The federal government is not ruling out intervening in the Horne Foundry case, which is in the hot seat because of the deleterious effect of arsenic emissions produced by its facilities on health and the environment.
The federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, pointed out that air quality issues “are almost essentially the responsibility of the provinces” and that the Government of Quebec was “very seized” in this affair, when an announcement about monkeypox in Montreal on Thursday.
The Department of the Environment is analyzing the situation as to whether certain environmental repercussions of emissions from facilities owned by Glencore in Rouyn-Noranda fall within federal jurisdiction.
Mr. Guilbeault alluded to a Radio-Canada report that the smelter was contaminating flora and fauna within a radius of nearly 50 kilometers.
“The federal government has a specific responsibility for the Species at Risk Act. […] This is an element on which the experts [du ministère] also lean.
“I don’t want to tell you this morning that we’re going to do it [intervenir]. We can see that the Government of Quebec is very concerned about this matter, but we still have the responsibility to look in our own areas of jurisdiction to see if the federal government should also intervene. »
In 2021, the level of arsenic in the air measured at the sampling station of the Quebec Ministry of the Environment, located in front of the smelter, showed an average of 100 nanograms per cubic meter (ng / m3), 33 times more than the provincial standard.
“Climate Criminal”
Mr Guilbeault’s press conference was interrupted by a protester who accused him of being a “climate criminal” because of the approval he gave to the Bay du Nord oil project in Newfoundland.
The minister agreed with the protester that more needed to be done to fight climate change.
After the altercation, he defended, in a press conference, the decision to approve the controversial project. He mentioned that the Environmental Agency of Canada had issued a recommendation in favor of the project and that it was important to respect its recommendations to depoliticize the process.
“This is the first time in the country’s history that the federal government has required an industrial project to be carbon neutral by 2050. This is one of the company’s operating conditions. His license depends on his ability to achieve that goal. »
He also said that when he made his decision on the Bay du Nord project, he had rejected a plan to expand an oil sands mine in Alberta that “would have emitted ten times more Greenhouse “.
To the activist who accuses him of being a “climate criminal”, Mr. Guilbeault replied: “In this case, I will accept the judgment of History. »