MTL subway: an end next week? - TranslationFrench to English translation
(Quebec) To end an embarrassing drama that has lasted four years, the Charest government will argue the urgency and allow the STM to conclude a contract by agreement with Bombardier-Alstom contract for $ 3.4 billion dollars for the replacement of subway cars in Montreal.
According to La Presse has learned, Transport Quebec has formally requested on Wednesday at the Société de transport de Montréal to postpone by one week the international tender that was published today. The request, the committee discussed Tuesday the government's priorities was endorsed yesterday by the Council of Ministers. A source at the STM said the agency would comply.
During this period of one week, Transport Quebec will negotiate the contract by agreement with Bombardier-Alstom consortium. It will take 1,053 cars to replace the current fleet, part of which dates from the inauguration of the subway in 1967.
Discussions already started going well, and hopefully reach an agreement on price. Bombardier-Alstom asked significantly more expensive than the cars of the Toronto subway system, supplied by Bombardier.
Emergency Law To secure this decision with the regulations in place, the Charest government is prepared to resort to emergency legislation, which would be filed in the National Assembly in the middle of next week, according to local sources. To justify this unusual Quebec intends to argue that after four years of legal labyrinths, time is short. Purchases of the STM are not covered by the rules of the World Trade Organization, says one. Moreover, the government has the right to plead for emergency bypass the process of international tender.
It is also anticipated that additional delays of 18 to 24 months workability international tender may be skyrocketing maintenance costs of subway cars, which reached - and sometimes well beyond - their life useful.
That's what had argued the spokesman for Transport PQ, Stephane Bergeron, the last slide of the record in early summer. The STM was then decided to restart a international tender after the performances of the Spanish firm CAF. Ironically, early in the series, Quebec had decreed that the STM could negotiate directly with Bombardier. Subsequently, it was included Alstom, which threatened to resort to the courts.
Quebec's decision is also electoral goals. Jean Charest will call a byelection to replace Claude Bechard in Kamouraska-Temiscouata, where the Bombardier plant in La Pocatière, whose order books are very slim now. Hundreds of jobs are at stake in this otherwise depressed region.
Bombardier had been intense lobbying for weeks to that effect from Quebec. Transport Minister Sam Hamad, was apparently reluctant to it this avenue because of the effects on international trade. The decision is also difficult for the Premier Charest, who has always been the apostle of a free trade agreement between Canada and Europe.
But economic considerations prevailed. The government is concerned about the tone of the U.S. economy - with its exports, Quebec is extremely dependent on what is happening with our southern neighbors.