New Gatineau hospital to be built on Asticou Centre site (2024)

The Asticou Centre, a federal government complex, will soon be the site of a new Gatineau hospital.

Minister of public services and procurement Jean-Yves Duclos announced Thursday that the federal government had signed an agreement to transfer the Gatineau office building and part of the land around it to the Government of Quebec to enable for development of the future “Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire de l’Outaouais.”

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“The Government of Canada is extremely proud to contribute to this major construction project,” Duclos said during a media conference in Gatineau on Thursday. “Today is a start of an important journey that will lead to construction of a much needed, brand new hospital here in the Ottawa region.”

The 600-bed hospital project is expected to be completed by 2034, two years later than the provincial government’s original target.

However, when asked by reporters what would be done in the short term to address the health-care crisis in the area while the hospital was being built, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé said he would respect the centre’s original timeline, adding that 2034 was too far away.

“What we have done and are doing right now is to me a seven-year project from the announcement as we do today and being able to serve the first patient,” Dubé said. “I think it’s possible to do that.”

Ownership of the property is expected to be transferred in December 2025.

In 2018, the Coalition Avenir Québec promised to build a new hospital in western Quebec if elected to government. The province first planned to build the new hospital on Boulevard de la Technologie in Gatineau’s north end, but met with concerns about accessibility, traffic and environmental impact. It then looked to build the hospital off rue d’Edmonton in the Hull sector.

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Dubé said the provincial government was met with many surprises over the past two years and had to reconsider the site of the new hospital centre.

According to a provincial government, those surprises included the discovery of a significant presence of biogas on the land initially selected for the project.

“We redid a very thorough analysis of all the available sites,” Dubé said, adding that the Asticou Centre site was one of the best options.

The newly selected site, the release stated, is located near schools, services and is accessible by public transit. Dubé said the provincial government planned to look at building up transit alongside the municipality.

In addition to the new hospital centre, intended to serve the entire Outaouais, the Quebec government has acquired a building at 70 rue Crémazie in downtown Gatineau to house a “high-volume” clinic with a sampling and vaccination centre and a lab, expected to open in 2026.

According to the federal government, 17.2 hectares at the Asticou site in Gatineau Park are to go to the province, with another 8.9 hectares going to the National Capital Commission for “renaturalization” and restoration purposes.

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The federal government said the transfer of the Asticou Centre would contribute to its efforts to reduce its office portfolio by 50 per cent over the next 10 years, as announced in the last budget. A recognized federal heritage building, it is one of several properties the government is looking to sell or transfer.

Built by the Government of Quebec between 1963 and 1968, the 26-unit complex initially served as a secondary school, according to Parks Canada, then later as a federal language training facility. More recently, it was used again as a school for nearly five years, housing students forced out of École secondaire Mont-Bleu when that facility was destroyed by fire following the tornado that struck Gatineau in September 2018.

Given that the province had built the centre before transferring it to the federal government in 1976-77, Quebec had “a right of preference” over its purchase for construction of the new hospital.

The federal government said the Canada School of Public Service, National Defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Table Éducation Outaouais and the Maniwaki Native Friendship Centre have been occupying parts of the Asticou Centre. Federal employees will be relocated to “modern facilities,” it said.

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There was also criticism of the choice of the Asticou Centre as site of the new hospital.

In a joint media release, the citizens group Coalition pour un centre hospitalier accessible et durable en Outaouais and the physicians’ organization Association québécoise des médecins pour l’environnement said they “deplore the government’s lack of vision” and “doubt the feasibility” for the project to be carried out on that site.

The release listed several concerns, including environmental impacts, the cost to upgrade transport infrastructure, the lack of services and hotels in the area and the impact of the “out-of-centre location” on workforce attractiveness and retention.

The organizations said there had been little consultation with the community and “no partnership” to study all possible sites.

“Arbitrary choices were made, which had the effect of excluding the ideal sites proposed by the coalition, sites that comply in every respect with government guidelines,” said Patrick Robert-Meunier, spokesperson for Coalition pour un centre hospitalier accessible et durable en Outaouais. “We will pay for this decision for generations to come.”

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