In a tone reserved for teenagers before sending them off to their rooms to ponder, Prime Minister François Legault solemnly warned his fellow citizens to “change their attitude” towards his government's economic and energy policies.
His speech on Thursday morning is worth quoting: “In Quebec we really need to change our attitude. So, yes, we have to find ways to save electricity, whether it's public transport, whether it's fuel efficiency. We should try to consume less electricity. Yes, we need to build wind power, but we can't get away from it, there, it takes more dams, it takes factories, a green economy like Northvolt, like GM, like Ford, like d other projects. »
So Quebecers have an attitude problem. In other words, the prime minister repeated what his minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said last month when he spoke about the “judiciary of the Northvolt case” and the message it sent to foreign investors. “My fear is that Quebec's credibility will be damaged,” the minister said.
In fact, the government is very concerned about citizens contesting a project that is close to its heart. The government contends that a review by the Office of Public Environmental Hearings is not necessary at this stage of the project.
There are many problems with the form of government. First, under the rule of law, we cannot blame citizens for wanting to use the remedy allowed to them by law.
But above all, the government cannot ignore the fact that Northvolt appears to have preferred it, for which BAPE would have made an appropriate change to the criteria by which the hearings were conducted.
Last February, the threshold for triggering a BAPE test on the manufacture of cathodes was increased from 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes. However, according to our colleagues at Radio-Canada, the future factory will produce 56,000. “tailor-made” acquired after contacts with Northvolt.
Since then, many civil society actors and former BAPE commissioners have denounced this situation, believing it to be an unacceptable regression to the principles that underpinned the creation of the public institution.
What's more, governments have invested significant sums in NorthVolt, either through subsidies or equity investments through institutions such as the Caisse de Dépot. In particular, the Government of Quebec acts as arbitrator and party in this matter.
Photo by Josie Desmarais, Law Press Archives
February 2 Demonstration in McMasterville demanding BAPE study on Northvolt factory construction project
Under the circumstances, it's a bit tricky for the Prime Minister to tell citizens who want to uphold the rule of law to “change their attitude” when their government doesn't seem to care.
Public hearings in particular would allow some legitimate objections to the Northvolt project to be responded to. Now there is the issue of social acceptability, not because it is a bad project, but because there are so many unanswered questions from the government, that the reason was heard before its announcement. In this regard, the Legault government can only blame itself.
However, we can also note that in this same press briefing, the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that his view on economic development has not changed: energy savings are not enough. We need more dams, more factories, including Ford and GM – which have suddenly become, in the Prime Minister's words, the cornerstones of a green economy.
In short, we return to the dollarama of energy that Sophie Brochu feared so much in her very brief mandate at the head of Hydro-Québec: an economy and development based on more and more electricity production, no matter what.
A model taken directly from the 1970s, when energy-intensive companies were lured in, even as it aimed to build more and more dams.
As bad luck never comes alone, all this had to happen in a week where the CAQ government failed to get rid of the problem of funding the cocktails you had to pay to meet ministers. Also for the victim's family who want to talk about drunk driving with the Minister of Transport.
After a week of trying to put the whole affair behind him by renouncing popular funding and challenging his opponents to do the same, Prime Minister Legault finds himself in the very situation he wants to avoid: we're still talking about the CAQ's cocktails.
It's a vicious circle: the more we talk about it, the more difficult it becomes to think that an informal slogan or an informal slogan is not in their interests by getting ministers to aim to fund the party directly or indirectly. CAQ Election Fund.
Under the circumstances, one might wonder who should change their attitude more…
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