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2008

Thursday 14 February 2008 HLT Energies Inc.: Appointment of Pierre-Marc Johnson to the Board of Directors
HLT Energies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:HES), a leader in the production and sale of sustainable, renewable, and clean solar and wind energy, is pleased to announce the election of the Honourable Pierre-Marc Johnson to the Board of Directors, following the annual shareholders meeting held in Montreal on February 8, 2008. A former Prime Minister of Quebec, Mr. Johnson was appointed to lead the Canadian government's advisory team for the United Nations conference on climate change, held in Bali in December 2007.

Thursday 31 January 2008 Governing Global Desertification: Linking Environmental
This work studies the linkages between land degradation and poverty, the role of civil society and good governance in implementing the UNCCD and the various...

Runaway Universe Astronomers grapple with some very big questions: what is the size and shape of the universe, and how will it end?

Taking back the bridges
QUEBEC - The province is taking back 4,281 highway bridges from municipalities and will invest $100 million a year to repair and replace damaged structures.

2007

Friday 07 December 2007

Outsiders doing work of elected politicians
Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
In sending Quebec's Pierre Marc Johnson and a handpicked panel to Bali, Harper is breaking tradition by excluding party critics from the climate change ...
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In which the NDP embarrasses itself yet again
Macleans.ca - Toronto,Ontario,Canada
... Bernard Lord's "quick study on minority-languages policy" to Pierre Marc Johnson's last-minute appointment "to advise the climate-change summit in Bali. ...
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Speech by the Honourable John Baird, Minister of the Environment ...
Environment Canada (press release) - Ottawa,ON,Canada
The Honourable Pierre-Marc Johnson, a former Premier of Quebec, and an incredibly well-respected environmentalist will help up this panel. ...
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The challenge in Bali
Globe and Mail - Canada
Pierre Marc Johnson's mere presence at this 11-day meeting, which opened yesterday, is clearly designed to reassure skeptical Quebeckers that the federal ...
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Tuesday 04 December 2007 Baird chose his advisers well
If Environment Minister John Baird is serious about wanting frank, uncompromising advice during his time at the United Nations-led climate-change talks in Bali, he has chosen his entourage well: There is former Parti Québécois premier Pierre Marc Johnson; Elizabeth Dowdeswell, president of Nuclear Waste Management; Ian Morton, chief executive of Summerhill Group, which helps corporations to make green choices; and Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents Inuit across the country.
Johnson, in an interview with La Presse, said he is conscious of the fact he is accompanying a minister of a government that has come in for severe and sustained criticism for its stand on the Kyoto Protocol.

Johnson said he thinks Baird is an honest minister. "He knows it is to his advantage to listen to the people who make up his group of experts," Johnson said.

Quebecers have seen Johnson in action this year when he chaired the inquiry into the Laval overpass collapse. That investigation proved an eye-opener for Quebecers, who learned to their distress that many of the province's viaducts, overpasses and bridges were in a state of serious disrepair. The sight of overpasses and bridges under repair has become common throughout the province as the Liberal government ordered immediate work.

If Johnson brings the same sense of urgency and no-nonsense pragmatism to Bali that he displayed during the de la Concorde overpass inquiry, the Conservative government will be well served.

The question of whether Canada and the rest of the world benefit from Johnson's clear-eyed analysis will depend on what use Baird makes of it, and of what his other experts have to say. We will have to hope the world's countries realize we must pull together to save the planet.

Thursday 22 November 2007 Climate change draws international leaders

Former Quebec premier Pierre Marc Johnson played a key role in bringing this conference to Montreal in his role as a board member of the Veolia Environment Institute.

The Paris-based think tank was created in 2001. Its mission is to promote environmental research in universities and hold a series of international conferences.

In an interview with The Gazette yesterday, Johnson stressed the conference will not be about rehashing political conflicts over the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

"This is not about Kyoto or no Kyoto. We are talking about major changes in terms of emissions rates over the long term," he said

2007-concordeinquiry Friday 26 October 2007

DE LA CONCORDE COMMISSION

The commission inquiry into the de la Concorde overpass collapse states that half of Quebec’s bridges will need structural work within the next five years. A new agency which will care for the province’s bridges and overpasses has been launched. Quebec’s transportation ministry aims to have 80 per cent of its structures in ‘good shape’ within 15 years. The commission also calls for bridge rehabilitation to become a national priority.

