Absence of public environmental register | The Quebec Environmental Law Center sues the government

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

CQDE lawyers denounce “a continuing lack of political will”, while the public register of environmental information has been “awaited for 7 years”.

The reform of the Environmental Quality Act (LQE) has been in force since March 23, 2018.

Article 118.5 of this law stipulates that the Minister of the Environment must keep a public register containing a range of information on industrial projects and activities.

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

This tool, noted the CQDE 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 in order to be able to act,” said Geneviève Paul, general director of the CQDE.

“How can we protect our territory if we don’t know what pressures are weighing on it? “, she added.

L’example de Northvolt

In the absence of a registry, journalists and citizens often have to make a freedom of information request to obtain documents that should automatically be made public online. A process that is often long and complicated.

The CQDE gave the example of the Northvolt case,

The lawyers argued that a register would have made it possible to quickly obtain information while “the population and the media were instead forced to multiply requests for access to information, or even legal recourse, to do all the light on this project and its treatment.

It was also the Quebec Environmental Law Center which, with three citizens, filed last January a request for an injunction before the Superior Court to require the suspension of work on the Northvolt battery factory project, in Montérégie.

Years of government inaction

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

According to the organization, a recent access to information request would confirm that the register 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 rely on the law to get the government to respect the law,” said Geneviève Paul.

Note to readers: This is a corrected version. In a first version, at 3^e paragraph, The Canadian Press wrote that the Environmental Quality Act (EQA) has been in force since March 23, 2018. In fact, it is the reform of the Environmental Quality Act that is in force. in force since March 23, 2018.