Benoit Charette “is not the right man” in the Northvolt case, says the opposition

Photo: Spencer Colby The Canadian Press Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette held a press conference in Ottawa on October 1 to denounce the unfair federal decree “that sets back the cause of the caribou.”

Patrice Bergeron – The Canadian Press in Quebec City

Published at 7:10 p.m. Updated at 7:50 p.m.

• Quebec City

Environment Minister Benoit Charette is “not the man for the job,” as his officials denounce political interference in the Northvolt file.

The official opposition responded in this way on Tuesday to communications filed with the Superior Court, which reveal the pressure officials were subjected to to rush through the controversial battery plant project in Montérégie.

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According to exchanges in the Teams messaging system, department analysts felt that the work was shoddy and that there was a lack of transparency.

“Can the Minister [of Economy and Energy, Christine Fréchette] tell us that she supports this way of doing things or will she tell us that she would have done things differently?” asked PQ MNA Pascal Paradis during question period.

“I haven’t felt that we’ve had an Environment Minister in the last six years,” Liberal Leader Marc Tanguay said in a press scrum Tuesday morning.

“He’s clearly not the right man for the job. For us, he’s not a good Environment Minister at all.” »

But he refused to go so far as to ask for his resignation.

“It's up to François Legault to answer that question,” justified his colleague, MNA Virginie Dufour, who stood by his side. “He's the one who made him a minister and he still seems satisfied with his actions.”

Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, for his part, spoke of a “trick or treating” by the CAQ government.

“I really feel like we rolled out the red carpet for a lame duck, basically, that we gave them royal treatment only to realize that it was an extremely fragile startup that is on the verge of bankruptcy,” he said, recalling that the Swedish company is currently in financial difficulty.

“The CAQ has set a very serious precedent, we have modified rules tailored to a multinational, to accelerate a project that is only getting delayed, […] it is a big error of governance,” accused Solidarity MNA Alejandra Zaga Mendez.

Quebec has “almost the strictest” environmental rules in North America, retorted Energy and Economy Minister Christine Fréchette.

“The ministry […] will issue authorizations under the same rules to which all Quebec companies are subject.”