A few hundred people gathered on Sunday in Montreal, on the sidelines of Earth Day, to demand climate justice and denounce the “false” energy transition of the Legault government.
To the sound of drums and rattles, the said energy transition of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) was in turn pointed out by the various organizers of the event, who addressed the protesters in front of the monument to Sir George-Étienne -Cartier, at the foot of Mount Royal.
“It’s really a false transition,” said Shirley Barnea, of the group Pour le futur Montréal, associated with Fridays for Future. They just continue to exploit the territory, continue in the extractivist, destructive lineage of the same economic system that caused the climate crisis, but this time, it’s packaged in green. »
The activist co-signed on Saturday, in the pages of Duty, an opinion text precisely denouncing the flaws in the CAQ approach to the energy future.
In his eyes, Quebec is exploiting the energy transition with a view to economic growth “at all costs” and neglecting other solutions to the climate crisis, such as public transportation.
“In all this rush to produce energy, to have new projects, it feels like it’s just a business opportunity,” Shirley Barnea said.
“Rage” against Northvolt
“We are in a real environmental crisis and, at the moment, the government is using it to make financial capital,” also underlined Ariane Labonté, of the Citizen Action Committee – Northvolt Project.
Mme Labonté spoke alongside other actors from various ecological groups at the end of the march, which concluded at the Place des Festivals.
“I have rage in my throat,” the Mont-Saint-Hilaire resident told the crowd, speaking of “months of fighting” in Montérégie against this battery industry project.
The representative of the citizens’ gathering condemned the changes in thresholds which allowed the Swedish multinational to move forward in its business, in particular the one which would have imposed an evaluation by the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment.
In February 2023, the Legault government tabled a proposed regulatory amendment which had the effect of changing the rules which would have made it possible to automatically subject Northvolt to the environmental procedure provided for large industrial projects.
“The laws are transformed, are modified, like plasticine,” said M.me Labonté, who confided to Duty feeling “discouraged” in the face of a government that turns a deaf ear.
“We are not being heard,” she lamented.
A “counter-example” of the energy transition, says Nadeau-Dubois
“The Northvolt project is a wonderful example of what not to do,” said the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
Present at the demonstration, the MP for Gouin accused the CAQ of “creating a social accessibility problem from scratch”. This project, deployed at great speed, benefits from regulatory privileges and short-circuits democratic processes, he judged.
Quebec also discourages people from making the necessary changes in their daily lives to initiate the climate transition, according to the elected official, in particular by having reduced public transport in recent years.
“The most important actions are the political actions that governments must take so that habits change,” he explained.
The QS co-spokesperson nevertheless invited the population to “remain hopeful that citizen mobilization can work”. He recalled that when he arrived in politics, pipeline projects and new oil pipelines had been abandoned thanks to citizen movements.
“These are not victories from fifteen years ago. It’s in the last five or six years, he added. So this is proof that we are capable of mobilizing to [faire annuler] bad projects or, in the case of Northvolt, to demand that projects be deployed in an accountable, transparent and democratic manner. »