(Quebec) The Prime Minister says he does not know the estimated cost of the new public transit tunnel project, which he is now making a commitment. François Legault admitted on Wednesday that he had not seen the unredacted version of the studies that reveal him.
The Prime Minister made this astonishing revelation when he was hounded by the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire during the study of the budgetary appropriations of the Minister of the Executive Council.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois asked him if he had had access to the unredacted version of a study on the third link, in which there was a summary estimate of the cost of four different options, including that of a tunnel 100% dedicated to public transport.
François Legault said he saw a “short version” of this study which did not contain costs. “I got the summary from the Minister of Transport. […] I could have had access, but I did not consult the long version and even less the redacted version, ”he explained on Wednesday.
” I have not seen [les chiffres]it was in the long version that I did not see, ”said Mr. Legault.
His office confirmed after the credits that a summary of the studies on the third link was presented to the Prime Minister on April 5 and that this summary did not contain the estimated costs of the four scenarios.
François Legault is therefore making the construction of a tunnel 100% dedicated to public transit between Quebec and Lévis a new commitment without knowing the estimated cost for the moment.
However, the question of cost weighed heavily in his decision to abandon the motorway tunnel project – which would have been close to 10 billion dollars. On Tuesday, he said that “the significant drop in travel times” no longer justified the project financially.
He also maintained on Wednesday that he “could not say” whether the estimate of 10 billion which was put forward by the Minister of Transport Geneviève Guilbault last week comes from the study carried out by the consortium Union des rives, which makes a rough estimate of the project cost of the four options assessed.
“We will make it public”
The Prime Minister refused Québec solidaire’s request to make these scenario costs public. “I would first like us to make sure that these figures are valid […] I would not want to start a public debate on figures that are not validated,” he explained.
“When we have a valid, valid and validated estimate on the new Quebec-Lévis tunnel project for public transit, we will make it public”, assured the Prime Minister who later mentioned “questions of possible tenders ” for the project.
Another surprising revelation: Mr. Legault said he did not know that the study, commissioned in April 2022, looked at four scenarios, including that of a tunnel entirely devoted to public transport.
What we asked for is to have a two-tube scenario […] now, did the people doing the study choose to look at other scenarios? Me, on my side, I was not aware.
François Legault, Premier of Quebec
Statements that startled the solidarity leader.
“When the Prime Minister […] during the election campaign said that the scenario the government was considering was a tunnel […] road, he did not know that his own government had commissioned a study that envisaged a 100% public transit scenario,” replied Mr. Nadeau-Dubois.
Not a ‘broken promise’, says Legault
François Legault does not consider his about-face on the third link as “a broken promise”. However, Minister Bernard Drainville apologized to the citizens of Lévis for not being able to respect the campaign commitment. Minister Martine Biron also said that the government had “not kept its commitment”.
According to Mr. Legault, it is a “question of interpretation”. “The promise was made based on a number of data. From the moment the data [sur lesquelles] we base ourselves on making a promise change, I don’t consider it a broken promise,” he said.
Moreover, he replied in the affirmative to the interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay, who asked him if he was making his new tunnel project 100% dedicated to public transit as “firm” a commitment as that of the motorway link.
“There will be a third transit link,” he said Wednesday. Mr. Legault did not provide any details on the timetable for a future project or on the means of public transport he would favor.
François Legault also revealed that 28.6 million has been invested since 2018 in the third link project office, which includes salaries and professional fees.