The Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, faced resistance within the government regarding the creation of “Mobilité Infra Québec”, her new transport agency, according to information compiled by The Press over the last few days.
She will soon table the bill to create “Mobilité infra Québec”, while the Council of Ministers finally gave her the green light. The operation was delayed; Originally, the bill was scheduled to be introduced last fall.
Geneviève Guilbault will transfer part of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Transport to this agency in order to better manage major infrastructure projects. Its mandate will focus on the planning and implementation of public transportation projects and complex road works such as the construction of bridges. She will be responsible for evaluating the interest or not of proceeding with projects submitted to her.
The agency should have around fifty employees. It will not be subject to the Civil Service Act. This makes it possible to offer higher salaries to employees and managers, and therefore to be more attractive.
The supervision and financing of Mobilité Infra Québec have provoked significant debates in the government.
To finance Mobilité Infra Québec, Geneviève Guilbault requested new sources of income. Different scenarios have been proposed so that his agency receives, for example, a portion of the dividends paid to the government by Hydro-Québec or a portion of the revenue reserved for the Generations Fund, which is used to reduce the debt burden. There has been a lot of resistance to the government on this subject, especially in the context where public finances are in the red. It was mentioned that the agency would be financed essentially from the budgets of the Ministry of Transport.
The other debate in the government focused on the supervision of Mobilité Infra Québec. To carry out the projects more quickly, the minister asked for her agency to have free rein and not be subject to different regulations and directives concerning the management of contracts in public bodies.
The government has chosen to modify the Public Bodies Contracts Act and directives regarding major infrastructure projects. Infrastructure Minister Jonatan Julien will table a bill to obtain efficiency gains. He wants projects to be completed up to 25% faster and cost 15% less.