizing, but the City does not intend to give in. Aided by an economic situation that weighs on the finances of the promoter, the citizens manage to remove some 600 housing units from the clutches of the latter. The largest residential cooperative in Canada takes possession of it.
In 1976, the Port of Montreal frees the sites located opposite Old Montreal. The Canadian government intends to implement a real estate project there that is based on a business plan. It is absolutely necessary, it is argued, to make this land deposit profitable, as is done in Toronto. Instead, Montrealers want a window overlooking the river and a vast public esplanade. The federal government does not intend to back down. Public consultations organized by civil society encourage the consolidation of opposition to the project. It took 20 years for a project hailed as one of the most original enhancements of a port front to come to fruition.
A decade earlier, the Canadian government had undertaken the liquidation of an agricultural campaign to build an international airport north of Montreal. The expropriations had been carried out with a bang. Nothing could undermine the arrogance with which the Trudeau government was steering the file. We know the rest.
Back to Montreal. In the early 1980s, a construction project on McGill College Avenue for a concert hall combined with a shopping center would block the view of the mountain. Jean Drapeau remains deaf to criticism. Héritage Montréal joins forces with the business community to convince the promoter to hold a public consultation. The project was finally abandoned, much to the displeasure of the mayor of Montreal.
These files show that civil society sometimes has to fight against its institutions. Several other examples could have been mentioned: Ville-Marie highway, river crossing at Deschambault on the Radisson-Nicolet-Des Cantons line, Lévis LNG port, Suroît gas power station. The most recent and most distressing is undoubtedly that of the REM.
Some, including myself, denounced from the outset the exorbitant powers casually conferred on the Caisse de depot et placement and its subsidiary CDPQ Infra by the Couillard government. The worst fears have come true. Since the beginning of the saga, CDPQ Infra officials have shown an arrogance that the Legault government endorses. Convinced that they are within their rights, those in charge of the project, who are not accountable to anyone, impose it without the right of scrutiny, including on those who will pay a good part of a bill that is looming particularly salty.
After repeating that it was take it or leave it — which enabled them to ignore the increasingly numerous and serious criticisms — they now have the incredible insolence and audacity to maintain that the mayor of Montreal will have to be held responsible for the failure of the project if CDPQ Infra withdraws its logs.
It is to be deplored that society sometimes has to fight to counter ill-conceived or unfounded projects carried out or supported by its institutions. In the case of the REM, this is quite simply unheard of. Several observers have pointed out in recent years that public-private partnerships should be wary of. Could they foresee that it would be this venerable Quebec institution, the Caisse de depot et placement, which would cast the greatest discredit on the formula of partnerships desired by the State?
Valérie Plante is right to refuse to entrust the keys to the city to CDPQ Infra. Jean-Paul L’Allier liked to recall that we had done it with the engineers in the 1960s and that we had regretted it.