Canada: Former Quebec premier Pauline Marois has announced the go-ahead of McInnis Cement's cement plant project in Port-Daniel-Gascons, Gaspé. Opposition parties and environmentalists have slammed the Couillard government for approving the US$1.1bn project without a review by Quebec's environmental bureau. The McInnis Cement plant could top the list of industrial polluters in the province.
The provincial government plans to exempt the project from an assessment by the Bureau des Audiences Publique sur l'Environnement (BAPE), Quebec's advisory office of environmental hearings. The company has said that the project shouldn't be subject to an environmental review because it was submitted in May 1995, a month before the law requiring such an assessment came into effect.
In 2014, the Marois government announced that Quebec would invest US$350m in the project. The plant will release 1.7Mt/yr of greenhouse gases (GHG), according to an evaluation by a Canadian engineering consultant firm. The greenhouse gas output would make it the top industrial polluter in Quebec.
