MONTREAL - As the Liberals prepare to return to the National Assembly Tuesday, Premier Jean Charest and his team have been busy making a policy blitz, fuelling speculation of an impending election.
Charest denied Monday there's an impending election.
"We're not in an electoral mode," he said. "There's no election campaign program. We have three years in our mandate done; there's two years left."
Instead, he shifted the focus to the Plan Nord.
"As we resume, our priority will be the economy and jobs," he said. "There are two pieces of legislation that are linked to the Plan Nord."
He says the launch of the $80-billion project, a Northern Quebec development plan aiming to create 20,000 jobs per year for 25 years, has been faster than expected.
He told some 1,200 members of the business community in Montreal Monday that it's due in part to companies that wanted to invest more money than planned or wanted to maintain or increase their market share by investing in an accelerated manner.
"The Plan Nord is being deployed as we speak. It's happening as we speak. We just want to do everything in our power to make sure it happens in a way that's orderly," he said.
With a file from La Presse Canadienne
