Geneviève Guilbault

Geneviève Guilbault serves as Quebec's Deputy Premier and Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility — a portfolio combination that puts her at the intersection of two of the province's most significant long-term infrastructure challenges: the state of Quebec's road network and the development of a sustainable, transit-oriented alternative to car dependence. Guilbault has presided over a period of significant highway and bridge investment — Quebec's road infrastructure backlog is real and significant, and the province's northern and rural geography requires road investment that urban transit advocates sometimes discount. The REM (Réseau express métropolitain) light rail network continues to expand in the Montreal region, representing the most significant transit infrastructure investment in Quebec in a generation. The tension in her portfolio is the modal one: Quebec's transportation spending still skews heavily toward highway expansion and road maintenance relative to transit investment, even as the climate targets the provincial government has nominally committed to would require a significant shift in travel mode share. The Troisième lien — the highway tunnel project connecting Quebec City's south shore — was eventually cancelled after years of political controversy, a decision that freed up significant capital that could be redirected to transit investment. Guilbault is competent, politically astute, and manages a large infrastructure portfolio with relatively few major scandals or delivery failures of the kind that afflict similar portfolios in other provinces. The strategic question of whether Quebec's transportation investments are pointed in the right direction for the province's long-term mobility and climate commitments remains open.