(Montreal) Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon closes the door at the request of a hundred signatories who are asking for a BAPE, an inquiry with public hearings, to be held on Quebec’s energy future.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and to the four Ministers who are members of the Committee on the Economy and Energy Transition, stakeholders from environmental, community, union and even academic circles take François Legault at his word, who declared last November that he wanted “a real debate” on energy.
“It is indeed essential that decisions on this subject are not taken hastily, in small circles, in pieces and without an overview”, argue the signatories, insisting that decisions on the energy future need not be taken in advance.
However, the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy refuses to hold a BAPE on the energy future.
“There will be no BAPE,” said Pierre Fitzgibbon Tuesday afternoon, adding that his government is considering a way to hold “public hearings and parliamentary consultations.”
According to him, public hearings on the issue could take place over a period of one year, while “a BAPE can take two or three years”.
A generic BAPE
The signatories of the letter “believe that the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement provides the most legitimate framework for orchestrating a real societal debate and that a ‘generic BAPE’ is the best formula for ensuring a neutral and exhaustive examination environmental, social and economic issues raised by the various possible energy trajectories”.
Greenpeace spokesman Patrick Bonin, signatory of the letter, added that the energy future concerns as much the exploitation of minerals for the electrification of transport, hydroelectric projects, energy and food autonomy, consumption, buildings and land management.
“So it takes a global vision and it takes a type of itinerant consultation that will tour Quebec,” said the ecologist.
With the departure of the President and CEO of Hydro-Québec, Sophie Brochu, who announced her resignation a few weeks ago, “we no longer know where the government is going and we fear that have a small consultation led by Pierre Fitzgibbon, the super minister, when we need a much broader consultation, ”said the spokesperson for Greenpeace.
He recalled that in 2014, the government of Pauline Marois had established the Commission on energy issues, which had toured Quebec.
This commission was co-chaired by Normand Mousseau, professor in the physics department at the Université de Montréal, and Roger Lanoue, who worked for more than 20 years at Hydro-Québec.
The opposition parties are also calling for a debate
According to the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, the Liberal Marc Tanguay, the conclusions of a BAPE on the future of energy would certainly be “relevant”.
However, because this process could take a lot of time and because a BAPE “is not the best tool for developing a national vision”, it “would not be ideal”.
Tuesday morning, Marc Tanguay reiterated his proposal to instead launch a “national consultation” on the future of energy in Quebec.
This traveling commission would focus on the current and future needs of Quebec, as well as the investments necessary to achieve the energy transition and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
For his part, the solidarity leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois described the request to hold a BAPE on the energy future as a “good idea”.
Hydro-Québec is “a national jewel” and “the collective tool that will be most useful to us in the energy transition. It can’t become Pierre Fitzgibbon’s personal toy. We must collectively define the orientations of Hydro-Québec, “said the MP on Tuesday morning.
The departure announced last week of the executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Hydro-Québec, Éric Filion, a few weeks after the resignation of Sophie Brochu, worries the opposition parties and certain members of civil society.
The opposition parties see the departures of the two leaders as a sign that the government’s vision differs from that of the state-owned company regarding the energy transition.