Thursday Oct 25, 2007 a class="t2" href="http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=e96fa6c1-1e8c-4563-aafa-edd4da6b6653 onmouseover="return overlib('click to bbc ', LEFT);" onmouseout="return nd();" target="_" > PIERRE MARC JOHNSON, Business community is pushing for action on climate change
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and to the International Panel on Climate Change is a powerful signal that the issue of climate change has reached a "political tipping point," climbing to the top of the agenda of the international community in the fields of politics, business and academia.

Sunday Oct 21, 2007

Quebec roads under scrutiny

Quebec will create a special agency to build, maintain and repair bridges and overpasses.

Oct. 18 - The inquiry into the Laval overpass collapse last year, killing five people, blames negligence in construction and maintenance.

Thursday Oct 18, 2007

Province to act

Much-anticipated report is coming today on fatal collapse of Laval overpass

The report is expected to be highly critical of the Quebec Transportation Department.

• Full Story
• Special site: Falling through the cracks

Province to act on much-anticipated overpass report
William Marsden and Kevin Dougherty

Aislin archive Aug 3, 2007

Tuesday 31 July 2007 Province blamed Johnson commission chairperson Pierre Marc Johnson heard on Tuesday from Patrick Henry, who represents employees of the company that built the ill-fated de la Concorde overpass. He argued that the transport department failed to properly repair the overpass.
Firm that built overpass finds fault with repairs and inspections

Blame for the collapse of the de la Concorde overpass last September killing five people should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Quebec Transport Department because its engineers failed on three occasions to spot the pending problems and to shut down the structure, a lawyer for the company that built the overpass says.

Aislin archive Aug 4, 2007

Friday 20 July 2007 Shipping costs will rise as Quebec bans heavy trucks from suspect ... CBC Montreal - Montreal,Quebec,Canada
... to the Concorde overpass on Highway 19 in Laval, which is the subject of a provincial inquiry led by former Parti Québécois premier Pierre Marc Johnson. ... See all stories on this topic

Quebec publishes list of 135 at risk overpasses and ramps
Canada.com - Hamilton,Ontario,Canada
Chairman Pierre-Marc Johnson said the commission's task now will be to make recommendations to the government "so this never happens again. ...

The List Is Out
940 News - Montreal,Quebec,Canada The move came moments after former Premier Pierre Marc Johnson heard the last testimony at his inquiry into the collapse that killed five people in Laval, ...

Saturday Jul 7, 2007 Johnson commission doing its job

Barely four months ago, the Johnson commission into the de la Concorde Blvd. overpass collapse was widely seen as merely a politically-motivated exercise - some even predicted a whitewash - that would provide little in the way of real information.

But today, the commission has given us enough information to make every highway user nervous and anxious.

This week, apparently alarmed at what his panel of experts had determined about the state of some structures, Pierre Marc Johnson immediately alerted the Quebec government to dangers. Signalling the urgency of the situation, Johnson cited "public safety" as his reason for submitting information to the transport department months before his final report is due in the fall, and well before the commission has finished hearing expert testimony.

Transport Quebec officials insisted there was no immediate danger in any of the structures pinpointed - but not identified to the public - by Johnson. But his warning came the same day expert witnesses laid out a checklist of failures in the building of the de la Concorde overpass. It wasn't a confidence-boosting scenario.

Experts testified that the Sept. 30, 2006 collapse, in which five people died and six others were injured, could be attributed to bad design, shoddy construction, equally shoddy repairs and substandard construction materials.

Jacques Marchand, a civil-engineering professor at the Universite Laval, testified Wednesday that the type of concrete used to build the overpass had been watered down, rendering it incapable of withstanding the cycle of freezing and thawing of a typical Quebec winter.

Hundreds of road structures could figure on the list Johnson sent to government authorities on Wednesday. According to a Radio-Canada report, Quebec's road network had in 2005 nearly 1,700 concrete-slab bridges. This is the type of construction Johnson's panel of experts said should have its steel framework verified.

Johnson said that the commission had been assured by the transport department that its schedule of inspections and repairs had been changed to reflect the concerns raised at commission hearings.

There is no question that the commission has had an impact on the transport department's work. The commission was nowhere near finished testimony into the de la Concorde overpass when the department decided to tear down or reinforce three overpasses similar in design and construction to the de la Concorde.

The overpasses included the viaduct de Blois on Highway 19, which was pulled down in October; the viaduct on Highway 10 near St. Alphonse de Granby, which was also pulled down, in May; and the Joliette overpass on Highway 31, which was reinforced in October and which is slated for demolition in five years.

What if there had never been a commission of inquiry into the collapse? What a frightening question.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

Friday May 18, 2007 Bars made wrong, installed wrong, Acier head testifies>br> Crucial steel bars were manufactured in the wrong shape and then incorrectly installed in the Laval overpass that collapsed Sept. 30, killing five people, the president of the company that supplied the bars acknowledged yesterday.
Robert's insistence his company bore no responsibility appeared to frustrate commission chairperson Pierre Marc Johnson, who demanded to know who, if anybody, was in charge of overseeing the installers' work.

