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OTTAWA – Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, along with two of his cabinet colleagues assured MPs the government will still have money to build roads, as he apologized Thursday at a parliamentary committee for an earlier gaffe.
In February, speaking at a conference on public transit in Montreal, Guilbeault said the government had made a decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure. The minister walked back his comments shortly after that, saying he meant the government would not be investing in large-scale projects, like Quebec’s proposed third link project, which would connect Quebec City to Lévis through a massive tunnel.
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Those comments were condemned by Conservative MPs, as well as provincial premiers, who said they very much still need funding for new road projects.
When confronted by reporters in Ottawa, Guilbeault said he should have been more specific and he meant only to say the government would not fund the Quebec City project.
In his opening statement, he said the government was still very much in the business of building roads.
“Highways and roads are critical components of local, regional and national transportation corridors across the country,” he said.
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman said Guilbeault’s comments made no sense.
“First, you said you didn’t say it, then you said you didn’t mean it. Then you said you meant something entirely different,” she said.
Guilbeault responded to Lantsman and other MPs who asked about his gaffe with similar language every time, insisting he was not talking about road construction writ large.
“My comments were specifically related to the project in Quebec,” Guilbeault said at committee several times.
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Housing and Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser and Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez were both called before committee as well and listed off many road projects they have already invested in as well as ones they will invest in the future.
Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis accused Fraser of covering up the Liberals real goals of getting Canadians to stop driving cars.
“Minister, isn’t it your government’s goal to stop building new roads so that Canadians will stop driving their cars, thereby reducing their carbon footprint to fight climate change?”
Fraser said Lewis was wrong.
“I would like to just correct the record. There is no such policy as you’ve suggested in the pretence to the question. We do have a number of different programs that actually do fund roads, both in the past and going forward.”
National Post
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