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QUEBEC — The Legault government has presented legislation to create a new independent agency to plan and put in place public transit infrastructure projects across Quebec.
Rising in the legislature Thursday morning, Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault tabled Bill 61 which, once adopted, will create Mobilité Infra Québec, a central agency that she hopes will speed up Quebec’s notoriously slow process in getting projects off the ground.
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The government argues the agency, which follows the creation of Santé Québec for the health network, will be able to develop expertise that goes beyond the capacity of the Ministry of Transport, which currently handles such issues.
The bill states Mobilité Infra Québec’s mission will be “to conduct opportunity analyses and plan and carry out complex transportation projects.”
It will allow the agency to acquire, by expropriation, the immovables it considers necessary to pursue its mission on behalf of the government, a municipality, a public-transit authority and the Réseau de transport métropolitain or the Authorité régionale de transport métropolitain.”
Guilbault’s bill was followed by another piece of legislation, Bill 62, which is also connected to speeding up the infrastructure construction process.
Tabled by Infrastructure Minister Jonatan Julien, it would allow public bodies, following an unsuccessful call for tenders, to enter into a contract by mutual agreement.
In a series of interviews over the last few days, Guilbault has argued the new legislation will help Quebec “build faster and at a lower cost.”
She has said that ultimately the changes will allow Quebec to “take control of its mass-transit destiny.”
The bills come a few weeks after Guilbault sparked controversy for telling a committee of the legislature that “managing public transit and transit companies is not a mission of the government.”
Guilbault and Julien are to hold a news conference later Thursday to explain the bills.
This story will be updated.
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