Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, minister.
As you know, the matter of the Champlain Bridge is extremely important to my constituents. You have frequently been criticized for how long it took the government to announce that the bridge would be replaced. You had the Delcan report, which highlighted the need to replace the bridge, but you waited nearly a year to announce the bridge would be replaced. It took the public, the Quebec government and municipalities putting pressure on the government before any action was taken. It's as though you dropped the ball and now you're trying to play catch-up. A responsible government would have replaced the bridge. We've known about the problems with the bridge for 10 years. The Liberals were in power back then, yes, but the fact remains that your government did nothing to replace the bridge.
And now it's a race to meet timelines. There's no transparency and rules are being bypassed so contracts can be awarded without being put out to public tender. The government is not handling this file properly. We want more transparency, minister.
Earlier you mentioned the issue of tolls. You say in your brief that the bridge will be built with a toll, “no toll, no bridge”. That's blackmail, minister. It's akin to bullying. Just think of the people who use the bridge and know all too well what kind of shape it's in now. It scares a lot of people when they are told that if they don't pay the toll, they won't get a new bridge, so they'll have to keep using the existing one in its rundown state. That simply isn't okay.
Why don't you want to work with the provincial government and the municipalities? Even the business community, chambers of commerce and the NDP are now urging you to give up your plans for a toll bridge. From the outset, you've said “no toll, no bridge”, but now you're not telling us anything about the studies you have addressing the impact on traffic and the economy. You aren't even telling us what the toll will be used for.
In a public-private partnership, isn't the point of a toll simply to pad the pockets of the company in charge of the bridge? Isn't this basically a scheme for companies to turn a profit?