English super hospital moves forward

Premier Jean Charest will break ground on the new English super-hospital site in Montreal on Thursday afternoon.

Charest is also expected to announce which of two international construction consortiums has been chosen to be part of the public-private partnership to build the facility.

The premier will be joined by Health Minister Yves Bolduc and Quebec Treasury Board president Monique Gagnon-Tremblay at the site of the former Glen rail yards.

Last week, Bolduc promised the first phase of both the French and English super hospitals will be completed by 2014.

The timing of the long-awaited announcement is amusing to one city councilor.

"We're happy, although I must admit that when I first received the email today it did cross my mind.…was it an April Fool's Day joke? We've been waiting so long," said Peter McQueen, the Projet Montréal councillor for the district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG), where the hospital will be built.

McQueen said he is concerned about how construction will affect people in the surrounding area. He'd like to see public consultations on the traffic plan before the project moves into advanced phases.

"It is a tricky site for the traffic. We just want to ensure that is not NDG that bears the full burden of all traffic coming from all directions."