CQDE suing Quebec over environmental registry

The Quebec Centre for Environmental Law (CQDE) is suing the Quebec government for its failure to put the public environmental information registry online within an acceptable time frame, which “compromises citizen participation and environmental protection.”

The CQDE lawyers denounced “a continuing lack of political will,” while the public register for environmental information is “seven years too late.”

The Environmental Quality Act (EQA) has been in effect since March 23, 2018.

Section 118.5 of this Act stipulates that the Minister of the Environment must maintain a public register containing a range of information on industrial projects and activities.

For example, the register must contain the description and source of contaminants caused by a project, the type of discharges into the environment and the conditions that a promoter must respect, the prohibitions and the specific standards applicable to the activity.

This tool, the CQDE noted in a press release, “would allow citizens, communities, organizations, the media and municipalities, in particular, to better understand and monitor” environmental issues.

“The absence of this register is a democratic failure. Citizens have the right to know so that they can act,” said CQDE general director Geneviève Paul. “How can we protect our territory if we don’t know what pressures are weighing on it?”

The Northvolt example

In the absence of a register, journalists and citizens often have to make an access to information request to obtain documents that should automatically be made public online. This is usually a long and complicated process.

The lawyers argued that a register would have made it possible to obtain information quickly, whereas “the population and the media have instead been forced to multiply requests for access to information, or even legal proceedings, to shed full light on this project and its handling.”

It was also the CQDE that, along with three citizens, filed an injunction request with the Superior Court last January to demand the suspension of work on the Northvolt battery plant project in Montérégie.

Years of government inaction

Over the years, the CQDE has repeatedly called on the government to respect the law and set up the register.

According to the organization, a recent access to information request confirms that the registry is not in the government’s plans for the coming years.

“After more than seven years of waiting, we are using our last resort. In the absence of political will, we are counting on the law to force the government to respect the law,” said Paul.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews