Sophie Brochu Resignation: She Reveals Her Reasons for Leaving

Hydro-Québec’s CEO, Sophie Brochu, said in an interview with Paul Arcand last fall that she was in a position to continue. However, announcing her surprise resignation, she mentioned her reasons for leaving.

• Also Read: Sophie Brochu resigns: Fitzgibbon wins, Legault loses

• Also Read: Hydro-Québec CEO Sophie Brochu has resigned

When 98.5 FM’s host addressed rumors of an exit in the spring, the CEO denied any intention to leave office and was planning for the future.

“Me, what motivates me is what we see ahead and the governance framework. In government, as long as the governance framework in Hydro-Québec is healthy and as long as we can assert the core powers of the energy system’s imperative, I will be there,” declared Msgr.^me Paperback October 12.

“If, for one reason or another, this framework is different and I see that we are jeopardizing the evolution of the energy system, I will have serious conversations with my stakeholder,” she added of the Quebec government.

The important thing for a CEO, especially in terms of industrial development, is to be in “symbiosis” with the stakeholder in the vision, she emphasized.

A little earlier in the interview, Sophie Brochu mentioned her fear of Quebec becoming a “one-dollar store” of electricity. At the same time, Pierre Fitzgibbon, who became finance and energy minister, announced his intention to use hydropower to attract new investment.

No chicanery

Tuesday, M.^me Brochu was tight-lipped about the details of his departure in April, exactly three years after his appointment, one of the shortest since the 1970s.

On the side of Hydro-Québec and the Legault government, Energir’s former boss has argued that reinforcements have arrived at the heart of the pandemic.

A source in Quebec also confirms that there were differences of opinion between M^me Brochu and Minister Fitzgibbon came from the media “bloat”. “The two will get along well, we promise. We have never gone against Hydro-Québec’s strategic plan. No cruelty whatsoever.”

It is too early to know who will replace M^me Legault was a key figure in the government’s ambitions in this post.

In a press release announcing the CEO’s impending departure, Hydro-Quebec confirmed that its board of directors had already provided names to ensure succession and could provide the government with a list of candidates and candidates.

Exit “very worrying”

For Québec solidaire, this sudden resignation of Hydro-Québec’s CEO is “very worrying”. His deputy Haroon Bouzzi asserted that M^me Brochu is “concerned about the Legault government’s recent choices, which risk turning Quebec into an electricity “dollarrama” for big companies, resulting in citizens footing the bill on arrival”.

“Will Mr Fitzgibbon benefit from the departure.^me Install a management loyal to him, as we saw at Investment Quebec? “, he asks.

The Liberal Party of Quebec has demanded that the appointment of Hydro-Québec’s next CEO be a matter of transparency and “national dialogue”.