Group wants Quebec's top court to force new public consultation on light-rail project

A citizen-led coalition wants Quebec's top court to force the government to redo the public consultations on the province's light-rail project.

Coalition Climat wants the Court of Appeal to overturn a lower court's decision to throw out a lawsuit the group filed in March 2017.

The group claims Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeauwas biased against it, and erred in not allowing the public to have "meaningful" hearings on the project.

The light-rail network, theRseau lectrique mtropolitain(REM), is on a tight schedule and could have been delayed had the lawsuit gone ahead.The first trains are expected to run in 2020, though there have been questions about the timeline.

The coalition accused the project's promoter, CDPQ Infra, of not providing enough information on the project to make the consultations, carried out by Quebec's environmental review board (BAPE), useful.

For its part, theCaissededptet placement duQubec, which is behind the project, said the BAPE made 43 recommendations in its report and that some have been taken into consideration and even integrated into the project.

"We have completed public consultationsand will continue to meet and consult widely. More than 15,000 citizens were met and hundreds of meetings were organized,"CDPQ Infra spokesperonJean-Vincent Lacroix told CBC in an email.

Lacroixwould not comment on the lawsuit as it is before the courts.

Problematic law?

The group particularly takes issue with Bill 137, which grants significant powers to CDPQ Infra and was designed to help fast-track the project. It passed last September.

The law states that the BAPE hearings, which took place in 2016, comply with the Environment Quality Act. After that law was passed, lawyers representing the government moved to have the case dismissed.

The group says the law infringes on the public's right to be consulted on projects as big asthe REM.

"Our government and CDPQ Infra are hiding behind the legal fiction that they can just cancel this right with the stroke of a pen," said Alison Hackney, one of the plaintiffs, in a news release.

The price tagfor the 67-kilometre rail line is$6 billion $1.3 billion from the province, $1.28 billion from the federal government and$3 billion from theCaisse.

• 'Build it and they come': Environmental groups back Caisse's light rail project

The project would connect 26stationsstretching from the South Shore to Montreal's Trudeauairport and beyond, to both theWest Island and Laval.