Motion against a pipeline that would cross Quebec: parties take a stand

Quebec Solidaire MNA for Taschereau Etienne Grandmont during question period at the legislature in Quebec City, Thursday, January 30, 2025 (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

Quebec Solidaire (QS) and the Parti Québécois (PQ) voted in favour of a motion opposing a pipeline project that would cross Quebec, while the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) and the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) voted against it.

QS MNA for Taschereau Étienne Grandmont tabled a motion on Thursday calling on the National Assembly to affirm its opposition to Marinevest Energy’s proposed gas pipeline and liquefied natural gas plant.

Eighty members, including CAQ and Liberal members, voted against the motion, while 14 members, including PQ and QS members, voted in favour of the motion.

Marinevest Energy Canada, a subsidiary of Norwegian energy company Marine Vest Energy, plans to build a pipeline from Ontario to Baie-Comeau, where it intends to build a liquefaction plant and a marine terminal to export natural gas from Western Canada.

“This is not a development project, it is a project to dismantle our environmental achievements,” said Grandmont during a session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, during which MNAs debated the motion.

“The project would include a gas pipeline several hundred kilometres long, approximately 1,000 kilometres, through Quebec’s natural environments, to connect the plant to TC Energy’s trans-Canadian network, as was also planned for the GNL Québec project,” said the member who sponsored the motion.

“We thought we understood that the future no longer lay in pipelines, we thought that science had finally won out over the lobbying of multinationals. Yet today, a new spectre haunts our regions, and that spectre is Marinevest Energy,” added Grandmont.

The CAQ voted against the QS motion, but just before the vote, which took place at 11 a.m., the environment minister said his party had not yet taken a position on the pipeline project.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m going to repeat the same thing. Each developer can submit a project, which is then evaluated on its merits. We don’t have any concrete projects on the table,” Benoit Charette said.

For its part, the PQ, which supported the QS motion, is not closing the door on the pipeline and supports maintaining a “cautious” approach to the project.

“We met with representatives from Marinevest” and “at this time, the project remains embryonic and incomplete in several respects,” wrote MNA Joël Arseneau in a post on social media.

“So far, we have not been convinced by the promoters, and the burden of proving that the project is in the interest of Quebecers rests with the promoter and must be subject to rigorous scrutiny,” added the PQ member.

For his part, Liberal MNA Gregory Kelley said Wednesday that even though his party would vote against Quebec Solidaire’s motion, “that doesn’t mean it’s a green light for the project today either.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Feb. 19, 2026.