Posted at 3:00 p.m.
Find the mistake
Let’s reverse the proposal: the transaction stumbles because the federal government persists in wanting to obtain an insignificant amount for it of 2.5 million per year, while at the same time, it pays the entire bill for the two main bridges in Montreal. Find the mistake.
Denis DeBelleval
funny time
You are forgetting certain elements… Don’t you find it strange that, by your own admission, Ottawa has been working since 2015 to find a solution and that the draft agreement is unveiled two days before the start of the election campaign? Mayor Labeaume had been screaming for years to get results on the old bridge in Quebec. Nothing was moving and suddenly the federal government pulled this agreement like a rabbit out of its hat just before the start of the campaign… Minister Duclos, this week, seemed to be reciting a text learned in advance, don’t you think that this exit was a little “staged”? The discussions were between CN and Ottawa, and Quebec was not part of the talks, why? Since when does a CN/Ottawa landlord ask a tenant to pay additional costs for the maintenance of the house on top of the rent? It’s too easy to blame Quebec alone.
Richard Champagne, LaSalle
And the ferry?
Completely agree with your editorial! Why not capitalize on what already exists? We are talking about the second link here, but what about the ferry between Lévis and Québec? I am a native of Lévis and I am 80 years old. When I was young, there were two ferries that ran every 20 minutes in the summer and every 30 minutes in the winter, given the ice. In 2022, there is only one ferry per hour… It seems to me that it would be much cheaper to add one or two ferries than to add a third link. All my life I have heard of a tunnel between Lévis and Québec. Currently, we are talking about a third link which, I think, will never see the light of day. So, let’s try to make profitable what already exists.
Christine Lepage
If it’s good for Montreal…
The Government of Quebec is not delaying anything out of bad will. Using the argument that it is the main user of the Quebec Bridge to justify investing in its maintenance (neglected by Ottawa long before its sale to CN) is a policy of double standards. Quebecers are also the main users of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge and the Samuel-De Champlain Bridge in Montreal, but their maintenance is a federal responsibility. Why is what is good for Montreal not good for the Quebec region?
Charles Rodrigue
bad faith
The CAQ is showing in this case a level of bad faith never before reached – but always with as much arrogance, contempt for Quebecers from all regions – and, above all, a total lack of vision. However, you don’t have to be a professional accountant to calculate the benefits of this proposal. But what do you want, calculators don’t work on intelligence.
Gilles Aubin
Save yourself from madness
Your article captures the problem very well and asks the real question. The CAQ is the unacknowledged PQ and Ottawa would have to pay for everything. Access to bridges in Quebec is a matter of approaches and exits from bridges. For example, the approaches and, especially, the exits from the Quebec Bridge have not been improved since at least the 1960s, and I am generous. So, we make the entrances and exits fluid and we save the madness of the third link.
Michel Bedard
Really nothing to laugh about
Finally, a documented and enlightening editorial on the Quebec Bridge file, which never ends in success. Nobody in Montreal is worried about the safety of the Victoria and Jacques-Cartier bridges, yet they were respectively built before the Quebec and Pierre-Laporte bridges… The bad faith of the Legault government in the file of intershore transport in Quebec is discouraging . Ferries that are regularly out of service, the Pierre-Laporte bridge that we will be securing in disaster in the coming months following concerns expressed by engineers from the Department of Transport and, now, opposition to the takeover of the Quebec bridge by the federal government under pretext of staggering costs. We are about to spend billions for a third link, but the millions needed to maintain the Quebec Bridge scandalize Minister Julien. It’s great puppet, but unfortunately, it’s not because we laugh that it’s funny. After having failed to block the tramway project in Quebec, let’s hope that this government will once again fail to block the project to buy back the Quebec bridge. About ten years ago, an overpass suddenly collapsed on cars in Laval. Sometimes the unthinkable can happen, once is enough…
Vincent Cayouette