Member of Parliament for Abitibi and critic of Québec solidaire in terms of regional development, Émilise Lessard-Therrien believes that the CAQ has completely forgotten resource regions such as the Côte-Nord in its budget. It does not respond in any way to the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis, to the need for housing, places in CPE and adequate air transport.
“Apart from taking advantage of their natural resources, the CAQ has no interest in the regions,” denounces the QS MP for Rouyn-Noranda-Témiscamingue. “She likes our mines, our forests and our resources, but is not ready to invest for the people who live there. There are no specific measures to help us with the labor shortage which is hampering our development,” she explains.
No housing for newcomers
For Émilise Lessard-Therrien, the housing crisis is catastrophic in the region and it is the first condition for the long-term settlement of newcomers. Same problem for places in childcare services. “How many families choose to leave their new host region to return to their family for lack of childcare?”
Regarding the labor shortage, she notes that an amount of $80M is planned to promote the attraction of immigrants in the distributed regions for 5 years, but only from the year 2023-2024. “There is nothing planned this year! It’s so annoying! Our public services are collapsing because there is a lack of people, our companies are slowing down their development for lack of employees, our restaurants and businesses are being forced to reduce their opening hours and absolutely nothing is planned for them this year. This is one more sign of the abandonment of the regions by this government,” insisted Ms. Lessard-Therrien.
Nothing in regional public transport
Émilise Lessard-Therrien is worried about the rise in gas prices, which particularly affects people in the regions. In addition, the CAQ’s budget does not provide any new amount to develop the regional public transit offer.
The QS MP for Rouyn-Noranda-Témiscamingue believes that people in the regions want to play their role in the ecological transition, but they are not offered any opportunity to do so. “Québec Solidaire proposes the establishment of regional energy transition councils. We must bring the fight closer to the ground”, for the MP, also spokesperson for her party on the environment.
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