Montreal, November 5, 2020
TRANSMISSION BY EMAIL<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Madame Sonia Lebel, Minister responsible for Government Administration Madame Andr\u00e9e Laforest, Minister<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Madam Minister,<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent days, the Fondation Rivi\u00e8res has received several cases where subsidies awarded by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing within the framework of three programs go against the rules and standards which provide that this financial assistance be dedicated to resolve concrete, current problems, and not to support future real estate development projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This situation has the effect of reducing the money available to carry out priority sanitation works, while the problems of wastewater spills and deficient purification systems are glaring. This diversion of the purpose of funds dedicated to reducing pollution will also have the effect of encouraging municipal associations, such as the Union of Quebec Municipalities and the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise des municipalities, to demand even more money, while considerable sums of money are indeed available in the three aid programs in question. Here are some examples.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city of Saint-Hyacinthe has just obtained a grant for a project to bring the wastewater treatment plant up to standard. This project is subsidized at the rate of 25.2 M$ out of an estimated cost of 31.5 M$, which corresponds to a subsidy of 80 %. However, reading the engineering documents shows that the majority of costs are caused by the objective of increasing the capacity of the wastewater treatment plant by 55 % in order to accommodate new real estate and industrial projects for the next 20 years. . Such work for development purposes had never been made eligible until now because the subsidies have always aimed to support municipalities in carrying out work made necessary following a tightening of environmental standards by the government. . It has always been understood that municipalities wishing to attract new projects had to assume the inherent costs. After all, it is their choice and possibly for their benefit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another similar case has just been announced in the City of Magog (see attached article from Reflet du Lac) which plans to abandon its wastewater treatment plant in the Omerville sector, which nevertheless has excellent treatment performance, but which wants to develop this sector and thus direct all the water to its main treatment plant, at a cost of 30 M$! She is requesting a government subsidy that the MAMH is preparing to award.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our opinion, this is a misappropriation of funds because they will not be allocated to projects for the purpose of reducing pollution, as provided for by the rules and standards of the programs in force. However, these rules and standards explicitly mention the inadmissibility of costs aimed at increasing capacity for excessive development. However, operating data from the Saint-Hyacinthe wastewater treatment plant show that the design capacity was not reached. For that of Magog \u2013 Omerville sector, the purification performance is excellent in current conditions!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Le projet de la ville de Saint-Hyacinthe comporte une mince portion utile d\u2019environ 4 M$ sur les 31,5\u00a0M$ afin d\u2019ajouter un syst\u00e8me de d\u00e9sinfection. Une autre portion, aussi minime, vise le remplacement d\u2019\u00e9quipements v\u00e9tustes. Quelques 20 M$ sur les 25,2 M$ d\u2019aide financi\u00e8re n\u2019auraient assur\u00e9ment pas d\u00fb \u00eatre allou\u00e9s au projet, compte tenu d\u2019un autre montant de 20,1 M$ qui aurait pu \u00eatre utilis\u00e9 dans le programme de la Taxe sur l\u2019essence et de la contribution du Qu\u00e9bec (TECQ).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n With such precedents, what will prevent Saint-Liguori in the MRC Montcalm, which is demanding significant agricultural rezoning, from taking advantage of this breach to reduce its real estate development costs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ce programme pr\u00e9voit le versement de montants substantiels pr\u00e9d\u00e9termin\u00e9s selon la population de chaque municipalit\u00e9. Il totalise 3,4\u00a0G$, une somme astronomique, pour r\u00e9aliser des travaux devant \u00eatre termin\u00e9s d\u2019ici trois ans, soit le 31 d\u00e9cembre 2023. Or, seulement 20 % de ce budget \u00e9tait engag\u00e9 au 30 septembre dernier. L\u2019argent est disponible depuis 2019 mais les municipalit\u00e9s tardent \u00e0 planifier leurs travaux d\u2019infrastructures qui doivent cibler en priorit\u00e9\u00a0:<\/p>\n\n\n\n These funds could therefore have been used as a priority for replacing equipment in Saint-Hyacinthe, or for reducing the high number of wastewater spills. However, the programming of the work in Saint-Hyacinthe has not yet been agreed with the MAMH and the analysis of the files should be done globally and not in silos, by program.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Il en est de m\u00eame avec la ville de Magog \u2013 secteur Omerville \u2013 qui dispose d\u2019un montant de 9,7\u00a0M$ pour am\u00e9liorer ses \u00e9quipements ou pour r\u00e9duire le nombre consid\u00e9rable de d\u00e9versements dans l\u2019environnement d\u2019eaux us\u00e9es non trait\u00e9es. Le projet annonc\u00e9 d\u2019abandon des installations de traitement existantes, performantes, pour accueillir de nouveaux d\u00e9veloppements immobiliers, ne devrait pas \u00eatre subventionn\u00e9. \u00c0 noter \u00e9galement qu\u2019un terrain de camping s\u2019est d\u00e9velopp\u00e9 au fil des ann\u00e9es tr\u00e8s pr\u00e8s de la station d\u2019\u00e9puration, \u00e0 30 m\u00e8tres, alors qu\u2019un rayon de protection de 150 m\u00e8tres aurait d\u00fb \u00eatre appliqu\u00e9 par la Ville. Il est de la responsabilit\u00e9 de celle-ci d\u2019appliquer des r\u00e8gles d\u2019am\u00e9nagement tenant compte des nuisances et d\u2019ajuster la capacit\u00e9 de traitement au besoin.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current management of projects to establish or replace municipal water infrastructure leads to significant waste of public funds and intermunicipal inequity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Files such as those of the cities of Saint-Hyacinthe and Magog even show that subsidies should not be awarded. Until now, it was not permitted for public funds to be used to support real estate developments. The government even subsidizes urban sprawl in certain cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We note that several municipal organizations are demanding additional budgets even though there are funds available, and even unused, in the PRIMEAU and TECQ programs. An organizational reframing must therefore be carried out so that financial aid is allocated as a priority to current pollution problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hoping that this information will allow you to intervene adequately with the ministries concerned, I remain available for any additional information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please accept, Madam Minister, the expression of our distinguished greetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alain Saladzius, P.Eng., FIC <\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo: Egin Akyurt\/Unsplash<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent days, the Fondation Rivi\u00e8res has received several cases where subsidies awarded by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing within the framework of three programs go against the rules and standards which provide that this financial assistance be dedicated to resolve concrete, current problems, and not to support future real estate development projects.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[18,40],"class_list":["post-42913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plaintes-lettres-aux-gouvernements","tag-assainissement","tag-eaux-usees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
President of the Treasury Board
Treasury Board Secretariat
875, Grande-All\u00e9e Est, 4e<\/sup> floor, sector 100
Qu\u00e9bec\u00a0(Qu\u00e9bec) G1R 2R8
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Jean-Baptiste-De La Salle Building
10, rue Pierre-Olivier-Chauveau
Chauveau Wing, 4th floor
Qu\u00e9bec (Qu\u00e9bec)\u00a0G1R 4J3<\/p>\n\n\n\nSubject: Inappropriate subsidies by the MAMH in wastewater treatment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Municipal Water Infrastructure Fund (FIMEAU) and Saint-Hyacinthe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The excise tax on gasoline and the Quebec contribution (TECQ) 2019-2023<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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In summary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
President, Fondation Rivi\u00e8res<\/p>\n\n\n\n