The Government of Quebec announced the deployment of the Quebec public infrastructure strategy and the tabling of the bill aimed at creating Mobilité Infra Québec.
Aiming to provide rapid solutions to the various issues relating to the costs and completion times of infrastructure projects, the strategy brings together the main measures recently implemented by the government in terms of public infrastructure, as well as those it plans deploy in the near future. This strategy mainly aims to accelerate the completion of projects, reduce costs, ensure greater efficiency in the planning and execution of projects and improve the overall state of public infrastructure. It will modernize the government’s ways of doing things and ensure that the government intervention framework remains effective and adapted to each project.
“What we are announcing today is a small revolution in the way we build our public infrastructure in Quebec. Thanks to this ambitious strategy, we will be able to build quality infrastructure more quickly and at lower cost, to the benefit of citizens’ quality of life,” said Jonatan Julien, Minister responsible for Infrastructure and Minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region.
In order to generate gains at each stage of carrying out a project, the Strategy proposes 17 measures which revolve around four axes:
- optimized planning, overall and by project;
- a more competitive business environment;
- a more agile state;
- better monitoring of the performance of major projects and the state of the fleet.
Also, to enable the objectives set out in the Quebec Public Infrastructure Strategy to be achieved, legislative amendments to the Act respecting contracts by public bodies and the Public Infrastructure Act are proposed. These modifications aim in particular to:
- allow public bodies to enter into partnership contracts based on collaboration;
- simplify and accelerate the government process for authorizing and monitoring major projects;
- allow more agility or room for maneuver in terms of public infrastructure;
- reduce the administrative burden on public bodies and increase administrative performance.
“Currently, the Quebec government does not have the expertise and capacity to deliver large-scale public transportation projects,” said Geneviève Guilbault, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. “What’s more, the planning and implementation of our major infrastructure projects, including public transportation projects, are too complicated, too long and too costly. We cannot afford to maintain the status quo any longer. Things must change. With Mobilité Infra Québec, we are giving ourselves the means to achieve our ambitions: an agile organization, concentrating cutting-edge expertise and oriented towards innovation.”
The tabling of the bill aimed at creating Mobilité Infra Québec is part of the government’s desire to complete the network of public transportation in Quebec. The main mission of the new specialized team would be to analyze, plan and carry out, on mandate from the government, any complex transport project, including those in public transport.
Over the coming years, the Quebec government wishes to carry out, at a sustained pace, numerous public transport infrastructure projects in order to address Quebec’s various mobility challenges. The government also wants to increase efforts to be able to achieve the objectives of combating climate change by transferring travel to more sustainable and low-carbon modes of transport, such as public transport.
“The government continually seeks to modernize and make the management of public funds more efficient, rigorous and transparent while attaching great importance to the integrity of public procurement. It is this balance that was sought in the bill introduced by my colleague, the Minister of Infrastructure, and which will remain at the heart of the deployment of the Strategy in the years to come,” said Sonia LeBel, Minister responsible for Government Administration and President of the Treasury Board.
Featured image: Geneviève Guilbault, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (left) and Jonatan Julien, Minister responsible for Infrastructure and Minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region. (Coalition Avenir Quebec)
