Cancer cases in Rouyn-Noranda | Dr Arruda met with the Horne smelter before pulling information

Horacio Arruda met with representatives of the Horne Foundry in Rouyn-Noranda on September 26, 2019, before removing from a document that was to be made public an appendix evoking the link between arsenic emissions and cancer cases in the city.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

This is revealed by the report of the meeting of the advisory committee for monitoring the biomonitoring study in the Notre-Dame district, close to the foundry, which was held later the same day and which is accessible on the website of the Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

“The company is a key player in finding solutions,” said the D^r Arruda, who at the time was assistant deputy minister in the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services and national director of public health.

The appendix withdrawn at his request pointed out that arsenic, very present in the air of the city due to emissions from the Horne Foundry, “is an aggravating factor favoring the development of lung cancer”.

The D^r Arruda had justified the withdrawal of this appendix by the fact that “the lung cancer data will be specified in another independent and more complete document which will be published later”, which was done two and a half years later, last May.

The D^r Arruda had also met that day with representatives of the City of Rouyn-Noranda, of the committee Stopping discharges and toxic emissions of Rouyn-Noranda (ARET), which brings together parents and residents of the Notre-Dame district, close to the foundry, as well as the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change.

Not reducing emissions

The idea of ​​requiring the smelter to reduce its arsenic emissions had been rejected by the D^r Arruda, during this September 2019 meeting, reveals his report.

The arsenic level in the Notre-Dame district averaged 100 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m⁠^⁠3) in 2021, well above the Quebec standard of 3 ng/m⁠^⁠3reported The Pressin March — the foundry is allowed to exceed it, however, because this standard came into effect in 2011, well after it began operations in 1927.

“Why is there no health and safety target proposed by the DSPu? asked the D^r Arruda a person participating in the meeting.

“It is more important to focus on immediate concrete actions than to tear us apart over a target to be reached, for which the company has already said that it was not able to achieve it. achieve”, he replied, referring to the idea of ​​an “intermediate target”.

The air quality file in Rouyn-Noranda is “taken seriously by the highest authorities of the government”, however assured the D^r Arruda, even mentioning the possibility of ” [r]open the Foundry’s decontamination certificate to demand additional actions”, which was never done.

The foundry’s clean-up certificate, which lasts for five years, expires this year and its renewal is in progress.

Advisor to the Minister… or not

Horacio Arruda had traveled to Abitibi-Témiscamingue “as an adviser to Minister D^r Lionel Carmant”, he specifies in the minutes of the meeting, information that Radio-Canada had reported on Monday and that the minister’s office had initially denied.

“The information reported by Radio-Canada [lundi] morning is false,” had told The Press Minister Carmant’s press attaché, Lambert Drainville, adding that “the D^r Arruda was not acting as Minister Carmant’s adviser. »

Contacted again on Tuesday, the minister’s press attaché qualified: “What we said [lundi]is that never the D^r Arruda has only been appointed as an adviser to Minister Carmant”.

The D^r Horacio Arruda and his successor, the D^r Luc Boileau, did not respond to numerous requests from The Press since Monday.

Anger

The Directorate General of Public Health must explain the decision of D^r Arruda to withdraw the appendix on cancers from the report made public in 2019, thunders the deputy for Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue, Émilise Lessard-Therrien.

“Are there other data that we are trying to hide from people in my region? she asked.

The gesture of D^r Arruda “undermines the confidence” of the population in the authorities, for its part estimated the ARET committee, which had attended the meeting of September 26, 2019 and which had mentioned the annex in question in various communications since.

“We thought it was important to publicize this appendix, declared to The Press a person in charge of the organization, Nicole Desgagnés. It’s really disturbing and disturbing. »