Northvolt should turn Quebec into a major EV player. So why are people so unhappy?

MONTREAL — In late September, Quebec Premier François Legault announced his government had attracted the largest private manufacturing investment in the province's history, which he said would transform Quebec into a global player in the electric vehicle supply chain.

In the rush to attract Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt's factory, the Legault government committed $2.9 billion while Ottawa chipped in $4.4 billion. And the province quietly changed environmental regulations that resulted in the project avoiding Quebec's public consultations bureau, known as the BAPE.

His group sought a court injunction to protect wetlands and stop clear-cutting on the 171-hectare site, which straddles two communities about 30 kilometres east of Montreal. It lost that application but continues its legal fight to invalidate the environment minister's approval of preparatory work at the site.

But Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette has said a full BAPE review would in fact have taken 18 months and led the Swedish company to look elsewhere. Before the project was announced, the government increased the threshold of battery production needed to trigger a review, raising it to 60,000 tonnes a year from 50,000.

In defence of Quebec's autonomy, language and culture, Legault has limited immigration — against the wishes of the business sector. He has introduced a language reform that manufacturing companies say will force some of them from the Quebec market. And Legault has increased out-of-province university tuition as a way to reduce the number of English-speakers in downtown Montreal, despite the protests of Montreal's mayor.

Laurence Bherer, a political science professor at Université de Montréal, agrees there is a disconnect in Legault's messaging, but she said Quebecers are far more concerned about his lack of consistency on the environment.

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