“No appetite” for the 3rd link to the PQ according to a former candidate

Photo: Jacques Boissinot The Canadian Press PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon with Jeanne Robin, then party candidate in Taschereau, September 29, 2022.

Isabelle Porter in Quebec

1:51 p.m.

• Quebec

The possibility of a change of course by the Parti Québécois in the third link issue mentioned by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on Thursday does not worry Jeanne Robin, the former party candidate who had designed her project light rail between the two banks.

“I’m not worried,” Ms. Robin wrote in a post on Platform X on Friday (formerly Twitter). “In my involvement in the PQ, I never felt an appetite for a third Qc-Lévis highway link.”

Ms. Robin was reacting to comments made the day before by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “I am committed to reviewing our 2022 proposal in light of where this file will end up. Because obviously, we don’t know where it’s gone. What the Caisse de dépôt is going to make as a proposal, what the [Coalition Avenir Québec] is going to make as a commitment means that we will obviously have to look at this again. But our position, in terms of public transport, is exactly the same,” he said.

During the 2022 electoral campaign, the Parti Québécois took a position against a highway link between Quebec and Lévis and presented a project dedicated exclusively to public transport.

Ms. Robin, who is director of the Vivre en ville organization and advocates for the development of public transportation, was the main architect of this project.

In her tweet on Friday, she reiterated that she “still opposes” the highway link between Quebec and Lévis.

A position considered ambiguous

Thursday, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon had to answer several questions about the space for cars in a possible third inter-river link. “I will eventually come back to you with an improved version [of the third link]. Obviously, we could say: “The Parti Québécois opens or does not close the door to…” But that is speculative. We have homework to do,” he said.

The PQ leader was reacting to an outing by the mayor of Lévis, Gilles Lehouillier – a notorious liberal – who had argued that the independence of Quebec would make a third highway link even more relevant.

Since Thursday, close advisors to François Legault have publicly mocked the exit of Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon. “Finally, the PQ’s position on the 3rd link will not change, but will evolve by 2026. It could change. But without changing. It’s clear ?,” the Prime Minister’s director of strategic planning, Stéphane Gobeil, wrote on X.