(Ottawa) Only one environmental study needs to be conducted to evaluate the dam projects proposed by Quebec Premier François Legault during his second term. And this assessment can very well be made by the competent authorities in Quebec, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), affirms Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.
Posted at 12:00 p.m
Joël-Denis Bellavance La Presse
According to Mr. Poilievre, it would be futile for Ottawa to undertake a parallel study to do essentially the same work as BAPE. At best, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) comes to the same conclusions. Worst-case scenario, if Quebec wants to speed up the electrification of transportation, the federal agency will unduly delay projects that benefit the environment, he argued in an interview with La Presse.
Mr Poilievre, who on Thursday embarked on a two-day tour of Quebec that took him to Quebec City, La Pocatière and Montreal, unhesitatingly supports the arguments of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) led by François Legault, who, after promising to launch new hydroelectric projects in the election campaign that claimed the BAPE should be the only one to rate them.
In its strategic plan, Hydro-Québec calculates that around 100 terawatt hours (TWh) of new energy will have to be installed in Québec by 2050. In concrete terms, this means an increase of 50% compared to the current level.
“Premier Legault wants more dams for Hydro-Québec. He says we shouldn’t do the same environmental study twice. But the bureaucracy imposed by Justin Trudeau will delay the construction of those dams. This makes it more difficult and expensive, for example, to produce electricity for electric cars,” he said.
“If Quebec is conducting the study to guarantee that the environment will be protected, the federal government does not have to conduct the exact same study. It will just double the wait without doing anything for the environment.”
Mr Poilievre said he had a telephone conversation with François Legault on the subject last week. “I told him that I will not duplicate the same degree. And I recognize that to combat climate change, we need more green electricity,” he said.
By decreeing that Quebec could very well conduct the environmental study for such projects on its own, Mr. Poilievre continues to embody a credo dear to the Conservative Party, which is to decentralize powers to the provinces, as other Conservative leaders have done in the past have, including former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
During the campaign, the Trudeau administration was wary of the federal government’s role in these projects. However, Environment Secretary Steven Guilbeault’s office recalled Ottawa’s commitments under the Impact Assessment Act passed by the Liberal government in 2019. This federal law provides that projects such as the construction of a dam are automatically subject to federal review if they require development of a reservoir that exceeds “the average annual surface area of the natural body of water” by 15 km2.
Asked about this two days after the Oct. 3 elections in Quebec, Minister Guilbeault was categorical. “Under the new federal environmental impact assessment system, a dam project would be subject to an environmental assessment like any other large development project. […] So if there’s going to be a federal assessment, there’s going to be a federal assessment,” he told reporters.
The minister did not rule out conducting a joint assessment. “Certainly it is possible to do this collectively, but I cannot delegate my legislative duty to another level of government. »
During the campaign, François Legault also demanded that Ottawa be given new powers over immigration to counteract the decline of the French. His state counterpart Justin Trudeau rejected that option, saying Quebec already has all the tools it needs in this area to welcome French-speaking immigrants.
Unlike Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Conservative leader doesn’t double-lock the door. “We’re listening. Of course, the Liberal government has demonstrated its incredible incompetence in managing immigration. I think Quebec wants to fill the labor shortage while protecting the interests of Quebecers. So I’m listening to find out how we can work together, everyone prime ministers of the country to have an immigration system that attracts workers and helps us build our economy,” he said.
In an interview, the Conservative leader also said we need to “simplify” mining project permits for critical minerals needed for electric cars, such as lithium, cobalt and graphite, among others.
“In 2020 we produced zero lithium despite the country having the sixth largest reserve in the world. Why ? Because it takes four or five years to get government approval. So investors are going elsewhere. It harms the environment again because it forces us to import batteries from countries that burn coal to make them. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.