In 2021 Quebec announced a mandate. All new school buses purchased in the province must be zero-emission. The subsidy program attached to this mandate required that buses be assembled in Canada. One Quebec-based company was positioned to benefit from this requirement almost exclusively. That company was Lion Electric. Headquartered in St-Jérôme, Quebec. The government had effectively created a captive market for a single manufacturer. School bus operators who wanted the subsidy had to buy from Lion. Lion had no competitive pressure to improve reliability, reduce price, or accelerate service. The government’s environmental mandate had become a procurement monopoly. Here is what followed. The Fires In September 2025 a Lion electric school bus caught fire in Montreal. The province ordered 1,200 Lion electric school buses off Quebec roads immediately. School routes across the province were cancelled. Parents scrambled. Students missed school. Bus operators completed emergency inspections. It was not the first fire. Three Lion buses caught fire within one year. The federation of school bus operators in Quebec described the four years since the electrification mandate began as chaotic. Bus operators said they felt abandoned. A Montreal area operator described his eight Lion buses as unreliable. When they broke down it could take weeks to get them back on the road. Operators were required to use only Lion’s certified technicians. They were entirely dependent on Lion’s availability and parts supply. This is what a procurement monopoly produces. No competition. No alternative. No leverage. Complete dependency on a single supplier whose product catches fire. The Money The Quebec government had invested $177 million CAD in Lion Electric. The federal government invested another $30 million CAD. Total public investment. $207 million CAD. In December 2024 Lion Electric filed for creditor protection. In May 2025 Quebec refused to invest more public money. The court-appointed restructuring monitor said liquidation was the likely outcome without government support. The company was eventually acquired by a group of Canadian investors for a reported $6 million CAD. Which means $207 million in public money was invested in a company that sold for $6 million. That is not a return on investment. That is a destruction of public capital on a scale that requires specific accountability. Quebec’s auditor general launched an investigation into the subsidies provided to Lion and other electric vehicle companies. A full report is expected. Which will document what the math already shows. The US School Districts Left Behind Lion Electric had sold buses across North America using subsidies from both Canadian and American government programs. When the bankruptcy proceeded the new owners notified US customers through Deloitte Restructuring that all warranties and purchase orders outside Quebec were null and void. Dozens of school districts across the United States that had purchased Lion buses with public grant funding from the Biden-era Clean School Bus Program found themselves holding assets with no manufacturer warranty. No recourse. No replacement plan. Some districts had Lion buses representing half their entire fleet. Quebec school district warranties remained honored. US customers received a letter voiding their coverage. Which is the specific expression of how Quebec’s procurement strategy played out internationally. Quebec public money funded a company that sold defective buses to US school districts using US public money and then voided the warranties when the company collapsed. What the Federation Said The president of the Quebec federation of bus operators was direct. The government’s mistake was not in wanting electrification. It was in the business model imposed on carriers. It was in saying you would receive financial assistance on the condition that you use the services of a single manufacturer. That is not an outside critic. That is the federation representing the operators who lived the consequences of this policy. A procurement structure that ties public subsidies to a single supplier creates exactly the conditions that produced this outcome. No competitive pressure. No performance accountability. A captive market that could not respond when the product failed because there was no alternative available. The Pattern This platform has documented Quebec’s procurement pattern across multiple sectors. School transport contracts that incentivize oversized vehicles on inappropriate routes. Trucking industry entry requirements that create artificial driver shortages. Language legislation that restricts immigrant business owners while protecting English language institutions. Predatory auto financing targeting vulnerable demographics. Police enforcement operations designed to maximize revenue rather than safety. The Lion Electric situation adds a specific dimension. Quebec did not just create poor procurement conditions. It created a monopoly for a local company, funded it with $177 million in public money, mandated that every school bus operator in the province become dependent on it, and then watched it catch fire and go bankrupt while children were on the buses. The environmental mandate was genuine. The procurement structure was a political decision. The consequences were paid by school bus operators, parents, students, and the US school districts who trusted a Quebec company backed by Quebec public money. Quebec lost $177 million. The company sold for $6 million. The buses caught fire. This is Quebec industrial policy in practice. SIIIOCULI — Intelligence. Sovereignty. Awareness. siiioculi.lilxbrxaker.com