The Legault government doubts the support of the population for the Quebec tramway project.
The Council of Ministers should approve a decree to launch the work next Wednesday, but the CAQ does not rule out the imposition of new conditions – which Mayor Bruno Marchand opposes.
Minister Jonatan Julien, an elected official from the capital region, doubts the social acceptability of the project.
During a debate in the National Assembly on Friday morning, the caquistes had to defend their hesitations in approving this controversial project of nearly $ 4 billion.
In replacement of his colleague at Transport François Bonnardel, isolated because infected with the coronavirus, Mr. Julien responded to Quebec solidaire (QS) which believes that social acceptability is “demonstrated, assured”.
“I think we still have work to do,” he said. A CAQ MP from Quebec went further by attributing a share of the responsibility to the mayor.
“The mayor is catching up on communications and there are traffic concerns,” said Joëlle Boutin.
“We are the donors, we have the right to ask questions, we are challenged by citizens. »
Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy tried in vain to find out if the government was going to impose new conditions in its decree, which could once again delay the completion of the project.
Interfering in the jurisdiction of the municipality, Prime Minister François Legault had indeed expressed his opposition to a section of the route which would be shared between the tramway, the car, cyclists, pedestrians, etc.
“The most important question that remains unanswered: will there be new conditions in this decree? remarked the QS MP for Jean-Lesage, Sol Zanetti.
According to Ms. Rizqy, all mayors will have to be vigilant when issuing the decree, which could mean that the government now intends to interfere in their areas of competence.
She noted that in the whole debate, she did not hear from the caquists “a single positive thing” about the tramway project.