Opposition parties urge Quebec not to ram through Blainville toxic waste dump legislation

Opposition parties are asking the Quebec government not to invoke closure on Bill 93, a controversial piece of legislation that would force the City of Blainville to sell a parcel of land to a private company called Stablex to expand its toxic waste dump.

"I never thought we were going to end this with the closure. This is unreal and anti-democratic," Québec Solidaire MNA Alejandra Zaga Mendez told reporters at the National Assembly Wednesday.

Stablex and the Coaltion Avenir Québec (CAQ) government have been locked in a very public dispute with the City of Blainville over the last several weeks about expanding a facility that treats and buries toxic waste, contaminated soil and other hazardous materials.

Situated in Blainville, the site is the only one of its kind in Quebec, and Stablex says if it doesn't start work on the expansion project next month, it may have to suspend operations.

"This is an urgent situation that requires us to adjust quickly," Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina said Wednesday.

"I'm asking the opposition parties to work with us," she said.

In order to meet Stablex's deadline, the CAQ would likely have to invoke closure on the bill — effectively shutting down debate and ramming the law through — this week.

Asked about the possibility, CAQ ministers didn't rule it out.

National interest vs. threat to municipal autonomy

Stablex and Blanchette Vézina have argued that if the company suspends operations, hundreds of companies in the province will have no place to safely dispose of dangerous materials.

The City of Blainville says the expansion threatens an important wetland and forest. It disputes Stablex's urgent timeline and says the company has rejected an alternate site proposed by the city because it would cost more money to expand.

Quebec's environmental watchdog, the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE), recommended against the expansion in 2023.

The city also has the support of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, the Quebec Federation of Municipalities, environmental groups and all the opposition parties at the National Assembly, who say the bill poses a serious threat to municipal autonomy.

They also note that roughly a third of the waste Stablex processes comes from the United States.

The CAQ government has maintained it's in the "national interest" of Quebec to ensure there's no interruption in service at the facility, and that Bill 93 is the best way to do that.

Liberal, PQ governments closure champs

Invoking closure is a controversial way for governments to limit debate and force through legislation.

"We're totally against that. The CAQ still has time to take out the bill and to listen to the population," Zaga Mendez said. 

This would mark the sixth time the CAQ has used the measure, having rammed through other controversial pieces of legislation such as health care reform, the secularism law Bill 21 and immigration reform.

That would put the CAQ in a tie with the previous Liberal government, which invoked closure six times.

The measure was much more widely used in the past, when it was often used to force through several pieces of legislation at one time.

A change to the rules in 2009 limited invoking closure to one bill at a time.

The Parti Québécois (PQ) government under Lucien Bouchard and the Liberal government under Robert Bourassa each invoked closure on 53 pieces of legislation.

Defending using the measure in 2020, Premier François Legault used a hockey analogy, saying that the PQ was "the Alexander Ovechkin of closure," the Liberals were "the Sidney Crosby of closure," and that his government was "the Dave Morissette of closure."

NHL stars Ovechkin and Crosby each have more than 1,600 points in their NHL careers so far. 

Morissette, a long-retired enforcer for the Montreal Canadiens over two seasons, garnered zero points in his career.