Representatives of the multinational Northvolt are organizing a public meeting this Wednesday to present the details of their factory project to citizens of the McMasterville region, in Montérégie. Even before this meeting, the Legault government is already affirming that citizens will be “reassured” by the company.
Less than a week after the announcement, in Montreal, of this industrial megaproject financially supported by Quebec and Ottawa, the company intends to hold a first “information session” intended for the citizens of McMasterville and Saint-Basile-le- Big. This is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. at the McMasterville School of International Education. Other meetings should follow.
The land where the multinational wishes to set up its battery component factory is located in the territory of these two municipalities, largely on the former site of an explosives manufacturing factory which ceased its activities in the early 2000s. .
Concerned about the impacts that the largest private investment project in Quebec history could have, citizens are already demanding that the project be subject to a complete environmental assessment, including an examination by the Bureau d’audiences publique sur l’environnement .
The Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, however, repeated several times on Tuesday that the government does not intend to impose such an evaluation, even if the rules of the Environmental Quality Act could allow this.
“The company will talk to citizens,” he said on Tuesday, when questioned in the corridors of the National Assembly. “Let the citizens talk to the company,” he added. “Citizens should be reassured. There will be no noise, no dust. »
The Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks is currently evaluating the details of the project. Minister Benoit Charette has not yet ruled on whether the project is subject to the full environmental assessment procedure.
“Boomtown effect”
If it decides to exempt the Northvolt plant from the complete environmental assessment process provided for by law, the Legault government will choose to ignore the potentially major repercussions of this project, deplore the stakeholders consulted by The duty. He will also deprive himself of an opportunity to improve an industrial project in which the State will invest colossal sums.
“By avoiding an impact study and a process that would involve an examination by the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment, we are depriving ourselves of intelligent reflection on the short, medium and long term impacts, but also on the impacts of this project. People will be faced with a fait accompli,” laments Geneviève Brisson, professor in the Department of Societies, Territories and Development at the University of Quebec in Rimouski.
Ms. Brisson cites as an example the “boomtown effect” that will result from the project, i.e. a marked increase in automobile traffic, the massive arrival of workers in the region, the need to adapt infrastructure very quickly and the nuisances that will result, in particular, the construction phase of the factory.
Being subject to the complete environmental procedure would mean that the promoter would have to carry out an impact study dealing with several points which should characterize the Northvolt factory project: social acceptability, repercussions on the local road network, climatic effects, impact on public health, consequences on natural environments and biodiversity, etc.