LEVIS, Que. – Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced Monday that his long-awaited Plan Nord, to open northern Quebec to economic and social development, will mean private and public investments totalling $80 billion over 25 years.
"The Plan Nord will be for the coming decades what the Manicouagan and James Bay developments were in the 1960s and ’70s," Charest said.
Investments in energy development, mining, forestry, transportation and tourism in the 1.2-million-square kilometer region – twice the size of France – are expected to create 20,000 jobs a year, on average, in the region, generating economic growth of $162 billion, tax revenues of $14 billion and mining royalties of $1.4 billion in five years, he said.
Only 120,000 people live in that vast territory, including 10,000 Inuit, 16,000 Cree, 9,300 of Quebec’s 16,000 Innu and 1,000 Naskapi in 31 communities, as well as non-aboriginals in 32 communities.
Quebec is breaking the 25-year plan into five-year chunks, with $2.1 billion in public money budgeted for the first phase, 2011 to 2016, including $500 million to be injected by Investissement Quebec in private resource companies.
The bulk of that amount – $1.2 billion – is to be spent on roads, airports and other infrastructure.
Improved housing to benefit children, families
Of the initial amount, $382 million would be for housing, health, education, culture and reducing the high cost of living in the North. Of that total, $264.4 million is to go into housing in Nunavik, where Quebec’s human rights commission has linked the lack of adequate housing in Inuit communities with violence and sexual and other abuse of children.
The proposal calls for 840 new houses in Inuit communities, 340 under a federal-provincial plan, plus 500 under the Plan Nord, and the renovation of 482 homes.
As well, mining companies will be required to build new houses when they develop new mining projects.
Already, 11 mining projects, creating 11,000 jobs in the construction phase, 4,000 jobs for the long term, are planned, for a total investment of $8.24 billion.
The region contains deposits of nickel, cobalt, platinum, zinc, iron ore, lignite, gold, lithium, vanadium and rare earths.
Job creation
Forestry development plans and reforestation near populated areas in the North count for 53 per cent of Quebec’s forestry potential and are projected to create about 15,000 jobs – 5,600 in the forests and 9,300 in the paper, pulp and lumber mills used to process the wood.
Quebec’s North also has 1.5 million hectares of arable land, almost as much as the two million hectares in the South already cultivated. Plans call for growing blueberries and other fruits initially, with a greater agricultural potential in the future as a consequence of climate change.
In the energy sector, the Plan Nord calls for developing 3,500 megawatts more in hydroelectric projects, 300 megawatts of wind energy and 200 megawatts of solar and other renewable energy, at a cost of $25 billion.
To ensure access to Quebec’s North, northern airports are being improved and four new roads will be built. Some entrepreneurs have suggested building rail links into the northern regions.
Charest also spoke in his inaugural address in March about building northern ports as part of the plan.
The province is to set aside 50 per cent of the North as protected areas, where no economic development will be allowed, but the Plan Nord also calls for developing tourism in the region of
pristine lakes, unscaled mountains, vast forests and migrating caribou herds.
To manage the Plan Nord, a public corporation, would be created to co-ordinate investment, structure financing and work in partnership with local communities.
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