McInnis Cement welcomed the Quebec government’s decision to draft legislation confirming that its Port-Daniel–Gascons’ project is not subject to the environmental assessment process. The company is confident that Bill 37 will dispel the uncertainty surrounding the project and will help in maintaining jobs. The proposed cement plant will create approximately 2,300 jobs per year during construction, including 700 on site. In operation, the plant will provide 400 direct and indirect jobs.
“Our project was duly authorized in 1996, before regulations subjected new cement plant construction to the environmental assessment process,” said Christian Gagnon, CEO of McInnis Cement. “In addition, over the last few days, we have finalized an agreement with environmental groups establishing the creation of a permanent environmental follow-up subcommittee, a customized solution for addressing environmental issues in connection with our project and ensuring long term oversight.”
At the request of McInnis Cement, additional conditions will be formally added to its Certificate of Authorization to operate the cement plant, including:
Continuous monitoring of air emissions from the cement plant.
Compliance with standards more stringent than those currently applied in Quebec to existing cement plants, namely the American standard NESHAP 2015 for new cement plants (National Emissions Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants – new plant).
“We are currently building a cement plant that will become a model in North America for its environmental performance. We agree to subject ourselves to additional conditions with the Government of Quebec, via our Certificate of Authorization to operate. We are pleased that these new conditions, as well as our recent agreement concerning environmental issues, were acknowledged by the government, that has chosen to remove the uncertainty to which the legal application raised doubt regarding our project – in our view primarily an anti-competitive approach,” added Gagnon.
The Port-Daniel–Gascons’ plant will have an initial production capacity of 2.2 million metric tonnes of cement per year. Construction is currently underway and estimated to be completed in mid- to late 2016.
