Quite a lot of the indications that reach us from Quebec say the same thing: the Legault government is sending signals that it is starting to want to back down on one of its key promises: the tunnel between Quebec and Lévis, better known as the third link .
There are signs that do not lie: we no longer talk about the project in the 2023-2025 version of the road infrastructure when it was there last year. It doesn’t necessarily indicate a final decision, but it’s still a sign.
Ministers’ sentences contain more and more “buts”, as in: “It is certain that the third link project is important and that we continue to push on it. But you have to give time to time…”, Minister Martine Biron said this week.
The studies are coming, but are always put off a little later. “Before the summer for sure,” said the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault. Note that summer begins on June 21 at 10:57 a.m. (Quebec time), that is, conveniently, two weeks after the adjournment of the National Assembly.
But above all, we feel the exasperation of certain ministers who spent the last election campaign defending a project that had become a “believe or die” for the candidates of the CAQ. As in “if you ask the question again, the answer will be the same”, as Minister Bernard Drainville said this week. We have come a long way from his “let go of me with the GHGs” of the last election campaign.
In addition, the new version of the project which is currently circulating, with one of the two tubes which would be devoted exclusively to public transport, is not the solution.
In fact, it looks more like a last ditch attempt to get funding from the federal government, which has already said it won’t fund a highway project. But if Ottawa still says no, it is quite obvious that Quebec will not want – even could not – find itself alone to pay.
Anyway, more and more, it becomes clear that the political cost of abandoning the project would not be so high for the Legault government.
The third link is popular on the South Shore, but much less so in Quebec itself. But the voters of Chaudière-Appalaches voted for the CAQ when it was called the ADQ. We do not really see to whom they could turn, given the current political offer. And even if it were to cost a few seats in the next election in more than three years, when you have 90, it’s not a tragedy.
There is also a public health argument. Air quality is an issue in the Limoilou, Vanier and Lower Town neighborhoods, as several reports have demonstrated. Now, that’s where the third link would end up. This is a problem that is particularly important for the federal Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, who is a local MP and also, informally, the federal minister responsible for the Quebec region.
Another argument is that of congestion and telework. We are awaiting a new study on this subject, but we still note a reduction in congestion on the current bridges. In fact, it must be taken into account that the government is the main employer in the Capitale-Nationale region and that its own policies on telework will have an effect on congestion.
It would not be too logical to reduce the possibilities of telework for civil servants and then use the argument of congestion to justify the third link.
Finally, there is the issue of public finances. The project is estimated at 6 to 10 billion dollars. It’s a lot. For comparison purposes, the Samuel De Champlain Bridge – the busiest in Canada – will have cost $4.2 billion (and probably a little more when the demolition of the old bridge is completed).
With a deficit of 4 to 5 billion dollars, according to the last budget, to which should be added the reductions in contributions to the Generations Fund, does Quebec really have the means to embark on this project? Especially since we don’t yet have very serious studies on the costs, and we know that projects of this type tend to become real money pits.
It’s starting to get very heavy as a file. Enough to wonder if the government should not take the advice of that old political fox that was Jean Chrétien, one of whose famous maxims applies perfectly to the current situation: “When we painted ourselves in the corner, we walk on the paint”.
Because it’s always better to back off while there’s still time than to commit to exorbitant projects that you’re not quite sure you can carry out.