PQ under fire for copycat ‘North for All’ plan

QUEBEC CITY – Premier Pauline Marois, accompanied by four of her ministers and Luc Ferland, the Parti Québécois MNA for Ungava riding, staged a fly-in, fly-out news conference Tuesday to announce the PQ’s “North for All” plan, making adjustments to the Plan Nord of the previous Liberal government.

“It’s a pale PQ copy of the Liberal Plan Nord,” said Jean D’Amour, the Liberal mining critic.

In opposition the PQ dismissed former premier Jean Charest’s $80-billion plan to develop Quebec’s north over 25 years as a “marketing plan.”

When Charest formally launched what he termed “the project of a generation” two years ago in Lévis, across the St. Lawrence River from the capital, financial journalists from New York and London newspapers were invited and there was an election-style video.

In her North for All plan, Marois is sticking to the basic elements of Charest’s Plan Nord — developing the natural resources of an area representing about 72 per cent of Quebec’s 1.7-million-square-kilometre area.

But rather than rolling out the big figures of the Charest plan, Marois said the PQ focus would be more on the communities in the north, native and non-native, and the environment.

When Charest announced his Plan Nord, mining companies were preparing to invest $8.2 billion in the near term and the plan projected $33 billion in investments for mining and public infrastructure, such as roads and airports over 25 years.

According to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, eight new mining projects will begin production in Quebec this year, but falling metal prices have put a damper on the $15 billion in new mining projects Finance Minister Nicolas Marceau says are on the verge of being announced.

And the mining industry has complained that new mining royalties, announced by Marceau on Monday, ranging from a 1-per-cent minimum rate, to an effective rate of 22.9 per cent, will discourage new projects in Quebec.

Charest’s Plan Nord called for an additional $47 billion in power-generating projects, adding 3,000 megawatts of hydroelectrical capacity, 300 megawatts of wind energy and 200 megawatts more from other renewable energy sources.

But Hydro-Québec now has a surplus of generating capacity, meaning there is no short-term urgency for those projects to go ahead.

The Plan Nord called for building a new railway to the Labrador Trench, where new iron-mining projects are being developed. It was to be built by CN, financed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

But Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet has cancelled that plan, saying it was not appropriate, and promises a review before a new rail line goes ahead, ensuring “fair, predictable access” to this infrastructure.

In building new roads and other infrastructure, the PQ has already sent a signal of its new approach, renegotiating construction of a road to Stornoway Diamond Corp.’s Renard mine, shifting more of the cost to Stornoway, for a savings to taxpayers of $125 million.

Marois said $800 million would be available for instrastructure projects in the north in the next five years, with projects that will also take account of the “welfare and development” of local communities, in harmony with the environment.

Charest’s Plan Nord proposed $1.2 billion over five years for infrastructure development and $382 million “for social measures related to housing, health, the reduction of transportation costs and education.”

Of that total, $184.4 million was set aside for construction and renovation of housing and $80 million for operating and maintenance costs.

The Liberal plan called for 840 new housing units in Nunavik, where a report by Quebec’s human rights commission identified overcrowded, substandard housing for Inuit families as a contributing factor to violence and abuse plaguing the communities.

The PQ plan calls for 226 new housing units in Nunavik by 2016, at a cost of $61 million.

The Liberals proposed that $500 million in public money was available for resource development projects in Quebec’s north. The PQ has retained that goal and will give the new Banque de développement économique du Québec a mandate to invest to $500 million.

The Liberals proposed a Société du Plan Nord to manage development. The PQ will create a Sécrétariat du développement nordique.

One PQ innovation, with the apparent goal of defusing criticism, calls for a table of partners and a table of aboriginal partners to co-ordinate northern development with those living in the north.

But environmentalists, noting the absence of Environment Minister Yves-François Blanchet at the announcement, wondered about the commitment of the Marois government to protect the fragile environment of the north.

“It is extremely disappointing,” said Christian Simard of Nature Québec.