The 2011 Michener Award finalists talk about their award winning stories and the people who helped make them happen – Michener Awards Ceremony, June 12, 2012.
La Presse published the findings of two disturbing engineering reports held secret by Transport Canada. Only then did readers discover that Montreal’s Champlain bridge, the most heavily travelled span in Canada, was falling apart and in desperate need of replacement. La Presse shed light on an urgent public safety problem that had not previously been revealed to the public.
The Champlain Bridge is a major crossing over the St. Lawrence River. It connects Montreal and the suburban cities of the South Shore. It is also part of an important trade corridor with the United States.
It is estimated that 20 billion dollars worth of merchandises transit through that bridge, each year. More than 150,000 vehicles cross it everyday. It is the busiest bridge in Canada. And it is literally falling apart.
You don’t have to be an engineer to see that this bridge is in a poor condition. You just have to look at it.
But, for years, federal authorities have denied repeatedly the need for a replacement, saying that the actual crossing was secure, and that its repair and monitoring program made it the most scrutinized infrastructure in the country. That is so reassuring.
That official line blew apart, in March 2011, when La Presse published the findings of two disturbing reports that had been held secret by Transport Canada.
They revealed that the very severe structural damages – that everybody knew about – had progressed exponentially, with time, resulting in a risk of partial collapse of the bridge or the complete collapse of an entire span.
They finally urged the government of Canada to replace this bridge by a new crossing, and to do that as soon as possible.
Il aura fallu plus de six mois de recherches et d’entrevues pour percer le mur de silence derrière lequel ces deux rapports étaient cachés. Leur publication a eu un impact énorme, dont les échos résonnent encore dans la métropole, un an plus tard.
Elle a d’abord donné lieu à une mobilisation sans précédent des milieux d’affaires, de la société civile et des élus de dizaines de municipalités, situées des deux côtés du fleuve St-Laurent, pour réclamer à Ottawa la construction d’un nouveau pont.
Dans les semaines qui suivirent, l’avenir du pont Champlain est aussi devenu un enjeu central de la campagne électorale fédérale, au Québec. Les Conservateurs, qui n’avaient rien à offrir, en ont sans doute perdu quelques députés.
En octobre 2011, sept mois après la publication des rapports secrets de Transports Canada, le gouvernement fédéral annonçait finalement la construction d’un nouveau pont d’ici 10 ans, à un coût estimé entre 3 et 5 milliards$.
Dans l’intervalle, bien sûr, il faudra continuer de vivre avec le pont actuel jusqu’en 2021. Mais ça, c’est une autre histoire, que nous aurons peut-être le privilège de vous raconter un autre jour.
L’enquête de La Presse est encore ouverte. Et nous creusons toujours.
Merci.
Bruno Bisson
Michener Awards Ceremony
June 12, 2012.