The Legault government recently postponed the decision on the Quebec tramway project, passing the baton to the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. The latter is entrusted with a herculean task: to rethink in the space of six months what was developed over ten long years. In this process, there is a tendency to go around in circles rather than to innovate, a cycle that raises questions about the ongoing management of the project and its outcome.
Faced with the project to transform the urban infrastructure of Quebec, we come up against a local particularity: the deep attachment of citizens to their city as it is. Quebec, with its serene appearance and measured pace, does not invite hasty change. The inhabitants, proud and equipped with a keen critical mind, seem to live at their own pace, thinking long and hard before embracing new developments. Thus, communicating the need for a large-scale project such as the tramway requires a detailed understanding of its population and exceptional change management.
It is possible that the reluctance observed among Quebec residents regarding the tramway project stems from a series of failures, over the last ten years, in leading change. Perhaps public consultations were not carried out to the necessary extent. Indeed, greater involvement of the population, from the start, could have generated better acceptability of the project, in addition to strengthening citizen commitment and showing them respect.
It is possible that the usual good practices in change management have not been fully exploited. It would have been wise, on the part of the promoters, to have an open and continuous dialogue, to take into account the opinions of the community and to deploy more initiatives to share a common vision of the project, in order to defuse apprehensions.
When it comes to communications, the possibility remains that the message was not sufficiently controlled, leaving the media to interpret and disseminate information through their filters. Quebec has a particular ecosystem and media climate. A more significant ongoing communication strategy, proactive, transparent, and diversifying channels, would have made it possible to reach all profiles of the community, making it possible to dispel misunderstandings and combat misinformation.
These hypotheses, if they prove true, could help to explain why the tramway project did not have the expected response among the inhabitants of Quebec, despite its promises of improvement of the urban environment and massive investments while we let’s head straight into economic turmoil.
The weak support of the population for the transformation of the major axes of the city to accommodate the tramway may be understandable. The moderate support revealed by the polls reflects this hesitation, exacerbated by the fall in popularity of a provincial ruling party. These elements combined create fertile ground for a hasty political reaction rather than for reflection centered on the general interest of Quebecers. However, now is the time for courage.
A warning must be issued to elected officials on Parliament Hill: the decision to delegate the crucial question of mobility in the greater Quebec region to the Caisse de dépôt et placement, based in Montreal, could have unexpected repercussions. The mystery of Quebec is perhaps that the inhabitants of the region have a very sharp “bullshitometer”.