Glencore must be serious

The author is addressing the administrators of Glencore Canada, owner of the Horne Foundry.

Claudel Petrin-Desrosiers
Family physician, president of the Quebec Association of Physicians for the Environment

Members of the Board of Directors, we wish to bring to your attention recent actions by Glencore Canada which have led to the increase of the nickel standard in the province of Quebec, Canada.

In this case, the Quebec government has raised the daily nickel standard by 14 ng/m³ at 70ng/m³and adopted an annual standard of 20 ng/m³. Strong criticism has been voiced by many civil society groups, concerned about the health repercussions of such a change. It is important to point out that all of Quebec’s 18 regional public health departments, the College of Physicians of Quebec and the Association of Quebec Physicians for the Environment—recognized and credible institutions and groups—have, for their part, , completely opposed to raising standards, citing serious potential risks to people’s health.

The change of standard came following the request of mining companies, including Glencore, helped by around twenty lobbyists^{1, 2}. The company has nickel facilities at the Port of Quebec, Rouyn-Noranda and Nunavik — in most cases, these facilities are located near or even directly in living environments. We are all the more concerned that public health data already shows a higher level of cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, heart diseases as well as a lower life expectancy among these populations living near Glencore facilities.^{3, 4}.

Different types of nickel

The decision taken by the Government of Quebec in this case seems to be based on the unfounded assumption that the type of nickel found in the air in Quebec is the same as in Europe and Ontario. In these regions, we mainly find nickel sulphate, a compound having mainly respiratory effects. The government even denied having a speciation study, which is simply not true.

Indeed, a study signed in 2013 by the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change shows that the ambient nickel found in Quebec is rather a nickel sulphide, a compound completely different from sulphate. Nickel sulphide is recognized for its potentially carcinogenic effects. This is why the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends an annual standard of 3 ng/m³.

However, the new annual nickel standard, adopted by the Quebec government following requests from mining companies, including Glencore, is seven times higher than the WHO recommendation. A dangerous standard, to say the least.

In addition to this fundamental error, several other scientific elements have contributed to founding our unfavorable opinion on an increase in nickel standards. We invite you to read it in the brief, which we submitted to the Government of Quebec in February 2022, before the adoption of the increase in the standard in May of the same year.

We believe that the request made by your company to raise the nickel standard in Quebec, a request supported by strong lobbying pressure and the appearance of economic blackmail, is unethical. It directly endangers the health and lives of entire populations, including in particular populations already considered vulnerable. We urge Glencore to stop putting such pressure on governments now.

In recent years, Glencore has been accused and convicted of bribery, market manipulation and/or fraud by the US, UK and Brazil. Investigations to this effect are underway in Switzerland and the Netherlands.^{5, 6}. In light of these embezzlements that have occurred in other countries, we believe that the situation in Quebec could represent an opportunity for Glencore to regain credibility, if the company decides to align itself with science.

Thus, in order to protect the health and life of the population of Quebec exposed to carcinogenic emissions from Glencore Canada, we ask the company to:

1. adequately cover all handling operations involving nickel and any other carcinogenic mineral;
2. install high-performance filters on its chimneys to adequately capture ultrafine particle emissions;
3. to renovate its buildings and ensure their maintenance to prevent leakage of carcinogenic emissions through the interstices;
4. to make public and display in real time the atmospheric levels of metals measured by its sensors, in particular those of nickel, arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium;
5. to ensure that Glencore’s sensors measure atmospheric levels of metals in PM10;
6. to support the adoption of a daily nickel standard at 14 ng/m³ and an annual standard of 3 ng/m³ in Quebec ;
7. to comply with any standard of the Quebec Atmosphere Cleanup Regulation without asking for a privilege to emit more than the standard, in particular with regard to arsenic.

Following the various corruption convictions, we noted that Glencore decided to modify its board of directors in order to change its culture of corruption and to commit to the path of ESG principles (environment, society and governance)^{7, 8}. We believe that a firm commitment to respect the health of populations, followed by a detailed and transparent implementation plan, respecting science and the above requests, can help demonstrate the seriousness of the shift initiated. by Glencore.