The Quebec-Lévis tunnel may be included in the Quebec budget, it is no more than a “phantom project”, said the opposition in the National Assembly on Wednesday, even though François Legault refused to give further details. his controversial promise.
The Legault government avoided quantifying the financial impacts of its tunnel project in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan tabled Tuesday in Quebec. It appears there again, but under the “in planning” tab, and no amount is associated with its completion. The reason, according to the Minister responsible for Infrastructure, Jonatan Julien: detailing the anticipated costs further could harm the tendering process.
However, the absence of clear commitments from the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) in relation to the third link suggests an imminent abandonment, analyzed Wednesday the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay.
“I’m a bit tired of talking about a ghost project,” he said, the day after the budget was tabled. “We spend so much time, energy, saliva, ink, radio time, TV time on a project […] which does not even exist in the budget, for which there is not even a study, and which is not justified. »
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois isn’t “not sure we’ll see that in our lifetime either”. “My optimistic side tends to me to think that at some point reality will catch up with the CAQ, the environmental reality, the technical reality of a huge project, a pharaonic project like this,” said the co-porter. -word of Quebec solidaire.
After asserting that the tunnel would go ahead regardless of the results of environmental assessments, Environment Minister Benoit Charette tempered his support for the project last week, saying he will talk about it “when the project will be tied up”. “It’s not,” he said.
“We will look at the study”
Studies on the traffic of a potential third link, promised for the beginning of the year, have not yet been published. Prime Minister François Legault was expecting them for the month of March, but they are still waiting. Asked Wednesday about the chances that the tunnel will see the light of day, he again cast doubt. “Listen, we’ll look at the traffic study, then we’ll get back to you with data,” he said.
Relaunched on the possibility that the third link will only be crossed by public transport, as the Parti Québécois proposed during the election campaign, Mr. Legault repeated that he would wait for the publication of the studies.
“It is a political gesture. Obviously, there is no intention. When you are not even able to project a project in time […] which has taken up as much media space as that one, it is that we have no intention of proceeding,” maintained the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, during a point of press at the Parliament Building.
“So I encourage them to continue not to budget for it. »
Approached at the entrance to a meeting of the Council of Ministers, Jonatan Julien retorted that “all projects of more than a billion [de dollars] which are in planning and not in construction, such as the tramway [de Québec]like the third link […]the number does not appear.
During the election campaign, the member for Lévis, Bernard Drainville – then a CAQ candidate – strongly defended the project during a press conference. “Electric vehicles are going to take it, more and more [le tunnel]. Make that loose me with the GES [gaz à effet de serre] ! he had said.
Except that the CAQ government has not updated its vision of the Quebec-Lévis tunnel since April 2022, when it announced the construction of a “twin tube” estimated at $6.5 billion. The latest news is that the third link will have six lanes. Some of them will be reserved for public transit, but only during peak hours. No official plan has yet been made public.