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William Watson: Quebec premier’s sudden ‘green’ awakening could ruin him like Kathleen Wynne

François Legault wants his province to be North America’s ‘green battery’

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Quebec premier and CAQ leader Francois Legault speaks during the party’s general council meeting in Montreal, May 26, 2019.
Quebec premier and CAQ leader Francois Legault speaks during the party’s general council meeting in Montreal, May 26, 2019. Photo by Graham Hughes / Canadian Press

Quebec’s Coalition Avenir Québec was elected last fall on a platform heavy on the economy, education and health care and light on the environment. In fact, a big part of its appeal, and a reason it won only two seats on the island of Montreal, was its willingness to take positions that didn’t sit well with the urban sophisticates who populate the province’s metropolis and who have criticized it harshly for, among many other things, not being sufficiently green.

But at its general council meeting over the weekend — held in that very same city — the CAQ (pronounced inside the province as “kack”) adopted 32 admittedly non-binding resolutions on green matters, from a deposit system for plastic bottles, to further bicycle promotion to using less salt on the roads in winter (something perpetually persecuted car owners might actually appreciate). Very politically correctly, the party even announced it had paid for enough new tree planting to cover the carbon costs of 1,200 delegates’ travel (average 170 kilometres) to attend the meeting.

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In his closing speech, Premier François Legault deepened the green by pledging to cut the province’s oil consumption by 40 per cent by 2030, just 11 years from now. “Instead of pumping our money into the coffers of oil companies,” he said, he wants to “electrify our economy. That’s the way for more prosperity and a greener economy.” Right now, just 36 per cent of the energy used in Quebec is electric, but the premier says his vision is for Quebec to be North America’s “green battery.” Legault made his money as a founder of Air Transat, but he did not go so far as to propose the electrification of air travel.

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This green shift went over big with the party’s youth wing, which Legault credited for leadership on the issue, and with the celebrity environmental activists and David Suzuki Foundation members present, who apparently were “beaming” as they left the general council. Many long-term CAQ members were not beaming. One who spoke up to say that “Quebec will not save the planet” — an obviously true statement for anyone not suffering from Joan of Arc syndrome — was reportedly “drowned out.”  If a party wins because it’s politically incorrect, what happens when, after barely six months, it flips?

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You might not know it from the way we talk, but we Quebecers are not ourselves responsible for our province being almost literally awash in dammable rivers. Given all this water, is it surprising most of our electricity comes from hydro? Certainly not. But does that mean all our energy should come from hydro? Or that we shouldn’t use other sources of energy when they make sense? Or that our premier should ordain how much of this or that energy we should be using by this or that date? Of course not.

With everyone viewing the world through green-coloured glasses, you can understand why a Quebec premier would pitch hydro. But this is not a new story. Quebec premiers since the 1960s have been in the thrall — some would say under the thumb — of Hydro Québec, a Crown corporation that seems to believe being a Crown means it has divine right.

“We have hydro so let’s do as much hydro as we can” is a recipe for economic waste on the grandest scale. The premier’s vision is that we build out the hydro system, switch all buildings and public transit over to it and sell any surplus to the Americans. This is ideologically appealing to both greens and Quebec Inc. corporatists. And it supposedly demonstrates the lack of inherent conflict between the economy and the environment. But it makes no economic sense.

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'We have hydro so let’s do as much hydro as we can' is a recipe for economic waste on the grandest scale.

What would make sense is to invite Hydro Québec and other possible suppliers, including private ones, to build whatever new hydro capacity on which they could expect to earn a market rate of return. The province already has a cap-and-trade system. If companies can make money even after buying permits to cover their carbon emissions, then any such investments pass both the environment and economy tests. If they don’t get built, it’s because they flunked the test. That’s the only plan we need.

What oil use remains after Hydro Québec and other suppliers have made their calculations and investments — whether by 2030 it’s down 40 per cent or 20 or 60 — we’ll see. But you don’t set an arbitrary target and aim for it regardless of cost. Running an economy with 10-year plans was supposed to end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Someone could also mention that to Elizabeth May, whose Green Party just announced its own Brezhnev-Trump energy plan: Brezhnev because she has the same arbitrary, centrally planned Soviet-style phase-out schedule for oil that Legault does, and Trump because she wants to ban foreign oil now and only use crude that’s made in Canada.)

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Premier Legault says hitting his oil-reduction target will save Quebecers the $10 billion a year they currently spend on oil. Maybe it will. But how much will it cost to do that? Suppose we end up spending $15 billion to save $10 billion. Would that make sense? Only if Quebecers get at least $5 billion of non-pecuniary benefits from knowing they’re producing that much more of their own energy, instead of relying on those foreign, or at least non-Quebec oil companies.

I bet that if Quebec hydro bills were to itemize a separate “pride factor” and add 20 or 30 per cent to the bottom line for it, the government that implemented that would face the same electoral fate as Ontario’s Wynne government after it blew up electricity rates with coal- and nuclear-plant closures and wind and solar subsidies.

Legault should ask his friend Doug Ford about all that.

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