Transcontinental has “proposed” to invest 45 million in the east of Montreal and to create 100 jobs there at the end of 2019, on condition that Montreal allows it to continue to distribute its Publisac, learned Press.
The bag of advertising notebooks, the fate of which the City could fix in the coming months, has been the subject of an intense public lobbying campaign … and behind the scenes.
According to a document from Transcontinental obtained by Press, the company has put a plastic recycling plant in the balance in an attempt to convince the Plante administration to maintain the regulatory status quo on the advertising books. “Conditional on maintaining the current distribution method, we are proposing to the City of Montreal: a major investment in the circular plastic economy which would make Montreal a leader in the field,” indicates the document that Transcontinental presented to the Mayor Plante on December 2, 2019, according to the company.
At the same time, the commission of elected municipal officials who was considering the future of Publisac was finishing its work. Three days later, she made known her recommendations, largely unfavorable to the company.
In addition to job creation, the company suggested in its document an “increase in the plastic recycling rate in Quebec from 35% to 55%”.
Anti-Publisac recommendations
On December 5, 2019, the Standing Committee on Water, the Environment, Sustainable Development and the City’s Large Parks adopted 10 recommendations resulting from the consultation. The first: that a print advertisement can be placed in front of a property only if the resident has expressly expressed the wish, and that the advertising notebooks are not packed in plastic bags which must be emptied of their contents at the sorting center. .
At the same time, Denis Coderre was paid by Transcontinental as part of a second term of “strategic advice”. He said on November 3 that his advice was for a new recycling plant. Asked by Press before the ballot on November 6 and 7, Denis Coderre assured that he was “not at all” behind this “conditional” investment strategy. “Neither near nor far,” he insisted through his press secretary Élizabeth Lemay.
Two years later, the City has finally not moved on the Publisac file, but the executive committee was to present a draft by-law in June. Mayor Valérie Plante finally decided to wait for the elections to table him.
“We did not want to create turbulence on this issue before,” said Jean-François Parenteau, outgoing mayor of Verdun and responsible for the file at the executive committee in the last administration, in an interview with Press. The decision came from the mayor’s office. ”
Jean-François Parenteau did not stand for re-election on November 6 and 7.
“Enabling environment”
In an email to Press, Transcontinental explains that the company wanted to share its project for a new recycling plant with the mayor at the December 2019 meeting, “while indicating that it wanted to invest in a favorable environment where there would be Publisacs to recycle and manufacture” .
According to our information, the CEO of the company, François Olivier, as well as the president of the board of directors, Isabelle Marcoux, were themselves present during the meeting, which turned out to be tense.
At the same time, the company was also considering setting up its plant in the United States, according to a source familiar with the matter who wants to remain anonymous because it has signed a confidentiality agreement.
In a press briefing during the last week of the election campaign, Denis Coderre also referred to this possibility as he tried to explain the mandate he had obtained for Transcontinental, from 2019 to 2021.
“In the east of Montreal, there was a situation of a factory that we wanted to set up, then we had the choice between Montreal and then on the United States side. So I gave advice, ”said Denis Coderre during a press scrum on November 3.
A bankrupt factory restarted
The City did not follow up on the December 2019 meeting with Transcontinental senior management. In June 2020, Transcontinental nevertheless got its hands on the Enviroplast recycling plant in the Anjou borough. The activities of this facility, suspended for months after the bankruptcy of the previous owner, were then able to restart.
The company says it has invested “several millions of its own funds” in the acquisition, “betting on Montreal, with no guarantee that the City was not going to ban the Publisac”.
Transcontinental refuses to say more about the amount it ultimately invested and the company’s latest annual report gives few details on this subject. It only mentions an acquisition cost of 2.4 million for the plant, “excluding any consideration to be paid which depends on the achievement of operational performance based on the annual production of recycled plastic”.
“We have since invested several million dollars in new equipment, which allows us not only to manufacture recycled plastic granules for the Publisac, but also to use these recycled granules in our products manufactured in our factories in the United States” , explains François Taschereau, vice-president of corporate communications and public affairs at Transcontinental.
Transcontinental says it employs 125 people in its recycling and packaging plants in eastern Montreal.
The company further adds that it has invested $ 1 million in a machine to make paper envelopes. Transcontinental says it prints 24,000 a week, for buildings where the entrance doors to homes are inside.