Northvolt factory project | An undeclared lunch with Fitzgibbon

A call and email exchanges with civil servants, a lunch with Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon: Northvolt had discussions with the Legault government without registering in the lobbyist register, and contrary to what the company claimed, these exchanges are occurred long before the government changed the rules to avoid a public environmental assessment.

The Swedish multinational, which plans to build a “gigafactory” of battery cells in Montérégie, had discussions with the Ministry of the Economy, Innovation and Energy at least four months before its first mandate declared lobbying, show emails made public following a request under the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information aimed at obtaining communications between the two entities.

On November 23, 2022, someone representing Northvolt, whose identity is redacted in the documents, spoke with an industrial development advisor at the metallurgy and industrial products department of the Ministry and two employees of Investissement Québec .

“As agreed during our call today, here are the people to contact,” the official then wrote in an email in English, who provided the contact details of an analyst and a manager of the tax measures department for businesses in the Ministry of Finance.

On February 6, 2023, Pierre Fitzgibbon himself had a “lunch” with Northvolt’s chief executive officer (CEO) for North America, Paolo Cerruti, the minister’s agenda indicates.

Two weeks later, on February 22, Quebec tabled a proposed regulatory amendment having the effect of preventing the Northvolt project from being subject to an evaluation by the Bureau d’audiences publique sur l’environnement (BAPE).

This chronology contradicts the CEO of Northvolt, who claimed not to have had any discussions with Quebec before this regulatory change, in an interview with The Press requested by the company.

Read “Wetlands on Northvolt Field: “Reaction took us by surprise””

“This regulation was modified before our very first exchanges with Quebec,” assured Mr. Cerruti. We had nothing to do with it. »

Registry of lobbyists

All these steps took place without Northvolt being registered in the Quebec register of lobbyists, where it is required to declare its activities intended to influence ministries or provincial and municipal elected officials.

It was not until May 3, 2023 that the company registered, retroactively reporting a lobbying mandate that began on March 24, 2023, and aimed to “identify potential commercial and regulatory support” and “obtain financing to to build and operate a factory” in Quebec.

Northvolt has, however, been registered since January 27, 2023 in the federal register of lobbyists, where it must declare its activities intended to influence federal ministries and elected officials; she even declared that she expected to receive funding from the Quebec government “during the current fiscal year.”

At the end of October 2023, the multinational also obtained a loan of $240 million and a capital investment of $200 million US dollars (approximately $275 million Canadian dollars) from the Quebec government.

These steps also took place before Quebec refused, on March 7, 2023, to authorize the real estate project of the company Quartier MC2 on the land now belonging to Northvolt, because it “undermined the conservation of biodiversity “.

Read “Wetlands on Northvolt land: a real estate project blocked in the spring”

“Certain officials” from the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks were informed “in March 2023 [qu’]a potential factory in the battery sector could be established in Saint-Basile-le-Grand,” admitted in an email to The Press a spokesperson for the Ministry, Ghizlane Behdaoui.

Northvolt defends itself

Northvolt declined to grant an interview to The Pressbut maintained in a statement sent by its spokesperson Emmanuelle Rouillard-Moreau that “it is the governments of Canada and Quebec which proactively communicated with [elle pour l’]invite you to consider Quebec as a potential site for its future battery factory.”

The Swedish multinational also invokes an exception in the Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Act which allows representatives of a company to be exempt from the obligation to register if lobbying does not represent “a significant part” of their activities.

This exception is also criticized by the Quebec lobbying commissioner, Mr.^e Jean-François Routhier, who sees it as “an excuse which excludes [beaucoup] lobbying activities”.

The objective of the register of lobbyists is to “allow citizens to take note of the representations made to those in public power,” he recalled in an interview with The Press. “It’s important for citizens to know this and be able to react. The citizen’s right to information is a fundamental right,” he said.

The office of Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon responds that “it is the responsibility of lobbyists to register in the register”, and maintains that there was “no discussion” on the regulatory modification during the lunch of February 6, a meeting organized “at the request of Investissement Québec,” declared the minister’s communications director, Mathieu St-Amand.

The Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy refused to indicate whether thresholds for environmental assessment were discussed during an official’s call with Northvolt on 23 November 2022.

“The elements of discussion with the companies are confidential,” declared its spokesperson, Jean-Pierre D’Auteuil.

“Another blatant example of lack of transparency”

The undeclared exchanges between Northvolt and the Legault government are, for the environmentalist community, further proof of the need to have the Swedish multinational’s project examined by the Bureau d’audiences publique sur l’environnement (BAPE).

“This is another blatant example of the lack of transparency that encompasses the Northvolt file,” said the general director of Nature Québec, Alice-Anne Simard. “It shows that there may have been pressure to change the rules. »

The company would also benefit from submitting to a BAPE evaluation, because it would promote the social acceptability of its project by listening to public concerns and being transparent, says M.^me Simard, adding that she would also avoid wasting time with controversies and legal challenges.

The general director of the Quebec section of the Society for Nature and Parks (SNAP), Alain Branchaud, agrees: “People are not against this project, they are really against the way it is built. . »

The “discussions behind closed doors” between Quebec and Northvolt also worry Greenpeace, with Patrick Bonin, head of the organization’s Climate-Energy campaign, highlighting the “billions at stake”.

“The government shot itself in the foot”

To Prime Minister François Legault who called on critics of the Northvolt project to “change their attitude”, Alice-Anne Simard replied that “it is rather the government’s attitude of circumventing environmental rules to accelerate certain projects that it must change.”

Read “Contestation of the Northvolt project: “We need to change our attitude in Quebec”, says Legault”

“The government probably harmed itself more than anything else, it shot itself in the foot, we find ourselves with a project that has less and less social acceptability,” she says.

Alain Branchaud says he believes in the good intentions of the government and Northvolt, but believes that “they are going about it the way they did in the 1940s and are trying to circumvent the modern processes that we have put in place to ensure that they have the best possible projects and the most positive outcomes for society.”

In addition to environmental concerns, which have received more publicity until now, the project can also have socio-economic impacts, he emphasizes. “These issues need to be discussed. »