Quebec announces $6.8 billion infrastructure investment

Quebec confirmed Monday it will invest $6.8 billion in the province’s infrastructure. The money will finance more than a thousand projects in road, marine, rail and airport infrastructure between 2022 and 2024.

“That’s $2 billion more than in 2019,” said Transportation Minister François Bonnardel at a press briefing. “That’s 1,350 projects that will take shape all over the territory starting this summer."

Of this amount, $2.7 billion will be spent on maintaining structures in good condition, and $1.5 billion will be spent on roadways.

Montreal will receive just over $1 billion of the total. This represents a "colossal" sum for the city, said the minister responsible for the Montreal region, Chantal Rouleau, who attended the press conference.

The announcement will affect many highway infrastructures in the greater Montreal area. Rouleau assured that Mobilité Montréal’s main partners — the government, the cities and the public transit companies — will try to minimize the impact of the work on motorists.

"Obviously, when we talk about construction, we also talk about mitigation measures," said Rouleau. "Sometimes we’ll talk about a bypass. Sometimes we’ll talk about increasing the bus network."

EASTERN REM TO MOVE FORWARD

Rouleau assured that the REM project would go ahead, while Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) Infra are passing the buck on the delayed project.

The subsidiary of the CDPQ announced last Thursday that it is delaying the final presentation of the project to the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), which was scheduled for this spring, in order to obtain better support from its partners, including the City of Montreal. On Friday, Plante asked CDPQ Infra to say "clearly and publicly" whether it wants the city at the table or not.

Despite the delays, Rouleau says abandoning the project is not an option.

"The eastern REM must happen, the eastern REM will happen."

CDPQ Infra, the Quebec government and the City of Montreal are working together to determine "the best mechanism to get it done right," Rouleau said.

— This report was first published in French by The Canadian Press on March 21, 2022.