“We believe that we have reached the maximum with Tramway, NO, thank you,” explains Stéphane Lachance in a video on Facebook. Tram NO Thanks is a Facebook group that brings together 12,000 people against the tram.
The Respect Citoyens party was officially accredited by Élections Québec on September 28th. In particular, by becoming an accredited political party, the group can recruit citizens and record political income and expenses. The next local elections will take place in two years.
According to party leader Marc Roussin, the aim is to “take the fight to another level, directly onto the political chessboard, face to face with Bruno Marchand.” Mr. Roussin is one of the founders of the Tramway NON merci group, as is Jean Arsenault, who acts as the party’s official agent.
If the Respect Citoyens membership card is currently free, Stéphane Lachance urges interested parties to request it. “In a very short time” it will be payable to finance the party.
Respect Citoyens will soon have both its premises and its website, the founders assure. They are currently examining the possibility of converting Tramway NON merci’s Facebook page to become a party page.
Stéphane Lachance was a Conservative candidate in the 2022 provincial election in La Peltrie. Marc Roussin was also the Conservative Party candidate in the Côte-du-Sud region in 2018. In 2021, Mr. Roussin ran for municipal elections with Québec 21, Jean-François Gosselin’s team.
New displacement for the tram
The creation of Respect Citoyens was announced on the same day as another postponement of the sensitive issue of the tram. On Saturday, the Journal de Québec announced that the city of Quebec had asked Alstom to postpone production of the trains for a few months.
The city paid Alstom a contractual advance of $5 million when the contract was signed in the spring. The planned deadline for manufacturing was November 10th, but government approval apparently will not be granted on time.
“It smells like a victory on our side,” assures Marc Roussin in the video posted on Facebook. Thank you to the founders of Tramway, this shift is another step towards the abandonment of the Quebec tram.