This is more than a disease. A tragedy. A real. A very Quebec tragedy, moreover, although it goes far beyond a strictly national framework. It is in fact one of the worst industrial scandals in North America.
Have you ever heard of Saint-Rémi-d’Amherst, this village in the Laurentians? He has not yet been too affected, unlike many others, by this Walt Disney mentality which presides over land development in our country. In Saint-Rémi, citizens will soon inaugurate a commemorative center. They also want to collect the necessary funds to erect a monument. Under this big tent of a rediscovered memory, we will be able to see, broadcast in a loop, a film: The silicosis case. This documentary, signed by Bruno Carrière, has just been completed. We hear, among other testimonies, that of the sociologist Guy Rocher.
At the end of the war, an open pit silica mine was operated in Saint-Rémi. It leads to the death of the working population. However, the deleterious effects of silica dust are known. Both the company and the state are quick to forget about it, in the name of economic growth.
History is to modern societies what mythology was to earlier worlds, said Claude Lévi-Strauss. It is, to put it briefly, the way we explain the world to ourselves. History allows us to consider ourselves, to explain ourselves, to justify ourselves. That the scandal of silicosis — the industrial disease linked to silica dust — has been evacuated from conscience says to what extent we are unfortunately conditioned to endure, again and again, exploitation, even fatal.
After the Second World War, an American journalist conducted an investigation into this industrial world. An American, but of French-Canadian descent. His name is Burton LeDoux. This LeDoux is a precursor of a type of journalism which is practiced everywhere too little: the vast investigation carried out on the ground. He spends himself, without counting his time or his energy. He wants to understand. So here he is in the Laurentians, in Saint-Rémi-d’Amherst. These white and milky clouds which float in the surroundings, carried by the wind, he sees them. He meets workers. He talks to their families. He collects the testimonies of the “white widows”. Their husbands were killed by this disease caused by the mine. These are the women who are barely surviving, eating squalor. How not to think that what the company has taken from their life has had the effect of tarnishing that of their descendants?
The empirical materials he collects, Burton LeDoux couples them with those of the medical world. His wife does not appear officially in the investigation. Yet she is there, certainly. Because she is a doctor. She therefore knows how to guide him, from time to time. Especially since Burton LeDoux doesn’t just want to understand the situation. He wants to act on her. LeDoux does not write to write. His language is clear. Precise. Bully. He wants things to change. He’s not even paid. His pen, he does not use it to live, but so that we stop dying.
The mining world knew, at least since the 1930s, that the miners dedicated to extracting silica were doing much more than risking their lives. International meetings and reports had duly identified the dangers. Offering a helmet to the miner to protect them was not enough. In Saint-Rémi-d’Amherst, as in many other places, companies allow industrial diseases to take root and flourish. Companies pick the fruits of labor and then take them away. How much did the basement of Saint-Rémi bring in? You will never be able to tell just by looking at this simple village.
As Bruno Carrière’s brief documentary clearly shows, Burton LeDoux’s investigation will cause shock waves. It is Relationships, the Jesuit journal, which publishes it. LeDoux explains the situation in the world of work. It does not go by four paths. He gives the names of those who died. And it talks about the lives of those who survive.
The company rears. She kicks. The government, for its part, is choking with rage. It is its development model, that of the entire industry, which is called into question. The Minister of Labor at the time, Antonio Barrette, himself a former worker, suggests that the work of LeDoux does not deserve any consideration, on the stupid pretext that he does not know him! When the sage points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger.
The high hierarchy of the Jesuits is under pressure. The direction of his magazine is replaced. Without wanting to admit any of its responsibility, the company is still scared. Very quickly, it destroyed its buildings in Saint-Rémi. His archives also pass there. She leaves behind her the dead and the dust. She gives up everything. Except the money.
Editor-in-chief of To have to, André Laurendeau then explains what Burton LeDoux represents, how much he deserves our respect. Like LeDoux, Laurendeau “observes the ravages caused in our country by the development of big capitalism”. This disease, silicosis, Laurendeau argues in a way, is only a by-product of another that no one dares to name: capitalism. “The most serious thing”, he specifies, “is not that we expose a social injustice; but it’s because it’s spread out, proclaimed, proven, those in charge nevertheless tolerate it, excuse it and sanction it”, then appeal to charity to relieve the victims.
In Quebec, we now have more than 400 abandoned mine sites. Companies have exploited them and then left them entirely to the State. Several of these places require major decontamination work. The collective costs of this laissez-faire? Over a billion dollars. Not to mention the lives of workers, often sick, forgotten. No, this story is not over.