Agenda of the Quebec Government for Hydro-Quebec
The role Hydro-Quebec will play in paying off private interests is one aspect of the the new Quebec government’s agenda. There are already big industrial plants set up in Quebec that require a lot of energy to operate, such as aluminum smelters. They pay a hydro rate of around five cents per kilowatt-hour for the energy they use. Meanwhile the cost associated with the most recent hydro dams built by Hydro-Québec is around 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. This difference between the energy cost and the rate offered by Hydro-Québec to these monopolies is a disguised pay-the-rich scheme where ultimately it is the people of Quebec who foot the bill through increased residential and commercial hydro rates.
Hydro-Québec CEO Sophie Brochu, in a radio interview on October 12, openly said that she doesn’t want Hydro-Québec to become the “Dollarama” of electricity for these huge private interests whose eyes are set on Quebec because Hydro-Québec also generates what qualifies as “sustainable green energy.” Here is what she said: “What we should not be doing is attracting an undue number of industrial kilowatt-hours that want to pay cheap rates, and then be building dams to power them because we lack the energy.” Brochu already threatened last spring to resign after some heated exchanges between herself and Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of the Economy at the time and the new Minister of Energy and the Economy in the Quebec government.
An October 18 statement issued by the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL), referring to the moves of governent to seize Indigenous lands and resources, said that “after over four years of difficult, even conflictive relations with the various ministers with an economic vocation, the AFNQL can’t help but be concerned about the possibility of the appointment of a superminister of the Economy.” The statement pointed out, “First Nations are Nations of their own with full rights, who have established, over the millennia of their existence and presence on the land, their own governments, their own laws and practices for the benefit of their populations and of the sustainable development of their territories and resources, and whose rights are confirmed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
In a speech given after the swearing-in of his Cabinet, Premier Legault tried to downplay all the criticism around this new mega Economy and Energy ministry. This is why Legault announced that he is setting up an Energy Transition Committee that he will chair, comprised of the ministers of the Economy, Innovation and Energy; Finance; the Environment; and Relations with First Nations and Inuit, representatives of Indigenous Peoples and the CEO of Hydro-Québec.