Montreal, April 24, 2024
TRANSMISSION BY EMAIL
Letter to the presidents of the Union des municipalités du Québec, the Fédération québécoise des municipalités, the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal and the Communauté métropolitaine de Québec
Subject: Municipalities between tree and bark on energy issues
On April 11, Bernard Thompson, prefect of the MRC de Mékinac and mayor of Hérouxville, announced his resignation in the face of an unprecedented mobilization of local citizens against multinational TES Canada's plan to build 140 mega-wind turbines on farmland in the Mauricie region. If the past is any indication of the future, this toxic climate is likely to be reproduced elsewhere in Quebec, where the Legault government has chosen to allow large-scale industry to embark on the massive production of electricity on the territory, without any overall vision or adequate consultation. And it's the citizens and your members, the elected municipal officials, who are paying the price.
At Fondation Rivières, we're worried and concerned. We come across more and more citizens who reject wind power projects out of hand, as if the industry itself were intrinsically harmful. Yet we will need this form of energy both to decarbonize the economy and to prevent our energy systems from becoming more vulnerable to climate change. last great rivers be disfigured by the construction of large dams, as illustrated by the documentary After the Romanreleased a year ago.
Until now, electricity generation in Quebec has relied on large dams, and it's the aboriginal communities who have seen large portions of their territories flooded. For us southerners, electricity generation has been virtually invisible, apart from the high-voltage lines that scar the landscape. Today, for the first time in our history, we can see the impact of energy production close to us, in the inhabited territories of the St. Lawrence Valley, and we are in a better position to understand how aboriginal communities feel.
While Quebec is committed to protecting biodiversity on 30% of its territory, particularly in southern Quebec, major industries are piling on energy production projects, with no overall vision, no coherence, as if the territory were unlimited.
For months now, we and a large number of civil society players have been calling on the government to consult the public on our energy future, to hold a generic BAPE on the issue. We have not heard from you on this issue. Your members are caught between a rock and a hard place, and will have to face their constituents in 18 months' time. What will they be able to tell them? That they had no choice?
Energy production affects land use planning, and is at the heart of the mandate of your members, municipalities and RCMs. Through your proximity to citizens, you can lead these consultations and debates, put energy efficiency initiatives into action and support alternatives, such as integrating photovoltaic, geothermal and wind power production into electricity microgrids inspired by the model deployed at Lac-Mégantic.
Added to this unbridled industrial production is the irresponsibility of the Legault government, which refuses to tackle energy overconsumption. These two ingredients combine to force us to produce more and more energy closer and closer to densely populated areas, and this production will have a cost on the landscape and an impact on the territory. However, in the current context, private enterprise takes decisions as if it owned the land, whereas its development is the responsibility of our elected municipal officials. You have powers, so please exercise them.
Initiate the dialogue, open up discussions with citizens, and like many other civil society organizations, we will be willing to collaborate. We look forward to your invitation.
André Bélanger
General Manager
Fondation Rivières
