A proposed law by the Coalition Avenir Québec government would save the subsidiary of an American hazardous waste treatment company $100 million.
Stablex admitted on Tuesday that its expansion project would cost it $150 million rather than $250 million if the government expropriates land from the town of Blainville.
The CAQ government tabled Bill 93 to expropriate the city’s land at a cost of $17 million, and the bill is due to be studied by a parliamentary committee.
Blainvile was initially in favour of the project, but withdrew its support following an unfavourable opinion from the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) in 2023.
All the opposition parties support the city, which is proposing another adjacent, smaller site already owned by the government, but Stablex doesn’t want it.
The company has stored tons of clay on the site and it would cost an extra $100 million to transport the material elsewhere, Stablex managing director Michel Perron told the parliamentary commission.
Bill ‘unanimously opposed’
Blainville Mayor Liza Poulin said the city intends to challenge the bill if it is adopted.
“The bill is unanimously opposed,” she said, particularly because of its “significant impact” on ecosystems and because it would fragment the large Blainville peat bog, areas she wants to protect in perpetuity.
The Minister for Natural Resources, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, accused Poulin of being misleading and untruthful.
The land sought by Stablex includes nine hectares of wetlands and 58 hectares of woodland.
“The land that has been chosen is one kilometre from the houses, and the land proposed by Québec Solidaire is 300 metres from the houses: I think that the solution to be chosen is quite easy,” Premier François Legault said.
“In Quebec, we produce hazardous waste that can currently only be landfilled in one place, Blainville.”
No less than 17 per cent of the materials processed in 2024 came from the United States, and the permit authorizes up to 45 per cent.
Landfills running out of space
The site eyed by Stablex would allow the company to build a sixth landfill and continue its activities for about 40 years, rather than 24 years on the other, smaller site.
Blanchette Vézina agreed with the company’s conclusions and argued that it was urgent to act and to pass her bill.
Stablex has only two years of storage capacity left, i.e. 400,000 cubic metres, management argued, while two years of preparatory work on the site are needed. It also needs to start cutting down trees.
“If the company cannot start work a few days before April 15, we will be facing a hazardous materials management crisis in two years‘ time,” said Blanchette Vézina.
“The situation is worrying and very real, and I would not want to be the person leading us into this crisis.”
Québec Solidaire’s Alejandra Zaga Mendez accused Blanchette Vézina of being “Stablex’s chief lobbyist.”
No fewer than 600 companies - virtually every manufacturer in Quebec - and “thousands of indirect clients,” in addition to municipalities, rely on Stablex to treat their hazardous waste.
The expropriation of the land in question is “the only solution that will prevent a breakdown in service,” Perron argued.
Otherwise, he said, “we would have a social issue,” because there would be a lack of resources to treat hazardous materials.
“As in the 1970s, the waste would be dumped at the bottom of the site or in the environment.”
Protected land
The site proposed by QS would be 300 metres from a residential area, rather than 1 kilometre, and the company worries it would face legal action from neighbours.
“We won’t invest $250 million to take a financial risk, because Stablex unfortunately emits odours,” said Perron. According to his figures, 40,000 trucks a year travel through the area.
“You have to ask why in 2016 they decided to build houses 300 metres away,” he continued. “It was out of the question for us to move 300 metres away.”
“The risk of prosecution is no less on either piece of land,” Blainville’s mayor shot back.
She praised the ecological quality of the land that Stablex wants to destroy. The area protected by the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, which is also opposed to the project.
The company argues that “these wetlands have been denatured, adding no ecological value whatsoever, it’s just bad drainage that has progressed.”
Ecologists pushed back against this.
“We have no solution other than extreme measures,” said Karel Ménard, director of the Front commun québécois pour la gestion écologique des déchets, who sees the current project as a “risk to human health.”
The Stablex industrial waste treatment centre currently comprises a treatment plant and five landfill cells.
The waste treated includes residual hazardous materials, contaminated soils, and non-hazardous materials with properties of concern for the environment.
This waste comes from the mining and pharmaceutical industries, for example.
Some of it is imported from the United States and other Canadian provinces.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 18, 2025.
