Quebec trying to secure federal funding for tramway before the election

Quebec is pushing Ottawa to ensure the Quebec City tramway project gets federal funding before the next federal election.

According to information obtained by Radio-Canada, the Liberal government learned through the media that Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault now wants to review the terms of the integrated bilateral agreement signed in 2018 that governs funding for the tramway.

The project is estimated to cost $7.6 billion.

At a news scrum on Tuesday, Guilbault lamented that Quebec "won't have time to build the entire tramway before the federal election."

"We are operating according to the terms of the federal government's program," she said.

The bilateral financing agreement excludes most of the preparatory work for the tramway, which has led to the federal government allocating only $92 million so far, while Quebec City has spent $572 million.

In a letter sent to both Guilbault and Quebec City mayor Bruno Marchand Wednesday, Federal Minister of Public Services and Procurement Jean-Yves Duclos says modifying the agreement would be "unproductive." The agreement governs funding for hundreds of public transit projects in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, he said. 

Duclos proposes instead that they agree on a common position and demand that the main federal parties commit to not confiscating Quebec's federal tramway funding before construction ends in 2033.

He expresses wanting to set up a meeting with Guilbault and Marchand to also discuss how the city may better take advantage of the annual and recurring federal funding of $3 billion for public transit projects across the country that will become available in 2026-2027. 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has repeated that if his party comes to power, the project will not get a penny of the more than $1 billion the Trudeau government had pledged for the tramway.

"You have to make choices in life. We can't give money for every project," Poilievre said. "We have enough money for one big project. I chose the third link," he said referring to the highway project connecting Quebec City to Lévis, Que.

Government sources with knowledge of the matter say Guilbault's request is "unrealistic."

"Quebec is groveling before Poilievre," a federal government source told Radio-Canada. "This is an admission of failure by the Coalition Avenir Québec, which has continued to delay the project that was initially scheduled to start in 2022."

Before the holidays, the start of construction on the tramway was pushed back to 2027.

WATCH | How the third link has shifted over time:

Bridge, tunnel or nothing? What's happening with Quebec City's '3rd link'

8 months ago

Duration 3:08

Since it came to power in 2018, François Legault's CAQ government has set creating a third transportation link across the St. Lawrence River in Quebec City as one of its priorities. But the project has been questioned and changed at several points.

According to the federal government source, renegotiating the funding agreement for the tramway would set a precedent and open the door to changes to other agreements with the province.

"If we renegotiate the tramway, will we renegotiate housing, which is also the subject of an agreement with the Legault government?" the federal government source told Radio-Canada.

The source noted that Poilievre wants to eliminate two federal housing programs — the Housing Accelerator Fund and the Housing Infrastructure Fund — to finance a GST credit for the construction of new homes under $1 million in the country.

"Almost $2 billion in federal funding is at stake for housing and Pierre Poilievre wants to cut that too," the government source said, adding that it is up to the Quebec government to stand up to the Conservatives.

Based on reporting by Radio-Canada's Olivier Lemieux and Louis Gagné, with files from Angela Montgomery, translated by Holly Cabrera