3rd link: Mayor Gilles Lehouillier criticized by Lévis opponent Serge Bonin

Instead of blaming the Legault government in the 3^e interrives link, Gilles Lehouillier, mayor of Lévis, should admit his own responsibilities, believes Lévis opponent Serge Bonin.

This is what the leader of Repensons Lévis said Monday at Journal. The municipal councilor of the Saint-Étienne district reacted to the statements in which Mr. Lehouillier qualified the megaproject as 3^e “decoy” link which would be kept alive solely to avoid resignations within the CAQ caucus.

“When you are elected to a role of responsibility, before blaming others, you look at what you have done or not done. How did you sell the project? Is it effective or not? It can’t always be the responsibility and the fault of others,” said the man who will run for mayor in November.

According to Mr. Bonin, “people in Lévis have wanted this project for a long time. They don’t feel like things are moving forward. We are talking about a 3^e link, but we have the impression that we are in an eternal roundabout. We’re going around in circles.”

More generally, the latter strongly doubts the effectiveness of the tone adopted by Mr. Lehouillier. The mayor’s anti-government exit represents “an unconstructive strategy which will not bring great results”, he believes.

SRB

Serge Bonin also repeated that the outgoing mayor “put all his eggs in one basket” with regard to 3^e link, when he should have improved mobility on the territory of his City and fought to have a structuring transport network, such as a rapid bus service (SRB) on Boulevard Guillaume-Couture.

The opponent does not understand that the mayor describes the choice between reserved lanes (current project) and an SRB (project recommended by the Caisse de dépôt in its report last June) as a “semantic debate”.

“It’s not semantics. This is the essence of the question, insisted Serge Bonin. We are talking about maintaining the modal share in reserved lanes or a gain of 4% to 5% in SRB. One gives results and the other does not. It is up to the City, first, to say that it wants this [le SRB]. The government will not push a project on the City that it does not want.”