Fromagerie Boivin is asking the court to invalidate a regulation from the city of Saguenay, which could cost the company up to 360 thousand dollars per year if it were applied.
Transporting wastewater from the La Baie cheese factory to the Chicoutimi treatment plant by truck is at the heart of the problem.
Until March 2019, the Fromagerie sent all of its wastewater to the La Baie treatment plant. The city then wanted to protect the capacity of its La Baie plant, by forcing the company to transport by truck, at its expense, 80% of its loads to the Chicoutimi wastewater treatment plant.
But last March, the city informed the company that it was now imposing a rate on it for the use of the Chicoutimi wastewater treatment plant. The SME has even already received a first invoice, for around 6 thousand dollars, at the beginning of March.
La Fromagerie responds by asking the Court to declare this new provision void.
In its request, the company alleges that it is the only one to whom this pricing applies, and that the city exceeds its jurisdiction, the new policy “(…) not constituting (…) a mode of pricing, but rather a penalty aimed at dissuading (…)” the Fromagerie.
The city “(…) is not financing the service offered by its infrastructure, (…) but rather trying to slow down a mode of use of the service.”
The document describes the imposed pricing as “arbitrary, discriminatory” which is not based on any rationalized data… “to force the modification of the production process (…)” of the Cheese Factory.
In 2007, the Fromagerie paid more than $540,000 to the city for the construction of facilities to transport wastewater to the La Baie treatment plant. The motion presented to the Court maintains that the obligation to transport the majority of wastewater has favored development projects in the Bay.
The owner of Fromagerie Luc Boivin and his attorney refused to grant an on-camera interview. La Fromagerie understands the user-pays principle that the city wants to impose, but refuses to be the only one subject to it. Luc estimates the costs at between 20 and 30 thousand dollars per month, while use of the La Baie purification plant would remain free of charge.
The city has entrusted the mandate of representing it to Me Marc-André Lechasseur, from the Bélanger-Sauvé office in Montreal. She says that around twenty companies will be affected by the new application.
