It was funny to say the least to see François Legault on Instagram yesterday, celebrating with emotion the accession of Anticosti Island to the rank of “world heritage”, thanks to UNESCO.
On May 18, 2016, he nevertheless mocked “our green giant prime minister”, Philippe Couillard.
The day before, during question period, a PQ member (now a Bloc member), Alain Therrien, criticized the Couillard government for delaying honoring the contract that Pauline Marois had signed in order to explore the island’s oil potential.
Philippe Couillard then responded in place of his minister David Heurtel: “I cannot find harsh enough words for the Parti Québécois which, obviously, are promoters of hydraulic fracturing […] who awarded a contract to a company without any environmental assessment. […] And we know how it was also done, in the middle of an election, a contract like that, unacceptable, we are stuck with. »
Message
François Legault of 2016 strongly condemned this reaction. In his eyes, the Liberal PM was sending “a very bad message, not only for those who work on Anticosti, but for all potential investors in Quebec in the oil sector.”
In his eyes, by refusing hydrocarbon exploration in Anticosti, it was “as if he was afraid of finding oil, afraid that Quebecers would make money.”
On such a large island where there are only “250 inhabitants, it is possible to look at ways of doing things that do not affect the population,” insisted François Legault.
Al Gore
If, as the saying goes, “only crazy people never change their minds”, François Legault is surely sane.
I write it without irony. On the oil issue, many of us have evolved, like our Prime Minister, in a direction that is, let’s say… “cowardly”.
(I personally remember that in 2014, and perhaps even in 2016, I myself said publicly, in essence, that Anticosti was almost 20 times the size of the island of Montreal. “Is Is it so serious that we waste a piece of it if it is to improve our collective wealth? » I won’t say it anymore.)
Yesterday, not only did François Legault celebrate the “unesquoian” protection of Anticosti – which results from a request from the Couillard government – but the same day, he received the green anointing from former vice-president Al Gore in New York …like Jean Charest in 2008 in Montreal!
Governments always have the detestable reflex of blaming the predecessor for everything. “Before us, it was hell. Today, thanks to us, everything is fabulous. » A very legitimate response, I will be told, to the speeches of the oppositions which condemn without nuance all the actions of the government.
The fact remains that once in a while, it would be healthy for our heads of government to recognize that they are benefiting from certain good decisions of their predecessors.
The CAQ had, it is true, the elegance to invite Philippe Couillard to the inauguration of the REM in Montreal. If one day there is a tramway in Quebec, the former prime minister should be there too.