For Jean Rousseau, municipal councilor for the Cap-aux-Diamants district, the aid granted by Quebec City is a new sign that moving the market from the Old Port was a bad idea. It is a project that has been poorly designed, poorly thought out and where we will continue to swallow large sums, thundered the elected representative of Democracy Quebec, Saturday.
In addition to agreeing to a loan of $ 300,000 to the Coopérative des horticulteurs de Québec (CHQ), the market management organization, the City has agreed to forgo revenues of up to $ 1.5 million over the next 3 years , i.e. until 2022.
With this kind of news, Mr. Rousseau is even more convinced than the Marché du Vieux-Port, all wrong more profitable, was the option to consolidate rather than bet everything on the development of ExpoCité.
Now that the move has taken place, that the Old Port Market is gone and the Grand Market is open, he is worried about negative signals like the one sent yesterday.
We are funding a project that seems to us a bottomless hole.
He invites the City and the CHQ Quebec Horticultural Cooperativeto play fair and to reveal the figures. We don’t have the real picture. We know we have a problem, but we don’t know how big this problem is, he launched.
To justify his request, Mr. Rousseau reminds that the City of Quebec injected $ 25 million in the construction of the market, without forgetting the hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising and launch activities.
The representative of Democracy Quebec also has some against the mayor, Régis Labeaume, whom he accuses of playing on words.
The mayor said Friday that the measures taken by the City to help the CHQ Quebec Horticultural Cooperativewould not cost not a penny. Words that made Mr. Rousseau jump. To say that you don’t make losses when you have no anticipated income is ridiculous as an argument. Frankly, don’t take people for suitcases, railed M. Rousseau.
Concerning COVID-19, an argument put forward by the CHQ and the City to explain the precarious situation, Mr. Rousseau believes thatshe has a broad back. COVID-19. C'est un site excentrique, qui n'est pas intégré dans la communauté. C'est beaucoup plus profond comme problème.","text":"La difficulté n'est pas juste liée à la COVID-19. C'est un site excentrique, qui n'est pas intégré dans la communauté. C'est beaucoup plus profond comme problème."}}" lang="fr">The difficulty is not just related to COVID-19. It is an eccentric site, which is not integrated into the community. It is a much deeper problem.
The CHQQuebec Horticultural Cooperative claimed that the health situation had not helped, but also admitted that she had underestimated the duration to deploy the organizational and financial efforts necessary for the implementation of its business model.
A plenary?
As for Quebec 21, where chef Jean-François Gosselin was not available to comment on Saturday, we hope that the City will be cautious with public funds.
If COVID-19 does not help, it can’t be just thatsays a cabinet member. The latter maintains that the population has the right to know the real extent of the situation. The official opposition believes that the holding of a plenary committee, notably on the Grand Marché, this fall, could make it possible to see more clearly.
