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Quebec has announced a new agency will take over the planning of Gatineau’s LRT project, but the city’s mayor fears it means the province is withdrawing funding from the future tramway.
Quebec Transport Minister Jonatan Julien announced in a French-language news release Tuesday that he has “entrusted Mobilité Infra Québec (MIQ) with the mandate to continue and optimize the development of the tramway project for the Gatineau region.”
MIQ is a new agency created to help implement complex transportation infrastructure projects in the province, according to its website.
According to the transport minister’s news release, MIQ will review the Gatineau project and propose “necessary adjustments to ensure [its] implementation within a responsible financial framework.”
But at a news conference in Gatineau on Tuesday, Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonette and Edmund Leclerc, president of the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO), questioned MIQ’s mandate — and the province’s commitment to the project.
“They are also defunding our project here in Gatineau,” Marquis-Bissonette warned. “We lack information … for what’s coming next for us.”
Marquis-Bissonnette said she’s hoping for more clarity from the province.
Tramway announced in 2018
Talk about improving transit between downtown Ottawa-Gatineau and western Gatineau’s growing Aylmer community last decade solidified into a light rail plan announced in 2018.
That line was to have 30 stations along 26 kilometres of rail, with spurs to Ottawa and Gatineau’s Plateau neighbourhood. The 2018 price tag was $2.1 billion, and the aim was to open it in 2028.
Quebec Premier François Legault said in 2019 that the province would cover 60 per cent of the project’s cost. The federal infrastructure minister also promised funding, but did not specify how much.
More recently, discussions focused on the connection to Ottawa and whether it should go above or below Wellington or Sparks streets.
In 2024, the provincial and federal governments announced $163.5 million in funding for studies related to the project. The most recent update on the project’s website, about vibration studies along the proposed route, came in November.
Amilcar steering new agency
Marquis-Bissonnette said the minister told her last week the decision to hand the project to MIQ was a financial one. She claims the province wants to “simply defund the project and put that money for other public transit projects across Quebec.”
The minister’s office redirected CBC’s questions about the project’s status to MIQ.
The organization’s president and CEO is Renée Amilcar, formerly general manager of transit services for Ottawa. Amilcar said all the necessary funding is in place for the assessment stage of the tramway project, with future funding to be determined.
“I’m going to work with my team, with STO to deliver the best product. But absolutely, we need to secure the finance to be able to put the tramway in place,” Amilcar told CBC on Tuesday.
The current Gatineau tramway office will close as MIQ takes over the project.