Quebec is today one of the world’s leading producers of clean and renewable energy.  The James Bay complex alone is the second largest hydropower facility in the world.  More than 95% of the energy generated in Quebec is of the clean and renewable kind.

Thanks to such visionaries as Adélard Godbout, who created Hydro-Quebec and began energy nationalisation in 1944, Jean Lesage who completed it in 1962 under the famous “masters in our own house” theme, Robert Bourassa who truly developed Quebec’s generation potential with the James Bay project in 1971; Daniel Johnson who oversaw the construction of the giant Sainte-Marguerite-3 dam in 1994, the last big hydro dam built in the 20th century worldwide, the Quebec Liberal Party has left a profound mark on the history of energy policy in Quebec. The Parti Québécois, for its part, opposed the Bay James project and preferred the nuclear option, building Quebec’s sole nuclear plan in 1983.

Coming to office in 2003, Jean Charest finds Quebec with virtually no wind power, and no wing in the sails of much need hydroelectric capacity development.  So he turned visionary as well, in the Liberal tradition, and endeavoured to expand and diversity Quebec’s potential for generating clean and renewable energy. He gave birth to today’s wind power industry and a new life to hydropower construction projects.

In the fall of 2008, Jean Charest presented Quebecers with the final step to his vision of a new economic horizon for Quebec by unveiling the North Plan, a major undertaking to develop the exceptional energy potential of Quebec’s high latitudes.

In 2009, major steps forward were taken to start building a new 1200 MW line to the United States, while a new 1250 MW capacity interconnexion with Ontario came on line, opening the door to the full exploitation of lucrative export markets.

In 2010, Jean Charest showed courage in revisiting the dogma of artificially low domestic electricity rates, convinced that kilowatt/hours no longer wasted here can be very profitably exported to create more wealth.