Cowboy Fitzgibbon decided so, so everyone crashes the dry cargo, the green people with them.
For the seven billion dollars we give him, the Swedish “green” battery factory Northvolt will be built in the St. Lawrence River, exactly on the spot where a housing project was started a few months ago. However, the ministry opposed this to the environment because it would have damaged the rich biodiversity of the place. We are talking about 74 wetlands that have become rare in the valley.
But despite all the money that will rain down on the plains, biodiversity is suddenly becoming less abundant. Definitely less important. Enough that the Environment Minister Benoît-la-Charette, listening only to his political survival instinct and the orders of Cowboy Fitzgibbon, agrees to cheat a standard set here for 45 years that requires a comprehensive environmental study before the likely implementation of a project in nature seriously affect. This study is carried out by the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE).
Matamore Fitzgibbon is in a hurry. “Okay, Benoit! We'll do your study, but then! “.
autopsy
After? Instead of an assessment of the living environment of the future Northvolt location, we are therefore entitled to an autopsy. Such a contemptuous approach cannot result in social acceptance. The developer even carried out work on the property before obtaining the necessary permits!
If the choice of autopsy is confirmed, it would be the end of BAPE. Large wild rivers can be made usable without discussion. Big industry will get what it always dreams of: a “freedom for all” that can do what it wants, where it wants.
François-Philippe Champagne, our federal minister, summed up the plan well: “If it’s good for Ford, it’s good for almost everyone.”
The boreal action in Abitibi seems far from the St. Lawrence Valley, one might say, but lithium deposits – necessary for making batteries – lie dormant in Témiscamingue and very close to the Amos-Eskers. These are special geological formations that provide the best water in the world. Without comprehensive protective measures to preserve it, anything can happen. Our regional history has taught us that the law of mines prevails over the divine law. It still prevails.
Mobilization and resistance
At Action Boréale we ask ourselves the question “broadly”: Why are there so few groups that oppose Northvolt? Where is the impressive mobilization that managed to block the deemed useless gas pipeline project in this valley?
What particularly concerns us is the more than timid response from Montreal-based conservationists in Quebec, who generally make headlines when a frog is touched in Laval. On the official pages of Greenpeace, Équiterre, Snap, Nature Conservacy, the Suzuki Private Foundation and the Common Front on Energy Transition – which have hundreds of thousands of members in total – there is still no mention of the Northvolt project… and even less of a call for resistance . What do you have to say to your members today?
Would these large groups support the creation of these supposedly “green” battery assembly plants, but whose effectiveness in reducing pollution is highly questionable?
Are we witnessing a decline over time in the natural and historical antagonism between state industry and these large groups? Ultimately, would they be grateful for the recurring grants and donations that benefit them? In turn, do they not today represent an unprecedented mediator between the people and the government, relying on their new “mediator” friends to convey the unacceptable to public opinion? Whose Northvolt project?
These groups have chosen their approach: silence.
L'Action boréale regrets this.
Richard Desjardins, Vice President
Henri Jacob, President
Boreal action