Hydro-Quebec can compensate residents next to power lines: MNA
Quebec’s elected representative for Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Baldwin-Cartier MNA Carlos Leitão, says residents of the municipality who are against Hydro- Québec’s plan to install new power lines through the city can seek compensation for loss of value to properties due to the lines.
Hopes to force Hydro-Québec to bury the lines is no longer an option, Leitão said, given that the Quebec government permitted the project on Feb. 13 after the Bureau des audiences publiques (BAPE) recommended it.
The province’s environmental impact review process followed due process, including consideration of concerns from residents, the MNA told the Gazette.
“As an MNA, my job was to make sure that process follows the rules. And that was the case,” said Leitão, who also serves as Quebec’s minister of finance.
A residents’ group called Build it Underground DDO, which consists of homeowners who live near the three-kilometre green corridor in which the new lines will be built, delivered a letter to Leitão’s constituency office last Friday, demanding the government “suspend this project immediately and return to the negotiating table with the residents and city officials.”
“As a minister of the government I couldn’t, and I can’t interfere directly with the process,” Leitão commented when asked about the letter. “That wouldn’t be proper to try and change whatever decision Hydro-Québec would take.”
Leitão said the BAPE recommended that a working committee assigned to implement the project consider the possibility of compensating residents for any loss of value to their properties suffer once the new 52-metre-high towers and 315-kilovolt power lines go up.
“I think Hydro- Québec is willing to engage in those negotiations,” he said. “That has happened before. Hydro has done that kind of negotiating with other citizens.”