Headquarters plays its own game within the game

We always knew that Hydro Quebec was a country within a country.

Look at the energy a state corporation spends to hide the salaries of its 2,259 executives.

But in recent days, we have the impression – to quote Martin St-Louis – that Hydro-Québec is playing its “game” in the government’s “game”.

Generous with others

The government says that everything Quebecois should be favoured?

Hydro supplies large amounts of electricity to foreign multinationals (the Swedish company Northvolt, the South Korean company Volta Solutions, the American companies Ford and Vantage, the German Duravit, and the French Air Liquide), while according to a survey conducted among 114 companies here, 35% of companies in Quebec does not have access to sufficient energy to meet its current needs.

Two months ago, Grand Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon himself assured 700 businessmen gathered at the Palais des Congrès that dozens of industrial projects would not be possible to implement due to the lack of electricity.

We are even invited to take cold showers to save electricity!

Amplify our SMEs?

When he was in opposition, Mr. Legault promised that if elected, his government would be the most transparent in Quebec's history, remember?

However, in December 2023, we learned that Hydro-Québec had signed 10 confidentiality agreements with the companies.

As my colleague Sylvain Larocque revealed on Monday, some of Hydro-Québec's subsidiaries are so obscure that there is no public information about them!

By refusing to be transparent, Hydro-Québec is not only playing its “game” in the “government's game”, but the government, with the battery sector, is playing a “game” that could harm the “game” that Quebec companies are playing. They are trying to win!

In fact, we know that Mr. Legault presents himself as a nationalist. However, according to Frédéric Lorraine, professor of economics at the School of Management at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières, the battery sector project he is putting forward, far from helping companies in Quebec, on the contrary, will benefit foreign multinationals.

“Our SMEs, already crushed by stark staff shortages, will have the rug pulled out from under them by foreign multinationals showered with billions of dollars in public money,” Mr. Fortin told journalist Francis Hallin in December 2023.

Thanks to our generous subsidies, these multinationals will be able to destroy local SMEs by offering their employees salaries that our companies will not be able to pay.

“The labor shortage caused by battery factories will be worse than the recession…,” the University of Queensland professor said.

It's urgent!

Not a day goes by without Hydro-Québec being talked about for some time.

One day, we will almost nationalize the wind energy sector.

The next day we open the door to nuclear energy or the privatization of the sale of electricity.

The public institution continues to announce projects – projects that have never been the subject of public discussion.

Everything happens so fast that we don't have time to follow the “game”.

Let's hope all these projects help Quebec develop better.

And it won't be… “Game Over”!