Mobility Infra Quebec and infrastructure | Two bills to raise the bar in project management

(Quebec) Faced with exploding costs and delays, the Legault government tabled two bills on Thursday in the hope of better managing public transportation projects and public infrastructure projects in general.

The Minister of Transport Geneviève Guilbault presented at the Salon bleu her legislative text creating Mobilité Infra Québec, an agency whose mandate will be to analyze, plan and carry out collective transport projects and complex road projects such as the construction of A bridge. It is the government which will entrust the projects to him.

Geneviève Guilbault gave an interview to The Press on the subject last week. She justified this new independent structure inspired by CDPQ Infra – and a little from Santé Québec too – by saying in particular that the government does not have internal expertise in matters of public transport and that it is necessary to centralize project planning. The mandate of Mobilité Infra Québec, “we could see an overlap with the mission of the ARTM”, the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority, she recognized.

There was resistance to the government regarding the creation of this agency, as The Press demonstrated this last week.

For his part, the Minister of Infrastructure, Jonatan Julien, unveiled his bill “mainly aimed at diversifying the acquisition strategies of public bodies and offering them greater agility in carrying out their infrastructure projects”. He wants to reduce costs and time to build schools, roads or public transport, for example.

With these legislative changes, it creates a new type of contract, the “partnership contract”. This will allow the “collaborative approach”, a way of doing things which is based on the idea that the entrepreneur must be involved during the project planning stage, and that he can help the State to reduce its costs by helping to design it better.

According to Mr. Julien, projects will be completed up to 25% faster and will cost 15% less, and happy entrepreneurs are “making the waves”.

Read Maxime Bergeron’s column: “Reform of public contracts: “butt” gains, or realistic? »

This is not the first time that Quebec has tried to take a step back in terms of infrastructure. He passed a law in 2020 to accelerate around 200 projects whose results were mixed. Above all, it is the Seniors’ Homes – a CAQ promise – which have grown quickly, but at a much higher cost than expected.