In a particularly pernicious result, seven experts from Université Laval (UL) have claimed that Legault’s government is offering “lies” to promote its Third Link political project. One signer went so far as to compare CAQ’s methods to Donald Trump’s.
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This is what we can read In a letter signed by seven members of the Center for Planning and Development Research (CRAD) at UL. Six of them are experts in mobility, while the seventh specializes in biological sciences.
The latter was in response to a recent outing for ministers François Bonnardel and Jonathan Julien who defended the monumental project, in Newspaper, by insisting that the cars that would run in the Quebec-Levis tunnel would be electric.
“We were starting to get bored of putting everything we said aside and saying it was a lie. It made us jump. It just doesn’t make sense. Jean Dube, one of the signers, protested their exit.”
The latter insists that the two ministers “put aside all the arguments put forward. The fact that highways are built does not solve the problem of congestion. They say they are green because there are electric cars. However, many studies show that battery production is not environmentally friendly.”
The seven signatories are François de Rosé, Jean Duby, Jean Mercier, Emiliano Scanno, Marie-Helen Vandermessen, Dominique Villeneuve and Claude Lavoie.
- Listen to Philippe Vincent Foissy’s interview with Jean Dube, economist and assistant professor at the Center for Research in Planning and Development, on QUB Radio:
“A Trumpist CAQ”
Personally and insisting not to get caught up in the rhetoric of the other signers, Jean Dubey went so far as to ask whether we were in fact witnessing the “rise of Trumpian CAQ” distorting facts to promote “absurdity” and “ambiguity.”
“There are definitely points of convergence (with Trumpism),” he said. We will go out in the media and by repeating the lies, people will end up telling themselves that it may be true. “
Listen to the science
An associate professor at the Graduate School of Land Use Planning and Regional Development (ESAD) called on the government to listen to the science.
According to him, “Science is multifaceted. Yes, it is vaccines and health, but there is also social science, the science of living together, the science of building cities. That is also what the science says, even if we don’t have a lab coat.”
« The arguments made by the ministers are, unfortunately, at best half-truths, and at worst lies. “
“Using the same ‘recipe’ from the 1970s, when all negative effects can be measured today, is unlikely to produce different results.”
“Please, let’s not fall into a hunter’s parody: who can tell the most incredible story?”
« Ministers, once again, seem to ignore the consensus in the scientific literature: an increase in highway width leads to an induced increase in traffic. People adapt their behavior to what is presented to them: more possibilities in cars = more traffic in cars. “
