Activists fight bypass of hearings on battery plant

The Centre québécois du droit de l'environnement (CQDE) and the three private citizens who unsuccessfully sought an injunction suspending the Northvolt battery project have returned to court, this time to challenge Quebec's bypassing public hearings on the plan.

The CQDE is focusing on a decision last July by the Legault government to modify a regulation that would have made Northvolt subject to an investigation by the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement.

The production capacity of the Northvolt plant will be 56,000 tonnes. The regulation that was changed by the government made battery plants subject to BAPE scrutiny only if their capacity is more than 60,000 tonnes.

“We cannot allow governments to modify norms at the behest of the client. Such a free pass would constitute a dangerous precedent,” CQDE lawyer Camille Cloutier said in a statement.

“In the light of information revealed in recent weeks, it appears to us to be all the more important to ensure the respect for the rule of law and our democratic processes.”

Cloutier said Northvolt and the CQDE will soon return to Superior Court “to establish the next steps in the case.”

Northvolt communications director Laurent Therrien told the Presse Canadienne that the company will let “the legal proceedings take their course” and preferred not to comment on the latest lawsuit.

In January, Superior Court Justice David R. Collier rejected a request to issue an interlocutory injunction halting the Northvolt project pending an assessment of its impact on local biodiversity.