I went several times to Rouyn-Noranda, very well received by the team of its film festival. I see again its chronically polluted Lake Osisko, the baroque forms of the Horne foundry dominating the landscape, the small streets with low houses and the lively cultural life there day and night. Further on, its Abitibi sister Val-d’Or seems wild, fierce and disenchanted, like a town in the Far West. Rouyn-Noranda is more like the flower of the macadam taken from a song by Ferland, “in the shade of the chimneys, with your feet in the mortar, your nose in the smoke”. With, in addition to songs, books, shows, small restaurants and films to pass the time. Refined and asphyxiated clearing in the heart of the boreal forest.
That Rouyn-Noranda has become the capital of arsenic gives me shivers. She had already been there for a long time, mind you. But many secrets remained hidden in the cupboards of the Horne foundry, run by Glencore. Since 1923 copper and precious metals have been poured into these buildings with toxic chemicals, arsenic, lead, cadmium. Industrial waste with deadly fumes pollutes the city with their fumes. Especially in the Notre-Dame district, in the shadow of the dragon, birthplace of the poet Richard Desjardins.
I spoke last year to Jacques Matte, one of the directors of the film festival held there, shouting at him: “Watch out for the arsenic! He replied, laughing as always: “I drink a bowl of it every morning.” » Life goes on against winds and tides. People remain attached to their part of the country, but many are fighting for the rest of the world.
In 2019, a study broke the scandal of the arsenic level that can exceed 100 nanograms per cubic meter in the air (the Quebec standard is three) with catastrophic health impacts: reduced life expectancy, babies born too small, cancers and lung disease galore.
We will have seen so much bounce off this rant in the National Assembly and in the full media. Last March, the Quebec government allowed the Horne Foundry to commit to reducing arsenic emissions to 15 nanograms per cubic meter within five years. A rate still inadmissible. Glencore threatened to withdraw its logs if overly stringent environmental requirements tied its hands. The elect abdicated.
Saturday, at 10:30 p.m. on ICI Télé, the documentary Our Lady of Arsenic, by Christian Mathieu Fournier and Martin Frigon, retraces the course of these intimate struggles. We meet rebellious mothers and fathers, the former deputy of the region, workers, doctors, artists: human faces posed on a tragedy. The factory supports so many workers. Some refuse to bite the hand that feeds them. It creates citizen friction in a municipality where everyone knows their neighbours. Who wants the Horne foundry closed there? Person. Just fix the problem of toxic waste being dumped. The multinational makes concessions to correct the situation. Not enough. Questions at the height of distraught humans arise. What is a home under such clouds? Some citizens would be relocated. Things are heating up in the Notre-Dame district.
The film goes back further. After COVID, resistance groups had formed in 2022 to take to the streets. With demonstrations, fiery solidarity, captured by the camera. The extent of the devastation under the fumes of this factory had been denied over the years: “A silence bought with big blows jobs, sponsorships “, assures a voice. On screen, a mother wants exile for her children. Another intends to stay at the post to get involved for a long time. Artists pour on the fire a dose of lyricism that disturbs and bewitches our ears.
“She looks like a tumor that would have grown there, between the forest and the night. Seen from above, the foundry is suddenly beautiful and almost vulnerable. Its twinkling at night is truly magnificent”, says the young poet Jean-Lou David. Sentences taken from “Arsenic, my love”, his correspondence with Gabrielle Izaguirré-Falardeau, published by Quartz. Both are city kids. Their relationship with these identity buildings spitting death through their chimneys are beautiful and dark.
When Richard Desjardins comes to sing: “We will have baskets full / of black roses to kill hatred”, closed by these words: “And if there is no moon / we will make one”, an angel passes by. Then a choir of children sings this “We will have” in a cry of hope. In the distance, is the death knell tolling? From this film on Rouyn-Noranda, I especially felt its blues. Also the resounding couplet of resistance of the rebellious, raised fists.