Environmental Offenses in Mont-Wright | ArcelorMittal fined 14.5 million

ArcelorMittal is fined approximately $14.5 million – the largest ever imposed in Quebec for environmental offenses – for acts committed about a decade ago at the Mont-Wright mining complex, on the Côte- North. The case is not over since the steel giant has turned to the Quebec Court of Appeal.

Julien Arsenault
The Press

Negotiations between the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) and the defense led to an agreement on the sanction. The joint suggestion of the two parties was endorsed by Judge Julie Riendeau, of the Court of Quebec, Friday at the Montreal courthouse.

“The prosecution is very satisfied with the outcome,” said Mr.^e Donald Barnabas at The Press.

Last October, ArcelorMittal, which made around US$15 billion in profits last year, was found guilty of more than 90 charges under the Fisheries Act as well as the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations. In her 74-page decision, Judge Riendeau concluded that the company had carried out harmful spills in addition to having produced “false or misleading” statements and incomplete reports.

The alleged facts took place from 2011 to 2013. ArcelorMittal had already appealed the decision of Judge Riendeau. The multinational did not want to explain why it saw things differently than the Court of Quebec, the court of first instance.

“The total amount of the fine is therefore subject to the decision that will be rendered by the Court of Appeal and could therefore be less than what was determined by the Court of Quebec”, specified in an email the door- word of ArcelorMittal, Annie Paré.

The Mont-Wright mine, whose activities started in 1974, is the largest open pit iron deposit in Canada. It has reserves for another three decades, according to the Luxembourg-based giant.

New Quebec record

In Quebec, in 2014, the American company Cliffs Natural Resources, which at the time operated the Lac Bloom mine, on the North Shore, was fined 7.5 million following a hundred violations – such as toxic spills – against Fisheries Act.

In terms of the country as a whole, Teck Coal received the biggest slap on the wrist, with a $60 million penalty in March 2021 over spills in two rivers in British Columbia.

“We are in the presence of an amount [14,4 millions] which may seem significant, but when we look at the profits of these companies, we see that the effect is not that much of a deterrent to bad practices”, deplores Rodrigue Turgeon, lawyer and co-spokesperson for the Coalition Québec mieux mine .

During a telephone interview, he did not hide his astonishment to see ArcelorMittal appeal the case because it “refuses to pay”. Mr. Turgeon criticizes the behavior of the multinational which, in his opinion, “hijacks the judicial process to divert from its criminal responsibility”.

In this case, a numbered company that had been convicted of five counts was fined $600,000. The first shareholder of this company is EQP Cooperatief, established in the Netherlands. She was associated with ArcelorMittal from February 2013. According to the judgment, she owned 15% of the Canadian subsidiary of the multinational with other investors.