The proposed expansion of Quebec The landfill that accepts dangerous waste from the United States has ignited the grass war between the Quebec province government and local leaders, who say they are opposed to our place in the garbage in a local Khatk quagmire.
Local leaders are protesting this step – saying that the state is falling for an American company in the midst of a Customs tariff war between Canada And the United States.
For a year, the Blainville suburb in Montreal refuses to sell a piece of city -owned forest land to facilitate the expansion of Stablex, a company owned by the United States that treats and stores dangerous waste, including 33,000 tons exported from the United States in 2023. Bill Gates A runway as an interest in the company.
Last week Quebec The Minister of Natural Resources and Forests presented a draft law to force the city to sell the land to allow the expansion to move forward, saying that the waste site is about to run out of space and the government should act quickly to avoid stopping dangerous waste.
The company says it provides a safe way to get rid of toxic waste that can pollute the environment, but opposition leaders asked about what Canada You must deal with us waste.
“We are not a tray box in the United States,” Ruba Ghazal, a member of the Quebec opposition, told a news conference. She said it was unacceptable that “the ruling Conservative Party in Quebec is” the confiscation of a city to give it to the United States Trump. “
The case has gained attention yet Investigation last month by Guardian and Quinto Elemento LabMexican investigation unit, which showed that the United States ships more than a million tons of dangerous waste to Canada and Mexico every year.
The opposition of waste exports grow at a time when the Canadians are Registration actively Their resentment of the new administration to Donald Trump. Trump duty 25 % tariffs on Canadian goods and talk about it Seizure Canada in the name of “State 51”. Canadians have responded differently before Pizza components boycott From the United States and Cancel their travel plans To their southern neighbor.
An alliance of environmental groups Call Canada to stop our acceptance of completely dangerous waste, saying that the Canada government “should benefit from the current context of economic tension with our southern neighbors to take a strong position and end the huge import of dangerous waste from the United States.”
Municipal officials say their immediate interest is the protection of about 165 acres (67 hectares) from the swamp of peat and forest lands, where Stablex pays to expand. They say that the company can instead develop what they say is a site less sensitive to the environment nearby, which the government of Quebec has and has been appointed previously to expand.
“I cannot understand why the government wants to confiscate the land for an American company, especially when we have an alternative solution,” said Lisa Paulin, mayor of Pleneville Lisa Paulin.
The Stablex Waste Plant, which is a subsidiary of Republic Services GIANT GARBAGE Company, has been working in the town of Blainville since 1983. In 2023, it has received more than 5,000 tons of contaminated soil and sludge from the United States, in addition to 28,000 tons of various materials including cyanide and nitr acid, according to records EPA obtained through freedom obtained through freedom. He receives waste from Quebec and other Canadian provinces.
Business registration records in Quebec Say Gates has 25-50 % of STALEX voting rights. This is because his investment company has a large stake in Respublic Services, the parent company of Stablex.
A spokeswoman for the Gates Investment Company refused to comment.
The company announces that it always believes in the dangerous waste of burial through “treatment, stability, and then linking it” before placing it “in a safe employment cell” and promised “to get rid of it permanently and without danger to the environment.”
Between 2018 and 2022, Stablex was the largest importer of dangerous waste to Quebec and the second largest importer of dangerous waste in Canada, according to The investigation he published last week by Le Journal QuebecThat analyzed the data obtained by Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab.
In a letter in February to the Prime Minister in Quebec, the CEO of Stablex said that the Blainville website is on the right path to reach its full capacity in 2027, and unless the company is able to open the land on a new storage cell by April 2025, it risks the confrontation of the service that may leave the Quebec industry with no place to get rid of its waste.
“We cannot emphasize enough seriousness,” said Michel Beron, CEO of Stablex. “We have seen in the previous situations where the materials were illegally eliminated or in unauthorized locations.”
In response, Maïté Blacitte Vézina, Minister of Natural Resources and Forests in Quebec, presented a bill to force Blainville to sell its lands to expand. It represents the ruling party in Quebec, which has sufficient voices to agree to the bill.
Stablex says that the plot of land in the city is required because the nearby location in Quebec is very close to the newly created neighborhoods and has muddy deposits that must be removed, which requires 40,000 annual trucks during the city streets every year for two years of construction.
“The Quebec government conducted its own analyzes and took its choice from the interest of the community of Quebec,” said Maxime Couture, a spokesman for the company. He said that the percentage of dangerous materials coming to the site from the United States decreased from 43 % in 2018 to 17 % in 2024.
City officials indicated that the World Environmental Agency Agency in Quebec issued a report last year recommending not to expand and interrogate the company’s confirmation, which it said was developed 50 years ago and was never testing outside a laboratory.
An organization from the municipal governments of the Montreal region also opposes the draft law, saying that confiscating lands from the city violates local rights and is able to face the goals of preserving regional land lands.
