Since the poison will always be present in the vicinity of the Horne Foundry, let’s keep the citizens away from the poison and build them a place where it is good to breathe. Sixty years after the first warning signals sent by experts, the Quebec government is resigned to a resounding acknowledgment of failure: since it cannot guarantee that it will hold the multinational Glencore in check by imposing the security standard of 3 nanograms of arsenic per cubic meter (ng/m3) in the air, he limply bends the knee and moves the problem elsewhere.
In this poisoned situation where no one, truly, will be able to lift a proud arm of victory, the citizens of the neighborhood where the metallurgical plant has been operating since 1927 remain undeniably the big losers. Not only have we knowingly tolerated, government after government, a situation harmful to their health and staggering levels of pollutants, but the lamentable conclusion of an equation which adds up economy, politics and public health returns to them responsibility for the solution. Ladies and gentlemen, the environment is too harmful to live in, so move your household elsewhere.
The CAQ government found itself stuck with this “hot potato”, which others before it had ignored. We cannot blame him for the characteristic indolence of others: he had the courage to correlate the inclinations and capacities of the company, the concerns and wishes of the population and the opinions of public health experts. But, let’s say it frankly, in absolute terms, these three dials are irreconcilable. Over time, compromises emerged. Rather than just targeting the flagship value of 3 ng/m3we have seen Public Health speak of a “benchmark value” of 15 ng/m3, the acceptable target for the most vulnerable populations. Rather than refute any cleaner redevelopment plan, we saw Glencore and its Horne Smelter promise the construction of a new section of the plant that would reduce emissions at source in addition to implementing transitional improvements to here 2027. But the citizens, themselves, remained camped on their position: the vast majority, they would have liked the government not to be satisfied with the acceptable, but to impose the “security” to continue to live on the outskirts of the factory.
This is not the chosen scenario. In a powerful brief submitted to the government during the citizen consultation conducted by Quebec in anticipation of the renewal of the ministerial authorization for the foundry, a resident of Rouyn-Noranda recounts the long road of battles and revolt that her own family and the population have gone through to arrive at this “false choice” that the government is dangling by consulting the population: the health of citizens or the maintenance of a business and its 650 jobs? Recommendations shouted on the fly to the children who were playing outside by her grandmother and her mother after her – “Come in!” It tastes too much like mine! — right up to her own realizations of adult life, this woman recounts the anger and discouragement of a population abandoned to their fate.
The government therefore announces the displacement of 200 households, which it finances by paying 58 million. Outside the plague zone, citizens are invited to buy a new home or to hope for a space in the homes promised by the CAQ. For many, the expense should have been borne entirely by the billionaire company, which will buy back the land recovered for the sum of 30 million dollars. But there is a pile of absurdities in this file, always on the theme of public enslavement in the face of entrepreneurial omnipotence. In this last sad and sordid chapter for the residents, who hoped that the company would be brought to heel, hope that the negotiations are done with dignity, generosity and elegance. It would be the least of things.