It’s hard to find a downside to the federal government announcing $10 billion in much-needed funding for infrastructure in Quebec, but Paul St-Pierre Plamondon sure did try.

The Parti Québécois leader suggested this week that Ottawa is being generous with the purse strings to keep his party out of power and thus thwart it from holding a sovereignty referendum.

“The (federal) government clearly has a lot of interest in the coming election in Quebec,” St-Pierre Plamondon scoffed, as Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Christine Fréchette met in Longueuil to unveil an agreement on funds for public transit projects, hospitals, housing and universities. “There’s a reason that a number of files didn’t advance in recent years, given that the federal government wanted to impose conditions and decide — in the place of the National Assembly — matters within Quebec’s jurisdiction.”

St-Pierre Plamondon was the odd man out in pooh-poohing the deal. The rest of the opposition leaders and mayors of Quebec’s largest cities rejoiced that the money they desperately need and has lain dormant while Ottawa and the province wrangled is finally going to be doled out.

“We’ve been waiting for this agreement for a long time,” said Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada. The funds will go toward giving the city’s crumbling métro system some “love,” along with extending the Blue Line.

“The........

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