Skip to content

UPDATE: Harper’s stimulus project threatens water near Wakefield, Quebec

In August 2009, Lawrence Cannon was Stephen Harper’s minister of foreign affairs, his Quebec lieutenant, and the Conservative MP for the Pontiac riding in the Outaouais region of Quebec.

That month, in a move at least partially aimed at bolstering Cannon’s support in his riding, Harper stated, “The Government of Canada is taking extraordinary and unprecedented action to stimulate the Canadian economy in this time of global economic instability. The extension of Highway 5, the largest infrastructure project in the Outaouais, will help the region’s economic development, create high-paying jobs and greatly enhance the quality of life and safety of residents of the Outaouais region. This project has been made possible through the cooperation of the governments of Canada and Quebec. Working together allows us to stimulate the economy in these difficult times so that we can emerge from this global recession in the strongest position of any of the major industrialized countries.”

About a year later, in October 2010, the Toronto Star reported that an investigation by federal Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Scott Vaughan found that 93 per cent of the Harper government’s stimulus projects were excluded from an environmental assessment of their impacts. A full environmental assessment on the Highway 5 expansion did not occur, but we do know that a preliminary report by Transport Canada stated that the spring water in Wakefield could be contaminated by the construction of this highway.

Cannon was defeated by an NDP candidate in the May 2011 federal election, and while he has now moved on to be Harper’s ambassador to France, the troubling environmental impacts of the Highway 5 construction remain.

In January-February 2012, the community mobilized to protect a 300-year-old white pine tree being cut down to make way for the highway, but lost that battle. By May of this year, the situation worsened when it became clear that Couillard Construction, the company hired to construct the highway, had begun extracting sand and dumping clay in the nearby Rockhurst Road sandpit, located just 900 metres from the Wakefield Spring taps – the source of drinking water for some 5,000 people.

The Council of Canadians continues to support the tenacious SOS Wakefield group in their efforts to protect the water in the Wakefield area. To read more about their work, please see http://www.soswakefield.ca. A couple of the Council of Canadians blogs on this highway construction can be read at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=4480 and http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16180.

Photo: The Gatineau Park Protection Committee says, “Highway 5 construction destroys Brown Lake Mountain inside Gatineau Park. This is what’s left of the site where Occupy Gatineau Park protesters tried to save a 300-year-old white pine in January-February 2012.”