The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault, has summoned the mayors of large cities to a meeting which will take place Monday noon, on the subject of the deficits of Quebec public transport companies.
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Mayors and senior managers of transport companies will meet the minister on Monday via virtual conference, Ms. Guilbault’s office confirmed. All the mayors of large cities that have transportation companies will be at the table, including the mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, the mayor of Lévis, Gilles Lehouillier, as well as the mayors of Laval, Longueuil, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Saguenay and Gatineau.
The minister’s communications director, Maxime Roy, indicated that it will discuss “issues related to the financing of the deficits of public transport companies.” The new transport agency Mobilité Infra Québec is not on the agenda, he clarified.
According to La Presse, the minister would grant $200 million to cover the economic deficits of Greater Montreal’s transportation companies. Mr. Roy did not want to confirm or deny this information.
“The logic that we have applied since the pandemic is to make up part of the fare losses due to the drop in ridership in public transport. This is still what guides our reasoning,” the firm said.
Significant deficits in Montreal
Mayors are putting pressure on the government to obtain more funding for public transportation. The issue is particularly sensitive in the Montreal region, where the operating deficit amounts to more than $550 million, after years of pandemic.
Last week, the mayors of the metropolis threatened to increase municipal taxes or registration taxes.
As for Quebec and Lévis, neither Bruno Marchand nor Gilles Lehouillier will react following this meeting, announced their respective spokespersons. “We will leave it to the minister to present to us what she wants to present to us, her vision. We will comment and provide our thoughts and tomorrow I will be able to tell you more,” Mr. Marchand said on the sidelines of a press briefing.
The mayor returned to the tough exchanges of the previous week, where he had accused the minister of lacking vision and was told by the Prime Minister that mayors tend to “beg” the government. He and the minister do not avoid meeting in person, he said. “We were in the same room last week and you didn’t see a mushroom cloud?” he laughed.
National meeting Friday
The question of financing public transport will be at the heart of the discussions of the mayors of large cities who will meet on Friday in Drummondville, during a “National meeting on the future of public transport”, an event organized in recent days by the Union of Municipalities of Quebec (UMQ).
— With the collaboration of Taïeb Moalla
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