The future of energy: Legault and Fitzgibbon are hard to follow

Will there be major consultations on the critical choices Quebec must make to ensure its energy supply? The more we listen to the Legault-Fitzgibbon duo, the less we know. It may be time to adjust.

Since presenting Sophie Brochu’s plan a year and a half ago, we have known that it will take at least 100 terawatt-hours of additional energy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Indeed, fundamental questions have been raised about the best decisions to make to meet these growing needs.

Since then, the Energy Secretary has continued to propose larger needs, 150 TWh, perhaps 200, while we have not yet fully realized the collective effort the first planned demand will require.

In an interview this week in Cogeco, François Legault spoke of necessary national reflection, on potential new dams and increasing production from existing dams, in particular.

“We must have a real social debate […] There should be a parliamentary committee and people should come and express themselves.

Any advice?

But the fall sequence became complicated to imagine.

Hydro’s new president, Michael Sabia, must first present the new strategic plan that will define the needs and goals to be achieved.

Minister Fitzgibbon will then introduce a bill that would adjust companies’ rates according to the carbon footprint and economic benefits of their projects.

Does this fundamental debate that the Prime Minister is talking about fall somewhere between these two important moments?

Pierre Fitzgibbon has no idea.

He indicated that Mr. Sabya would come to answer parliamentarians’ questions, without knowing when, this fall.

Will there be other groups invited as in a real consultation? “Look, I don’t know. Mr. Sabya will come and present his plan. I don’t know if there have been any special hearings before,” the minister stammered.

annoying

It is completely inconceivable that we are not better informed about how Quebecers will be able to decide these fundamental questions.

The lack of consensus between the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister is worrying.

There has already been an online consultation on the legal framework governing energy up to 2017^any Last August.

A total of 119 abstracts were submitted, in addition to questionnaires completed by experts and citizens.

The minister’s office says it will be available to the public “in the coming weeks.”

The two men were not on the same page from the beginning.

To get the dishwasher running at night, Legault would have first restated the minister’s intentions, before getting behind the idea if it were promoted by carrot.

We don’t yet know what behavioral changes will be required of Quebecers.

But we were told that this item would not be part of the bill to be introduced.

Regarding nuclear power, the equally uncertain tandem was hot and cold, and out of sync.

In New York, Francois Legault said nuclear energy is not in Quebec’s plans at the moment.

On Wednesday, as if in an Arabic game of telephone, Fitz wandered around the Blue Room claiming that the Prime Minister had said that “the nuclear issue is not under consideration.”

However, we all know that Hydro has begun to study the possibility of reviving the Gentilly-2 power plant.

It’s hard to follow them.