The Quebec government’s strategy regarding decarbonization, as well as its real desire to achieve it, leaves room for doubt. This strategy seems more like a cover to favor private companies, permanently altering the territory of Quebec and illegitimately privatizing the state-owned company Hydro-Québec in the process.
There are less expensive ways for this government to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction objective. The Minister of the Economy himself stated that Quebec’s vehicle fleet should be reduced by half. One wonders why he does not champion public transit rather than focusing on batteries. In order to achieve this inevitable reduction in road transportation, a culture of public transit at the Ministry of Transport itself, which would include rail, is essential. The investments required, for example for the establishment of a Quebec railway company (like the American Amtrak and the French SNCF), would be largely offset by the colossal savings achieved by reducing highway maintenance costs (and the absence of the need to create new ones) and the entire Quebec road network.
This company would initially operate on a modest scale in order to limit costs, and would thus benefit future expansion from the experience gained during the first tests. For example, the Montreal-Quebec City passenger rail corridor would be served by self-propelled electric individual cars (called automotive (in English). Subsequently, the company’s activities would be gradually extended to all of Quebec, at least to its main axes. This railway network would also be used, of course, for the transport of goods, which would limit the damage caused to the Quebec road network by heavy equipment. We must remember that it is not the trucking lobby that governs.
It goes without saying that these achievements would be accompanied by a vast awareness campaign on the benefits of such a change in public culture and its mode of travel (rational use of time, reduction of stress and risk of costly accidents, reduction of carbon monoxide levels and mineral depletion, etc.). In trying to remedy a state of affairs, we must ensure that we do not make it worse. This is why rail transportation is proving to be the royal road, without collateral damage, for real decarbonization in Quebec.
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