The Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ) orders the complete shutdown of all the aerial lifts of Mont-Sainte-Anne. The station, affected by the stall of a gondola last Saturday, remains closed until further notice, except for the two school slopes.
This order follows the inspections carried out in the wake of the fall of the gondola. The RBQ suggests that the ski resort has committed a breach of the standards in force. “The checks that were made before the ski lift was put back into operation do not meet the requirements [… ] nor the manufacturer’s instructions. »
The RBQ requires to obtain “an expert report” which explains the malfunction that occurred Saturday morning on gondola # 92, in addition to a security certificate signed by an engineer. For the three other aerial lifts in the center that have disengageable attachments, the RBQ “orders verification of the moving parts” and also requires a certificate approved by an engineer.
“The reopening of the ski lifts will depend on the pace of fulfillment of the requirements provided for in the ordinance by the Mont-Sainte-Anne station,” said Stéphane Petit, vice-president of customer relations and operations of the RBQ, in a press release.
This new tile that falls on the station risks further damaging the already strained relationship it has with its subscribers. Thursday, Mont-Sainte-Anne still promised that “a reopening date would be confirmed soon. The next day, the RBQ ordered the lifts to be stopped, postponing the return to operation of the station to an unknown date.
On social networks, several calls for a boycott have been heard since last Saturday and some are talking about the possibility of taking collective action.
This would be the second in as many years against Mont-Sainte-Anne. The sudden stoppage of the L’Étoile filante gondolas in February 2020 injured around twenty skiers, some of them seriously. An ongoing lawsuit is seeking compensation. This accident had forced the station to interrupt its main ski lift, the only one capable of bringing skiers directly from the foot to the top of the mountain, for much of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
Many regulars have deplored the continued deterioration of the mountain’s facilities since the resumption of operations in 1994 by Resorts of Canadian Rockies (RCR), an Alberta company accused of abandoning Mont-Sainte-Anne.
The labor shortage seems to be hitting the resort hard: its bulletin board displays many vacancies, including four mechanics, including one specializing in ski lifts. Mont-Sainte-Anne is also looking for a director of operations and a main lift operator.
In this context, many people are considering asking for reimbursement of their season ticket, the price of which this year is $1,818, plus taxes, for skiers aged 18 to 64.
RCR owns the operating rights of Mont-Sainte-Anne until 2093 under a contract concluded by Daniel Johnson’s government in 1994. Several voices demand the expropriation of the company on the pretext that it does not breached the terms of the agreement and now puts the safety of the community at risk.
Groupe Le Massif, owned by Cirque du Soleil co-founder Daniel Gauthier, has made a purchase offer to RCR that has remained a dead letter. The Alberta company is instead negotiating an agreement with Quebec, saying it is ready to invest $100 million in the ski resort – on condition that the government pays half the amount.