Posted at 1:00 p.m.
I have been a construction and real estate contractor for nearly 30 years in the greater Quebec City region. As a citizen, I have the impression that the biggest social project in my city was decided behind the scenes on the corner of a table without democratic legitimacy.
Two mayors later, no popular consultation is planned, and the percentage of support for the project seems to be melting at the rate it is revealed to the public. What was supposed to be a social project for the whole agglomeration of the national capital has become an ideological project for a section of citizens of a sector of the city.
Last week, I had the unfortunate impression of hearing your predecessor through your words. As if, suddenly, you had inherited his arrogance and his stubbornness in not listening to his people. Reassure me !
At a time when sarcasm for politics is at its height – the words freedom and democracy have been amply overused and used in all sauces – the people of Quebec will witness a major transformation of their living environment without being able to pronounce.
What constitutes the largest public transit infrastructure project in the nation’s capital’s contemporary history does not arouse any enthusiasm among the majority of its citizens. It’s still strange, isn’t it?
Stranger still, in my opinion, is to note that social acceptability, the opinion of experts, the BAPE report, the concern of citizens and merchants… nothing seems to influence the decisions of your administration. In the name of the environment, the project will see the light of day at all costs, against winds and tides.
The environment ?
Excuse my naivety, but I have trouble understanding how to cut down all the century-old trees, remove the strips of grass from the front of the buildings, pour a concrete channel under a web of electric wires and cause traffic jams in the arteries surrounding areas is a sustainable and ecological project.
The obsession with reducing car traffic seems to take precedence over logic and common sense. To the delight of some, by removing traffic lanes and parallel parking lots along the tramway route, traffic will be reduced. It will even often be completely paralyzed by delivery trucks for businesses or residences; ambulances, firefighters and police; renovation work or the construction of buildings; maintenance and snow removal of streets and sidewalks, etc.
A small parenthesis on a beautiful contradiction concerning this ideology: we talk about densification and reduction of cars, but no permit for the creation of new residential housing can be granted without parking lots. Converting and renovating old buildings becomes almost impossible without the condition of adding parking spaces.
When Jean Drapeau, then mayor of Montreal, allowed the realization of the subway, the population of Montreal was hardly larger than that of Quebec today. For this great achievement, because he was able to rally the population around this project and obtain popular legitimacy, his name will remain etched forever in the collective memory. Today, we cannot imagine Montreal without this efficient public transit that respects the environment and its citizens.
Today you have the same opportunity to carry out a great collective project. What you lack is the support of the majority of the population.
What are you waiting for to carry out a major collective project for Quebec on the scale of the Montreal metro? Why refuse to obtain social legitimacy? Why not be open to other options? Why not opt for the attraction of collective mobility rather than the constraint? Consensus rather than ideology? At last…
Mr. Mayor, you have the opportunity to do things in order and, above all, with respect for the majority of your population. Remember that you are not the mayor of a small municipality, but of the national capital.