Wind power development in Quebec has largely been entrusted to the private sector: it is a misappropriation of public funds which must be denounced and corrected.
We therefore appeal to the Fédération québécoise des municipalities (FQM), the Union of Municipalities of Quebec (UMQ) and all their members to act quickly by stopping supporting this embezzlement of public funds and the dispossession of the common good. for the benefit of the private wind industry.
By supporting private electricity production and the pursuit of public-private partnerships, we, municipal elected officials, actively support a historic step backwards with regard to the nationalization of electricity. This decline is not only ideological: it leads to a loss of technical and scientific expertise in terms of electricity production and collective impoverishment on the economic level.
A recent study by the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economy (IREC) confirms this assertion and demonstrates that the Quebec population has spent more than six billion dollars to give priority to private wind energy and would spend up to 22 billion by 2035. This loss must be avoided by prioritizing energy planning based on the needs of the population rather than private interests, and by entrusting the production of wind electricity to Hydro-Québec.
In its conclusion, the study underlines that even if certain municipalities benefit from part of the wind rent, a fundamental question arises: “Who are the real beneficiaries of this privatization? » If the municipalities were 50% partners with Hydro-Québec rather than with the developers, “revenues for each party in 2023 could have been between $450 million and $840 million and should reach between $910 million and 1. $70 billion by 2035.”
Such shortfalls have a major impact on public finances and thus on the State’s capacity to provide quality services to its citizens. Not to mention that to these economic deficits are added the price to pay for the transformations of the landscape and the numerous conflicts of use and impacts on local populations, such as social division, various nuisances, the loss of quality of life that leads to such development of the wind sector in inhabited areas.
The FQM and the UMQ offer paid support services to the MRC so that these wind projects are established on their territory. These services pursue the same purpose as that of the provincial government: to grant a greater place to the private sector in the production of electricity in Quebec.
Let’s stop accepting this model of energy development by decree! Let’s take action and demand a comprehensive energy development policy for Quebec in its fight against climate change. In its Energy Plan, the UMQ invites us to be “ambitious for our communities and for future generations. In Quebec, in our municipalities, we have everything we need to stand out and become a model of sustainable economic development.”
We therefore invite the UMQ and the FQM to live up to such ambitions! The economic development model that constitutes the privatization of the wind industry is not sustainable and only benefits a few to the detriment of the many.
It is never too late to act together for the common good of the Quebec population: the future of our communities and future generations depends on it.
*Also signed this letter: Diego Scalzo, Mayor, Warwick; Denise Gendron, mayor, Sainte-Monique; Gaétan Ruest, former mayor, Amqui; Sylvain Laplante, former mayor, La-Visitation-de-Yamaksa; Isabelle Clément, municipal councilor, Hérouville; François Rousseau, municipal councilor, Saint-Léonard-d’Aston; Sylvain Pillenière, municipal councilor, Lotbinière; Roman Pokorski, municipal councilor, Saint-Adelphe; Stéphane Vincelette, municipal councilor, Saint-Elphège; Martine Bechtold, municipal councilor, Saint-Wenceslas; Christiane Bonneau, municipal councilor, Saint-Camille; Céline Dumas, municipal councilor, Warwick; Jules Bédard, municipal councilor, Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur; Pascale Boislard, municipal councilor, Saint-Albert; Myriam Normandin, municipal councilor, Saint-Elphège; Jean-Pierre Ducruc, former municipal councilor, Sainte-Croix; Claude Charron, former municipal councilor, Vianney; Alain Ayotte, former municipal councilor, Hérouxville; Alain d’Auteuil, former municipal councilor, Drummondville.