Pierre-Marc Johnson

Google W-N = 24 citings Pierre-Marc Johnson | Google

2007

Tuesday 30 January 2007 UN Convention to Desertification in Global Sustainable Development Goverance by Pierre Marc Johnson

Monday 02 October 2006 Montreal Overpass Collapse Kills Five, Police Say
... Depres also said a public inquiry, headed by former premier Pierre-Marc Johnson, will he held to determine the cause of the collapse. ...

Answers sought
Pierre Marc Johnson will head a public inquiry to determine exactly what went wrong Saturday when a highway overpass in Laval collapsed, killing five people and severely injuring six others.
Dust settles, probe launched
5 killed and 6 injured; Former premier Johnson will head inquiry into Saturday's overpass collapse

general information board mission statement annual report

Pierre Marc Johnson Born 1946, lawyer, physician, former Premier of Quebec and former professor of law at McGill University. Me Johnson has been Senior Counsel with the offices of Heenan Blaikie since 1996 and serves on numerous corporate boards as a Director. He acts in commercial negotiations, international partnerships and foreign investment ventures related to new information technologies, entertainment, real estate and financial products. He has a wide experience in international negotiations with the United Nations on Environmental and Developmental issues. Vice-Chairman of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and Chair of its Foreign Policy Committee from 1990 to 1997 (a legislated advisory body to the Prime Minister of Canada), he is an Advisor to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (a NAFTA parallel institution). He lectures in North America, Latin America and Europe on the workings and effects of globalization. He is author of many essays and a text book on international trade law, The Environment and NAFTA: Understanding and Implementing the New Continental Law (1996). Me Johnson has an honorary doctorate from Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Grand Officier de l'Ordre de la Pléiade.

Ex-premier breaks silence about mom’s affair

MONTREAL (CP) — Former Quebec premier Pierre Marc Johnson has broken his family’s silence about his mother’s lover and how the man tried to kill her after she spurned him.
At the time of his mother’s affair in 1953, his father, Daniel Johnson, wasn’t yet premier and was an elected Union Nationale member, Johnson says in the book, Le destin Johnson (The Johnson Destiny).
"A man from the media world had fallen passionately in love with my mother," he says in the book written by Benoit Gignac.
Although the nature of the relationship wasn’t entirely clear to Johnson, he said a passionate affair was possible, given her nature.

"It was a subject that was completely taboo," he said.

It turns out the journalist in question was a 26-year-old Radio-Canada host and Johnson said he believes the journalist had asked his mother, Reine, to leave his father.

"Things ended up turning out badly and he shot her with a small-calibre firearm, trying to kill her," Johnson recounts.

Reine Johnson spent a lengthy convalescence in hospital.

Johnson said his father offered to resign because of the scandal but then-premier Maurice Duplessis refused his resignation.

The book says Duplessis used his influence to cover up the incident with police and the media.

When it was eventually reported, Montreal La Presse reported on its back pages that "Bertrand Dussault, 26, fired five shots at a woman, Mrs. D. Johnson."

Daniel Johnson Sr. served as Union Nationale premier from 1966 to 1968.

Pierre Marc Johnson was Parti Quebecois premier in 1985.

Wednesday Apr 19, 2006 Quebec bank is broke
..Clinton’s “It’s the economy stupid” worked to perfection in 1996. The American economy was booming. Quebec is not so lucky. Our economy faces a rocky road. Unemployment went up to 8.5 per cent last week. Our debt load stands at $118 billion and counting. Quebec’s direct and indirect taxes (Hydro Quebec, SAQ, per litre cost at the gas pumps) are the highest in North America. Our smartest university graduates leave. The province did not grant some 500,000 workers salary increases for three-and-one-half years. No billion-dollar-a-year tax cuts, as promised. These facts have compelled separatists, such as Pierre Marc Johnson, Lucien Bouchard and Joseph Facal, to say now is not the time to hold a referendum. What these men are saying is, “It’s the economy stupid.” The Quebec bank is broke...

Friday, April 14, 2006 gaz Open stores on St. Jean is sensible
....Bachand reminded everyone that, back in 1978, as a young aide to PQ labour minister Pierre Marc Johnson, he himself contributed to writing the law that requires Quebecers to take June 24 seriously. He explained that this is a one-time compromise, limited to certain areas of town, and he spoke of respecting "the integrity of the fete nationale."