“Yet another agency? » Yes… But hold your sigh for a few paragraphs, if possible.
After the Santé Québec agency, the CAQ government wants a new independent structure, this time to plan and manage major public transport projects. But aside from the name “agency,” they have little in common.
The health sector will become the largest employer in Quebec, with some 330,000 people under its responsibility. While a maximum of 50 people will work in the agency proposed by the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault.
To those who criticize him for lacking vision, Mme Guilbault brandishes this agency project. She outlined the objectives in an interview. The details will be revealed to parliamentarians next week when the bill is tabled.
On the diagnosis, it is difficult to prove the minister wrong. Quebec does not have the expertise to plan and build major public transportation projects. Governments make choices through electoralism.
Projects are modified, postponed, canceled and relaunched, with messy management. Few bidders are interested, and those who are are adjusting their bids upwards to take this risk into account.
More than 10 years ago, the PQ predecessor of Mme Guilbault, Sylvain Gaudreault, noted the inability to carry out major projects. He had also proposed an agency.
Of course, there has been REM since then. But the Caisse de dépôt et placement has a performance objective which is in tension with the public service mission. And the Caisse did not show any interest in the sections proposed by the caquistes in the suburbs of Montreal.
Still, there is already an agency.
In fact, the Couillard government had made the same observation as Mr.me Guilbault. He therefore created the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) in 2017.
We know the rest. The ARTM had a difficult start. She failed to draft a plan that would identify priority projects and sequence their completion1.
Mme Guilbault believes he can avoid repeating this problem. Unlike the ARTM, no elected official will sit on his agency. Its management will have to plan the national development of the network and manage new major projects.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault
In principle, the idea is good. But it will not be enough to resolve the basic problem: the lack of money to operate the public transport network and add new services.
Mme Guilbault points out that the federal government could do more to finance construction.
She is eyeing the Canada Infrastructure Bank. And she deplores that the Permanent Fund for Public Transport will only be available from 2026. Her federal counterpart Pablo Rodriguez is open to moving forward. But even if he accepts, it won’t be enough.
Where to find the rest of the money? Liberal MP Monsef Derraji proposes that transport companies finance themselves by selling real estate construction rights on their land. Vancouver is banking on this model, among other things.
But then again, even if all of this worked, it wouldn’t be enough.
If all the projects included in the infrastructure plan went ahead, the total bill would amount to 53 billion. However, 13.8 billion are planned. This is both a record sum and very little compared to the promises made on paper.
The other financial challenge is operating and maintaining buses, metros, trains and trams.
Each addition of service increases operating costs.
And currently there is not enough money to operate the network. For example, simply maintaining the Montreal metro will cost more than $16 billion over the next decade. And in New York, we saw the cost of negligence: breakdowns and users returning to their cars.
Here again, the question arises: where to find the money?
Mme Guilbault hopes that ridership will return to pre-pandemic levels, which increases revenue from users.
She also wants to “optimize” the management of transport companies. True, municipal employees are paid more than those at the provincial level. And the Bellechasse garage fiasco in Montreal shows the importance of tightening spending.
The minister has ordered a performance audit. She wants to evaluate and compare the management of transport companies. And then clarify the part of the deficit which is cyclical and structural.
After having covered 70% of operators’ deficits during the pandemic, the CAQ government is asking municipalities to do their part.
However, the structural deficit is also the responsibility of Quebec. For example, the CAQ want the majority of buses to be electric by 2030. This fit well with their positioning in the battery sector. But it costs a lot of money in maintenance and storage, not to mention expensive contracts with Nova Bus. For the same amount, we could have added gasoline buses to the vehicle fleet in order to reduce solo driving and greenhouse gases.
The drop in revenue from the gas tax, which is the responsibility of Quebec, also harms cities.
To fill this lack of revenue, various solutions exist, but we can guess that the CAQ caucus would oppose any new form of eco-taxation.
However, we cannot do everything at the same time. We cannot encourage solo driving in urban areas by adding roads and then pretend to do everything to encourage people to adopt active and collective transportation.
These major orientations of Quebec also have an impact on the structural deficit of operators.
If Mme Guilbault created an agency because she wanted to carry out projects. The idea is good, and so are its intentions. But without money, there will be no miracle.
1. Read this news which summarizes the criticisms addressed to the ARTM plan