Today comes into effect, throughout Quebec, the new standard for nickel in ambient air. This goes from 14 ng/m3 at 70ng/m3. Admittedly, the CAQ government is acting in response to insistent lobbying by certain mining companies.
However, it is the citizens who live near facilities related to the extraction and transport of the precious mineral who will pay the price. In Quebec, it is mainly those of Limoilou and Lower Town that will breathe even more nickel. The Port of Quebec, hub of the nickel industry, is located a stone’s throw from their neighborhoods. The nickel transhipped there has impacts on the respiratory system, nervous system, cardiovascular system, immune system, endocrine regulation, teratogenicity (malformations) and mortality. For the government, the risk run by these people is considered “acceptable”. Moreover, for the first time, an environmental standard is established from a provisional management criterion rather than from an atmosphere quality criterion (where the risk should be negligible rather than acceptable) .
It appears that the government has chosen to sacrifice the health of certain citizens, who unfortunately live in the wrong place, for the benefit of the mining industry. Because it is indeed a sacrifice, in the sense understood by Steve Lerner in Sacrifice Zones (The MIT Press, 2012). The author defines sacrifice zones there as places where industrial facilities and residential dwellings are built side by side, where there is no buffer zone to ensure adequate air circulation between heavy industry and the residents. The researcher explains that the populations living in these areas, often with low incomes or minorities, are required to make disproportionate health and financial sacrifices, which more influential people can avoid. According to him, and this deserves to be said, “this pattern of unequal exposure [aux polluants] constitutes a form of environmental racism”.
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