This is the story that clung to the front page all summer, to the great displeasure – we can imagine – of François Legault, who no doubt hoped to be able to count on a final stretch without stain before the election campaign.
Since the beginning of July, arsenic emissions from the Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda have been making headlines, a saga that culminated this week – thanks to the persistence of mobilized citizens and the work of journalists who dug into the case — by an announcement deemed largely insufficient.
The Glencore plant will have to limit its arsenic emissions to 15 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m3) of air within five years, decided the CAQ. All this despite the recommendations of the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ), which rather sets at 3 ng / m3 the desirable goal, and suggests maximum daily concentrations for arsenic, lead and cadmium emissions.
The population of Rouyn-Noranda will therefore have to settle for half a measure. In the summer of 2027.
The gross leniency shown towards Glencore’s destructive practices has not escaped anyone’s notice. Just like the aberration represented by the very existence of a “right to pollute”, granted by the Ministry of the Environment to 89 companies spread over the territory of Quebec. A license to harm the health of the population in the name of private profit, distributed by the state in defiance of its own environmental standards.
A touch of irony, all the same, to have watched the Legault government drag its feet all summer on this file while the Prime Minister praised the novel on social networks. morelby Maxime Raymond Bock, which traces the trajectory of generations of workers from the Faubourg à m’lasse who broke their bodies on the large construction sites erected on the places where they were born.
It is true that it is a remarkable novel, which pours neither into the exaltation of the figure of the brave French-Canadian worker nor into the condescending aestheticization of poverty. This is, moreover, what constitutes its strength: by avoiding these pitfalls, Maxime Raymond Bock succeeds in restoring the depth of injustice and exploitation; it unequivocally designates the forces that produce them. One wonders what the Prime Minister took away from it, except that the book was “very well written”.
You will excuse the aside, simply, I am fascinated when the Prime Minister — a real reader, no doubt about it — publicly praises works without understanding that the political charge they contain is aimed directly at him and the members of his caste.
On Wednesday, the Minister of Economy and Innovation, Pierre Fitzgibbon, illustrated all this well by launching to the press that “no one is going to die” from the polluting emissions generated by companies authorized to derogate from the standards in force. We must give them time to adapt to these poor enterprises; they do what they can. It is well known: good faith and the common good are cardinal values in the life of a corporation.
“No one is going to die,” said the minister. And yet, science says otherwise.
A study published in June in The Lancet estimates that air pollution is responsible for 6.5 million deaths per year worldwide, and that this number tends to increase over time. The study also shows that the number of deaths caused by the release of toxic substances, in the air and elsewhere, had increased by 66% over the past two decades – in particular due to the absence of adequate regulations, both at both nationally and internationally. To illustrate the scale of the matter, it was pointed out that air pollution contributes more to reducing the life expectancy of human populations than road accidents, HIV-AIDS, malaria and armed conflicts, combined. .
Unsurprisingly, 90% of deaths linked to air pollution are concentrated in the countries of the South globally and, in the countries of the North, it is the poor, indigenous and racialized populations who suffer the most from toxic emissions.
However, the impact of air quality on people’s health should not be underestimated, even in countries where the level of air pollution is low. Another study recently looked at the impact of air pollution in a country whose air is relatively unpolluted: Canada. It is estimated that nearly 8,000 Canadians die prematurely each year due to air pollution, including in regions with the best air quality.
In his most recent PollutionWatch column, published in the pages of the Guardian, expert Gary Fuller also pointed out that the scientific literature increasingly agrees that there is in fact no real air pollution threshold that can be said to be “safe”. In short, it is always harmful.
Despite everything, we are being asked to accept half-measures and solutions that rely on the “patience” of the population, while refusing to prepare for the future. In the case of the Horne Foundry, as in that of the 89 other authorized delinquent companies, it is to be hoped that a firm and definitive solution will be adopted quickly.
We can also hope that the contempt and negligence that taint the political treatment of this affair will remain etched in people’s minds for a long time.