Nothing is going well in terms of public transportation in Quebec. I see a big derailment of projects postponed, on hold or simply abandoned. Is this a symptom of the business culture aimed at short-term profitability, at any cost?
What are the reasons for this great derailment? Sloppy planning, rising costs, lack of social acceptability, lack of resources, endless studies, everything is an excuse for delaying or even postponing the implementation of structuring projects in terms of public transport.
Whose fault is it ? As in society, the lack of leadership and political consensus seems obvious to me. Easy to say ? However, who does not remember the creation of the Montreal metro by Mayor Jean Drapeau, in just six years? Another era, perhaps, but a political leadership that seems lacking in Quebec at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
However, elsewhere in Canada (Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia), several projects are being completed on time and at reasonable costs. Why so many obstacles and failures in Quebec? Are we making bad choices at the whim of lobbies, or is it a lack of vision for the future of our society subject to the dictates of a short-term economic vision?
The failure of a business model
The reputation for efficiency of the Caisse de dépôt subsidiary (CDPQ Infra) is seriously undermined by the numerous setbacks of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM). Its business model, economic profitability at all costs in the short term, is as much a failure as its lack of accountability for customer service.
The blunders are piling up: repeated breakdowns in the operation of the current REM, withdrawal of CDPQ Infra from the REM on Montreal’s South Shore and rejection of the REM in the east of the metropolis.
What can we say about the mandate obtained from the Quebec government by the Caisse subsidiary in order to reassess all public transportation in the national capital since the suspension of the tramway project in Quebec? Surprise ! This mandate became the pretext used to abandon the South Shore REM “for lack of personnel”, after three years of “studies”. What a catastrophe !
The Minister of Transport even finds it unacceptable to mandate the Caisse to carry out its own structuring public transport projects, pleading instead for the creation of a transport agency independent of her ministry. In such a context, what credibility will the CDPQ Infra report on the future of public transportation in the greater Quebec region have?
We are living in an era of reorganization of our public services which aims to make them more efficient by the creation of new structures (health agency, National Institute of Excellence in Education or agency in major transport projects), but what about Are there any collective reflections on the future of our society?
Several speakers are calling for the organization of summits on issues including the creation of housing, the reception of immigrants, the development of public transport, education or the field of energy.
Will we finally learn to better mobilize our creative forces in order to put our economic and social challenges on track? To achieve this, we must change our methods of working in isolation, too often dominated by the sole value of short-term economic profitability! Will we be able to learn from our mistakes in order to avoid collective derailment? I sincerely wish it!