Prime Minister François Legault ignores the cost of the new version of the third link presented by his government.
“No,” he replied Wednesday when the solidarity deputy Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois asked him if he had looked at the cost estimates for the new project. The elected official wanted to know if Mr. Legault had had access to an unredacted version of the documents detailing the costs of a third link dedicated to public transport.
Last week, the Minister of Transport made several studies public, but Quebec hid the cost of the new link planned between Quebec and Lévis.
Mr. Legault said he only consulted the “short version” of the studies. He also said he did not know that four tunnel scenarios – one of which was entirely dedicated to public transport – had been studied.
He subsequently refused to reveal, for the moment, the estimates of the new third link project that the government has in hand. “I’m told these are rough estimates,” he said. “I would not want to start a public debate with figures that are not validated. The Prime Minister then pledged to reveal the financial assessments once they are “valid, valid and validated”.
28 million for the project office
Mr. Legault also revealed that the project office on the construction of a third link has cost $28.6 million since 2018. “Essentially, it is compensation for professional fees,” he said. precise. And the work done will be “very useful for the project we are keeping”, he added. He then responded to questions from the leader of the official opposition, Marc Tanguay.
Pressed with questions by the latter, the Prime Minister once again refused to apologize for the abandonment of the third highway link project. “No, I’m not ready to say it’s a broken promise,” he said. In his opinion, the government did not show “bad faith”, but rather pragmatism, since the data indicated that travel times between the two shores had decreased in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Mr. Legault said that several aspects of the new third link still need to be defined. “It could be buses, it could be a tram, it could be a REM, it could be a metro,” he said.
The SAAQ responsible for its misfortunes
The exchanges between Messrs. Tanguay and Legault also focused on the recent fiasco surrounding the digital transition at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ).
The Prime Minister defended the work of the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, and the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire. “The head of a state corporation is the most responsible,” said Mr. Legault. “I often say: when there are two people in charge, there is no longer a person in charge. »
In his opinion, Minister Guilbault therefore had “every reason to believe that the leaders of the SAAQ had thought about this transition” correctly. However, with hindsight, the head of government believes that there was “poor planning” at the SAAQ.
“Besides, the president and CEO of the SAAQ resigned… got himself resigned,” he said.