Quebec Judge dismisses application for injunction against Northvolt

Quebec Superior Court Justice David R. Collier dismissed the application against Northvolt for an interim interlocutory injunction on Friday.

This will allow them to resume cutting trees on the future site of their new electric car battery plant in Saint-Basile-le-Grand.

The application had been filed by the Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement along with three citizens.

“If there is a public interest in protecting the environment, there is also a public interest in protecting the legal certainty of activities authorised by the public administration”, the judge wrote in his decision.

According to the plaintiff, the provincial Environment Minister had authorized Northvolt to start working on the future plant site in Montérégie, without knowing the impact it will have on the biodiversity, and without Northvolt presenting a detailed compensation plan.

It also claimed that the city of Saint-Basile-le-Grand had issued a tree-cutting permit to Northvolt based on an “unreasonable interpretation” of the Montreal Metropolitan Community’s interim control by-law concerning wetlands.

“The burden on the plaintiffs is heavy. In the Tribunal’s opinion, the plaintiffs have not succeeded in meeting this heavy burden,” reads the judge’s decision. “They had not succeeded in asserting an apparent right that the actions of the Minister and the municipality were unreasonable on their face. For this reason, their application for an interim interlocutory injunction will be denied.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews