The largest Hydro-Québec employee unions are launching an advertising campaign to express their fears about what they perceive to be the Legault government’s intentions to privatize the state-owned company.
This advertising campaign launched under the theme of “Our own energies” is piloted by the union center SCFP which oversees the unions of 16,000 technical and administrative trades employees at Hydro-Québec.
According to CUPE, in the wake of the new management of Hydro-Québec’s plan to double its electricity production by 2050, we fear in particular that the bill expected soon from the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, favors the development of private electricity production and transmission projects to the detriment of the state company.
However, this is not the opinion of expert energy analysts like Pierre-Olivier Pineau, professor of energy sector management at the École des HÉC de Montréal.
Considering the strong growth in demand for electricity, Mr. Pineau believes that allowing electricity production by private sector companies “does not imply that Hydro-Québec is privatized or that it loses its role.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Pineau in an interview with Radio-Canada, “this will further establish it as a hydroelectric producer, as a transporter on Quebec soil and as a distributor. She has a lot to do in these three areas. »
