Legal team size: 13

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company?

Over the past twelve months, I am very proud of having worked on the launch of the first High-Speed Train project in Canada, a project that has been discussed for the past 40 years and that is now finally becoming real. As chief legal officer, I have had to communicate Alto (VIA HFR)’s approach to governance and collaboration to our private developer partner and lead the roll out of the Governance and Collaboration Plan to VIA HFR’s employees to ensure common understanding and alignment; lead the legal and contractual aspects of the Pre-Development Agreement (PDA) Close process to ensure the PDA could be executed as soon as possible while protecting VIA HFR’s rights; update the Land Acquisition Strategy to support the project’s social acceptability and to identify early potential strategic acquisitions, and present the updated version to VIA HFR’s management committee.

I have also provided legal and contractual support in relation to the Impact Assessment strategy, and to the implementation of the duty to consult and accommodate the Indigenous Communities. I have co-led, with Strategic Policy and Engagement with Communities teams, the development of tools to accelerate the delivery of the network, including innovative legislative measures and assisted VIA HFR’s President & CEO in ensuring the project continuation.

Between 2009 and 2012, I have had the opportunity to co-lead, with Boralex’ CLO Pascal Hurtubise, the legal support needed for the development, construction and financing of the Seigneurie de Beaupré Wind Farms 2&3 project, a 340MW wind farm located just East of Québec City, near the beautiful Charlevoix region. At the time, it was the largest wind farm in Canada, and the financing had been quite a challenge after the 2008 financial crisis.

The legal team at Alto is a key contributor to the overall business strategy of Alto. We are deeply involved in all aspects of the development of this nation-building project, including the permitting strategy, the land acquisition strategy, the community engagement strategy, and obviously the commercial strategy. I am also in charge of overseeing all the Land Acquisition activities for this 1000 km linear project.