Quebec election: Legault says new hydro dam needed to meet greenhouse gas targets
Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) Leader François Legault says reaching the province's greenhouse gas targets isn't achievable without a new hydroelectric dam.
Legault made the comments today in Montreal, a day after the five major party leaders squared off in the first election debate of the campaign.
For the next debate, Legault said he hopes to explain his environmental ideas more fully, adding that the opposition parties have proposed plans that aren't achievable.
The CAQ government is committing to reducing Quebec's greenhouse gas emissions by 37.5 per cent compared to 1990 levels by 2030, but the Liberals are proposing a 45 per cent reduction target over that same period. Québec solidaire, meanwhile, is aiming higher at 55 per cent.
Legault says the other parties aren't being serious because they have not revealed where the extra electricity would come from to replace power from fossil fuels, adding that building a new dam takes at least 15 years.
Earlier in the campaign, Legault said he would ask the province's hydro utility to consider new hydroelectric dam projects, but he hasn't said where they would be built.
Legault says the hydro utility needs to produce an extra 100 terawatt hours to meet the expected rise in demand over the coming years, which would equal half of the annual output of Hydro-Québec.
The incumbent premier says Quebec will also need to renegotiate its contract with Newfoundland and Labrador for the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project. The deal gives Hydro-Québec electricity at a price seen as unfavourable to Newfoundland and Labrador. The 1969 deal ends in 2041.
"I don't want to have my hands tied behind my back negotiating with Newfoundland, obliged to sign no matter the price," Legault said Friday, adding he would be open to discussing involvement in other energy projects with the Newfoundland premier.
-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2022.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Auston Matthews to miss second straight playoff game with Toronto Maple Leafs facing elimination
Auston Matthews will miss the Maple Leafs' must-win Game 6 against the Boston Bruins.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.