Quebec’s mayor wants more air quality monitoring stations and is urging citizens to quickly replace their old wood-burning stoves to improve his city’s air quality.
• Also read: Interactive map: What is the air quality like near you?
As noted by our Bureau of Investigation in our air pollution filing, the city of Quebec does not have a rosy record. Analysis of data from Department of the Environment monitoring stations shows that particulate matter concentrations are higher in Quebec than in Montreal in particular.
The station, located on the campus of Les Primevères-Jouvence school in Quebec City, holds the sad record in Quebec for the number of days with poor air quality due to excessive particulate matter pollution (43) in 2021.
Photo Stevens LeBlanc
The station near Les Primevères school in Quebec City is where most days of poor air quality due to PM2.5 were recorded.
A challenge for the whole city
Quebec Mayor Bruno Marchand assures that air quality is a priority for his administration.
“And not just in Limoilou, it’s at stake all over the city,” he said in an interview with the Journal.
“Quebec air quality is improving, but not enough, we need to get better and take strong action,” he said. In particular, he wants to permanently increase the number of air quality measuring stations, and talks are ongoing with the ministry.
Currently, for a few months, the department has eight stations in Quebec, including a new one in the Maizerets sector. The city also installed three temporary stations as part of a sampling campaign last fall. The Port of Quebec will provide data from its two stations. The results will be published in March.
“But we need more,” demands the mayor. We need data so that we can act,” he emphasizes.
“In your file we see the reality of the identified stations, but we don’t have information in places where there are no stations, what about that? It’s not because there’s no measurement that it’s good,” he affirms.
“We need to measure, measure, and measure more to have a portrait of the whole city,” adds Mayor Marchand. How much? He is awaiting the results of the first sampling campaign, which will be presented to citizens in March, before deciding.
He also wants information to be more easily accessible to citizens. “My dream is to have a website or an application in a few months or a few years that will allow us to see what the reality is with air pollution by neighborhood.”
Responsibilities to assume
Bruno Marchand would like more predictability. For example, if citizens are informed a few days in advance that air quality will be poor, they can better adapt and reduce stove usage to avoid worsening smog.
Because if industry and the Port of Québec have to live up to their responsibilities – and the mayor assures that he will follow up closely – Mr. Marchand reminds that citizens also have a role to play in improving air quality .
Wood-burning stoves are responsible for the many days of poor air quality at Primevères station, which is located in a residential area. According to the mayor, there are between 5,000 and 8,000 non-compliant stoves in Quebec City.
Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
“There are politicians who said: well, the mayor is trying to bring this back to the citizens’ court… We can’t say it’s the citizens’ fault, but we have a responsibility,” he points out. If you have a non-compliant oven, you can’t say you don’t have an air quality impact.”
Currently, the city subsidizes 90% of the replacement cost of wood-burning appliances, up to a maximum of $1,000. By 2026, all stoves must comply. He does not rule out increasing the subsidy or tightening the regulations to speed up this transition.
“If we look at the number of bad days in the Quebec region compared to others like Montreal, we cannot tolerate that. We have to work on all the elements, and the citizens have the power,” the mayor said.
“We can’t tell ourselves it’s just someone else’s fault; We all have the ability to improve air quality and I think that matters a lot to people and I think people want to take action.”
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