CANADA: Quebec to approve $1.1-billion cement plant without environmental review

Opposition parties and environmentalists slammed the Couillard government on Thursday for green-lighting a $1.1-billion cement works project without a review by Quebec’s environmental bureau.

The McInnis Cement plant in Port-Daniel—Gascons, in Gaspésie, could top the list of industrial polluters in the province.

The provincial government plans to exempt the project from an assessment by the Bureau des audiences publique sur l’environnement (BAPE), Quebec’s advisory office of environmental hearings. The company has said the project shouldn’t be subject to an environmental review because it was submitted in May 1995, a month before the law requiring such an assessment came into effect.

In the National Assembly, Economy, Innovation and Exports Minister Jacques Daoust said the project “isn’t an environmental dossier, it’s an economic dossier.” The opposition greeted the remark with jeers.

Coalition Avenir Québec environment critic, Simon Jolin-Barrette, said the government’s plan will encourage other companies to try to bypass an environmental review.

“From now on, lobbyists are going to line up outside the premier’s office to ask that other projects not be submitted to the BAPE,” he said in the National Assembly.

Last year, the Marois government announced that Quebec would invest $350 million in the project. The cement works on the shores of Baie-des-Chaleurs in Port-Daniel—Gascons would initially produce 2.2 million metric tonnes of cement annually.

Québec solidaire joined the CAQ in an unlikely pairing against the project.

Québec solidaire MNA Manon Massé accused the Couillard government of trying to “short circuit” the process.

“We know it’s extremely polluting because of the materials it will use. But we don’t have all the facts, so citizens can’t make an informed decision on the issue,” she said.

The plant would release 1.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) per year, according to an evaluation by a Canadian engineering consultant firm. That greenhouse gas output would make it the No. 1 industrial polluter in Quebec.

Yet in a statement on Thursday, McInnis said its plant “will become a model in North America for its environmental performance.” The company has said it will reduce global GHG emissions by replacing production of older, less efficient cement plants.

McInnis said the plant would create 400 jobs in a region plagued by chronic unemployment. The jobless rate in Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madelaine was 16.4 per cent in 2014, more than twice the provincial average of 7.7 per cent.

Last summer, two environmental groups joined one of McInnis’ competitors, Lafarge, in a legal challenge against McInnis to make sure it would undergo an environmental assessment.

The environmental groups dropped out after McInnis agreed to mediated talks and to form a committee in charge of monitoring GHG. Proceedings are nevertheless expected to go ahead in Quebec City in two weeks.

Michel Goudreau of Environnement Vert Plus, one of the two environmental groups that backed out of the challenge, said the Couillard government’s stance on the project shows its disregard for the environment.

“We’re reverting back to the old ways of reckless development we experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, when big projects were done without consultation or looking at the impacts on the environment,” he said.

Patrick Bonin, a spokesperson for Greenpeace in Montreal, agreed. “Quebec is doing all in its power to prevent the project from being submitted to the BAPE because the government knows it’s an extremely polluting project that would be indefensible from our current point of view on climate change,” he said.