Former Liberal minister David Huertel asks Pierre Fitzgibbon for power

Former Liberal Minister of Environment, David Huertel, knocked on Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon’s door to secure a block of energy for a green hydrogen project in Val-d’Or and St Jerome.

“Communications to grant hydroelectric power blocks of 5 MW and above to supply Hydrolux’s green hydrogen production facilities to supply vehicles”, we can read in the registry of lobbyists.

In 2017, David Huertel, then Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Combating Climate Change under Philippe Couillard, expressed interest in hydrogen cars at a public event of the Japanese multinational company Honda.

$10 billion sector

A few years later, we learned that David Huertel was asking Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy (MEIE), for electricity in a sector ripe for investment growth.

In his Quebec Strategy on Green Hydrogen and Biofuels 2030Published last year, the CAQ government indicated that public and private projects in the sector could reach 10 billion dollars in the coming years.

Last March, News magazine Hydro-Québec, a Belgian company close to the Desmarais clan, is reportedly asking Prime Minister François Legault, the energy minister and several cities to get power for its “renewable energy production projects.”

No interview

In recent days, Fasken, the law firm where David Huertel works, quickly declined our interview request.

Hydrolux also likes to suggest Log A press release published a year ago reported on a project that would allow heavy trucks to connect the Greater Montreal area and Abitibi for two green hydrogen refueling stations.

Last September, News magazine Union members are angry that former minister David Huertel lobbied to bring in workers from Slovenia instead of Quebecers to build Metro’s $420 million automated center in Terrebonne.