MONTREAL - Premier Jean Charest announced an ambitious plan Friday to boost Hydro-Quebec's capacity by 3,500 megawatts -- enough to power 600,000 homes.
The project would guarantee full employment in the energy infrastructure until 2035, the premier said during a swing through Sept-Iles, in an area now held by the Parti Quebecois. The expansion projects would not begin until 2015.
About 20 per cent of the increased power would come from alternative sources such as the wind and the sun and would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said on Day 10 of the Quebec election campaign.
"With these commitments, Quebec is positioned more as a Canadian leader in the fight against climate change."
New equipment for the Ste-Marguerite dam will also add an additional 400 megawatts, the premier said.
"With these projects in clean-energy development, we will in the coming years push the limits of our last great frontier in the north," Charest said. "The north is our future."
The Liberal plan targets three elements -- energy development, mining and tourism.
Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois used a trip to the Saguenay region to announce a plan to stimulate economic development in outlying regions with the creation of a $500-million fund to help business start-ups.
Other measures to help the regions would include tax breaks.
"Outlying regions are the key to our collective development and it is time the Quebec government looks seriously at the challenges they face," Marois said in La Baie.
She said the Liberal government had brushed them off.
"The Liberal party, which was presented as the party of the regions in 2003, has completely abandoned them," Marois said. "Once again, Jean Charest has failed in his job."
Marois wasn't the only party leader who was bemoaning Charest's efforts in office.
Opposition Leader Mario Dumont said Charest has had little success in curing Quebec's ailing health-care system.
The Action democratique du Quebec leader said in Villeroy in central Quebec that while average Quebecers have to put up with long wait times, the rich and "players for the Canadiens" can take advantage of quicker services offered by the private sector.
Dumont said the health-care system is riddled with bureaucracy and inequities.
Although the Liberals and the PQ continuously tout the primacy of the public health-care system, society's more privileged members have access to private health care "through the back door," Dumont said.
The ADQ leader wants to open the door to private clinics and health co-operatives to help a public system which is at such a point of collapse "it looks like the day after an earthquake."
"People are ready to pay," Dumont said, insisting Quebecers want freedom of choice.
Dumont also called on the province's chief electoral officer to investigate after Liberal candidate Robert Dutil acknowledged forming a political party earlier this year solely to benefit from tax credits.
Dumont said Dutil had violated the spirit of the electoral law and should reimburse the money he received as credits. Dutil served in the legislature from 1985 to 1994 and was a cabinet minister under then-premier Robert Bourassa.
