(Quebec) The leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon does not exclude that the link project he will propose between Quebec and Lévis during the 2026 elections contains highway transport. The project submitted by the Caisse de dépôt et placement could convince him to change his position.
“We do not see any interest or reason to include a highway in the structuring transportation project of Quebec [comme en 2022]. This work must be redone because other players such as the Caisse de dépôt risk getting involved. I will not commit to certain parameters that I do not control, namely what the Fund will say or do in this matter,” he explained on Tuesday at a press briefing.
The Parti Québécois took a position against a new highway link between the cities of Lévis and Quebec during the general elections of 2014, 2018 and 2022. But two weeks ago, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon did not specify whether automobiles could circulate in the project that he will propose in 2026.
“We have not changed our position. However, the situation on the third is evolving in such a chaotic manner that there are certain adjustments, additional reflections which will have to… which will take place before 2026, it is obvious,” he said.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
On social media, the party’s candidate in the Taschereau riding in 2022, the senior director of Vivre en ville and co-founder of Piétons Québec, Jeanne Robin, reacted by affirming that she was not “worried”. “I never felt during my involvement in the PQ any appetite for a third Quebec-Lévis highway link (a project to which I always oppose, as a transport expert),” she wrote on the X platform.
The Caisse project
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon asserts that Mr.me Robin is “absolutely right to say that there is no appetite for motorways based on the data and the experts we have consulted”.
But he believes that this consultation work is not finished. “The only guiding principle, which is not ideological, but which is founding in the PQ, is that we consult a large number of experts, we consult the population, and it is on this basis that “We take what we believe to be the best project,” he said.
“The reason for my answer is that you want to know my position for 2026, for the moment the position in force is that of 2022. But in anticipation of 2026, the variable that I am missing is that -what this whole story refers to the Fund. […] Where will we be? Are there any firm commitments or things already started? I doubt it,” he said.
CDPQ Infra has received the mandate to determine a structuring transport project to improve public transport for the City of Quebec and to improve mobility and fluidity in the Metropolitan Community of Quebec, particularly between the two shores. She must present her project in the summer.