Champlain Bridge
First, one must better understand what passes as political cultural in Quebec. Montreal is an island. Surrounded by the Saint Lawrence river. As such, one must avoid this cleaning water and cross it to arrive in town. There are bridges and tunnels in place to do this. Now for the last generation, Montreal construction has been governed by corruption, collusion and down right theft of taxpayer money in the form of bribery and kick backs, that has been handed to a select gang of criminals. It is said that Montreal infrastructure cost price-wise 20% more and lasts 20% endurance-wise, less than similar infrastructure would cost in Ontario. The problem in part is two fold; first, pay offs, rip offs, political parties and their “Fund-raising” are all paid for out of the taxpayer wallet and billed for already in the price of these construction contracts. The second issue is the lack of competition brought on by the near insurmountable government regulations designed specifically to keep foreign and other construction companies out of province. The simplest of regulated isolationism, can be seen in the demand that all correspondence be in French only. An American company might be able to do the job cheaper but will they invest the time, money or energy to complete all regulatory requirements and do it in a foreign language.
The Champlain Bridge is the busiest expressway in Canada with constant gridlock because it is overused by the population it serves as they head in and out of the island of Montreal. It is nearing its 53th year, having been built and completed in 1962. So it is in need of replacement. Which is expected to cost 4-6 billion dollars. (Due to time and cost overruns, you can expect that price to double.) At the end, what will have happened? They will take a six lane bridge and replaced it with a new six lane bridge. It could not handle the traffic flow before they replaced it, so it will somehow be better able to better handle it when replaced by something better? You have gridlock with 6 lanes, and soon will have more gridlock on a new bridge with the same 6 lanes of span? Is this somehow anything better? Einstein’s definition of insanity is to repeat the same experiment expecting different results. If you are going to spend this amount of money on a new construction using taxpayer’s money in the first place, then charge those same taxpayer’s a toll to cross on that bridge, why not think outside the box and build a bigger bridge that can handle more traffic and thus reduce congestion, serve the needs of taxpayers using it and grant them service for their money?
This topic is rife with possible serious areas that need and demand people’s attention and discussion, like cost oversight, the basic design itself and the question of tolls after. So then, what possibly could ever be more important than these topic? Why the federal government wanted to name the new bridge after local Quebec hockey star Rocket Richard. They were not going to rename the old structure just the new one, causing a hue and cry in the nationalist camp. Champlain, a man none of them even know anything about but he is a historical hero in Quebec, typical, names not substance politics, ignored universal 24/7-365 until some damn federalists tries to put up a new bridge and do not name it the old one. Sort of like, how dare U2 give away for free their new album. What an insult!
This passes for intelligent conversation in certain nationalist circles of Quebec. Ignoring the real issue, to focus yet again on breed and circus that distracts taxpayers from the government’s boondoggle that will for the next 50 years force people into longer lines of commutes into town (Montreal), as the suburbs increase their population density and the bridge simply cannot, and will not handle the car traffic. only now it is by design to not handle this traffic. Yet precisely because it is just built, no one will dare suggest they make a new one to relieve this pressure, for it works as intended. In other words, once the lobster is in the pot, they slowly turn up the heat until supper is done. In this case, the taxpaper who pays the cost to get a substandard build, based a substandard plan, created by substandard conservative government, based on some substandard thinking, aided and abetted by the local nationalist who could not be expected to see any of these issues as problems. After all, the area of Montreal 450 region, a belt around Montreal using the same single phone area code, is not the homes of the Pure Laine literally meaning pure wool, a term referring to the mythical founding Quebec fathers, who are still pure in thought and mind for the Quebec sovereignty movement. While often mistaken for third generation incest survivors who are only slightly deformed, ignoring the extra arm for flag waving no doubt and clear lack of vision or foresight beyond the end of their own noses, so who cares about them anyway.
This is what passes for politics in Quebec. Lots of heat but very little substance, only fit for bug-eyed, bottom dwelling crustaceans also know as Quebec’s taxpayers. Who considering how high and how much they pay in federal and provincial taxes, clearly deserve better.