Territorial planning is a fundamental mission of any modern state. It is based on two pillars: the occupation and development of territories and the supervision of the development process (planning, town planning, architecture).
A few months after its election victory in 2018, the Legault government entrusted the Minister for Regional Economic Development, Marie-Eve Proulx, with the mandate to develop a Local and Regional Economic Development Strategy (SDELR). The objective of the strategy was “to ensure quality, coherent and efficient support for local and regional development, everywhere in Quebec”.
In January 2020, a vast project was launched at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to prepare a National Strategy for Urban Planning and Territorial Development (title which later changed to National Policy for Architecture and regional planning (PNAAT).
The Strategy project aborts
While the preparatory work for the SDELR was well underway, led by Minister Proulx, it was suddenly suspended following her resignation due to allegations of psychological harassment made by members of her staff. Although his responsibilities were taken over by other ministers, the SDELR file was dropped.
A certain number of measures that were to be incorporated into the SDELR had, however, been adopted, in particular, the setting up of Development Committees for each of the administrative regions, the creation of the Accès entreprise Québec network, the unveiling of an Action Plan social economy plan 2020-2025, adaptation of the Local Investment Funds (FLI) to the new realities facing businesses, continued collaboration with the RCMs to complete the network of Local Solidarity Funds (FLS ), the Fonds capital régional et coopératif Desjardins (FCRCD) and other regional sources of financing.
As part of the fiscal pact agreed with the two municipal associations signed in the fall of 2019, the Territorial Development Fund (FDT) and the Fund to ensure the influence of the regions (FARR) had been merged to create the Regions and Rurality Fund (FRR). The budget allocated to the FFR is 267.5 million dollars per year, whereas the two previous funds had 160 million.
All of these measures provide a substantial buffet of financial resources for assistance to businesses and support for community projects. But there is a lack of overall vision for planned regional development and integrated and coherent actions, with a substantial investment program in terms of infrastructure, equipment and public services, and concern for adequate expertise of development officers, which was the mission of defining the local and regional economic development strategy.
The absence of such a strategy gives rise to a great deal of improvisation and investments that have little impact on the long-term vitality of the communities concerned.
This failure of the SDELR project maintains the regions in the status of unloved children of Quebec politicians.
The development of the northern regions, which is the responsibility of the Société du Plan Nord, is an exception, having its own vision and a global plan, integrating the economic, social and environmental dimensions. There are lessons to be learned from this.
A very incomplete architecture and land use planning policy
On June 6, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Andrée Laforest, unveiled her National Policy on Architecture and Land Use Planning. This promise was therefore fulfilled… well, partially. The text of this policy is only a document of the government’s intentions regarding its desire to act on five major themes: 1. urban growth, including the problem of urban sprawl and the climate crisis; 2. Territorial governance; 3. Rurality and small towns in the region; 4. financing and taxation of municipalities; 5. The quality of living environments.
This document of intent is the easiest part of a global, integrated and transversal territorial planning. The second part, which is the Implementation Plan, is announced for the winter of 2023. It is by reading this Plan that we will be able to judge the seriousness of this policy. This Plan must include the mechanisms, prescriptions, means and resources so that the intentions set out in the Policy can materialize on the ground. An important part of this Plan will have to ensure the technical and financial capacity of local authorities to take ownership of the policy and to adequately manage the rules of development, town planning and architecture.
With a second term that promises to be a strong majority, a CAQ government will have free rein to adopt an implementation plan that meets the challenges and expectations. What will it be exactly? Demonstrations of problems to be corrected and new paths to take were made, opinions, recommendations and proposals were given. All that is missing is the political courage to act.
Whoops ! The under-river motorway tunnel project between Québec and Lévis appears as an indelible canker on the first drafts of the Implementation Plan for the Architecture and Land Use Policy.