Environmental group asks court to suspend work at Northvolt EV battery plant
Lawyers for an environmental group on Wednesday urged a Quebec Superior Court judge to suspend the construction of an EV battery factory east of Montreal.
The group, the Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement (CQDE), argued the city of Saint-Basile-le-Grand lacked the authority to greenlight the cutting of wetland trees to make way for the Northvolt plant.
The group also says the Quebec government, which are also named in the injunction request, should have acted to protect environmentally important ecosystems that will be bulldozed to make way for the factory.
“It’s clear now that significant public participation is key for large industrial projects,” Marc Bishai, one of the group’s lawyers, said.
“We want to make sure that people understand and are able to voice their concerns and ask questions to make sure that the democratic process is respected as much as possible.”
When the plant was announced last year, Quebec Premier François Legault and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lauded the multi-billion-dollar factory as a driver of economic growth and a step toward the complete production of increasingly essential electric car batteries in Canada.
Superior Court Judge David Collier questioned the validity of CQDE’s argument. Bishai said a decision is not expected in the case until later this week or early next.
Sabotage
Bishai said his group was unaffiliated with alleged sabotage at the Northvolt site.
An anonymous environmental group circulated a claim earlier this week that they had inserted metal bars and nails into trees at the site, which straddles the communities of McMasterville and Saint-Basile-le-Grand, on Montreal’s South Shore.
“We immediately thought that this is probably a symptom of deep worry in certain parts of the population,” Bishai said.
“Our organization … uses the law and goes before the courts to try to protect the environment and we will continue to do so.”
