Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will participate on Friday in an announcement with the City of Montreal to protect a “wasteland” located on the limits of the Ray-Mont Logistiques industrial container transshipment project, in eastern Montreal.
According to information obtained by The dutyit is a question of purchasing and developing, potentially into a linear park, a portion of fallow land which currently belongs to the CN, which has several trees and which is located just to the east of the vast land of Ray-Mont Logistiques .
Citizens of this disadvantaged area, where there are few green spaces, wanted the site currently occupied by the industrial project to be transformed into a park. But last year the Legault government authorized a first phase which allows the storage of 5,000 containers on the site, as well as the transit of 1,500 trucks each day.
Now that the project is underway, the federal government and the City of Montreal want to protect a strip of land located between the industrial site and a residential neighborhood established for several years a few dozen meters from what is now a storage site for containers.
” Green spaces “
Minister Guilbeault must therefore announce on Friday federal financial involvement in the project to acquire this land. He will be accompanied in particular by the mayor of the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, Pierre Lessard-Blais, but also by the CAQ MP for Anjou–Louis-Riel, Karine Boivin Roy.
Minister Steven Guilbeault’s office did not want to comment on the announcement planned for Friday morning. “Nature contributes to the health, well-being and recreation of Canadians and to the prosperity of the country’s economy. The Government of Canada is determined to bring Canadians closer to nature and to offer them healthy living environments whether they live in the city or in the countryside,” his office simply indicated in a written response.
The invitation sent Thursday to the media only specifies that it is “an announcement about new funding to protect green spaces in Montreal.”
In October 2022, the City of Montreal confirmed that it would protect part of the Steinberg woodland, which is located just north of the Ray-Mont Logistiques asphalt site. However, the reactivation of CN rails, near the Steinberg woodland, and the increase in trucking in the area make citizens fear a loss of access to the site and connectivity with other green spaces.
Transshipment
Ray-Mont Logistiques ultimately wishes to build an intermodal platform (which would allow containers to be moved from trucks to railcars), in order to be able to transport the containers to the port of Montreal, with a view to their export by ship. Railway tracks have already been installed on the site.
Despite repeated requests from residents of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the Legault government has repeatedly refused to carry out an environmental assessment of all the impacts of this industrial project. Such an examination could have been conducted by the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment if the Quebec Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, had demanded it.
Previously, the Quebec Court of Appeal had also required the City of Montreal to provide the municipal authorizations that the developer requested. The latter nevertheless initiated a $373 million lawsuit against the City due to the long delays required to grant him authorization.