Economy and Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said on Wednesday that the land on which battery manufacturer Nothvolt will set up shop is not the Garden of Eden.
Mr. Fitzgibbon assured that the project complies with environmental rules, despite the publication of a report showing differences in the evaluation of the Northvolt project and that of a real estate developer.
“It’s not the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve will bite the apple,” he declared in a press briefing. It’s land that was contaminated, it’s land where the CIL was, contaminated for years. Talk to the people of Saint-Basile[-le-Grand] and McMasterville, it is a land that was forgotten. »
The Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, defended the integrity of the evaluation that was made of the battery manufacturer’s project.
According to the minister, Nothvolt obtained authorization from the ministry because its project preserves wetlands which constitute the habitat of the least bittern, a threatened bird species, unlike that of the real estate developer MC2.
A Radio-Canada report published Wednesday reports that the Ministry of the Environment used scientific references to refuse the MC2 project that were omitted in its decision to authorize that of Northvolt.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) demanded Wednesday that the auditor general look into the Northvolt file.
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