Local candidates and Quebec Green Party Leader Alex Tyrrell met with Claude Bouffard of the RPLPN, as well as Lac-des-Plages Mayor Richard Jean and Councillor Gilles Charest, to hear their concerns about the potential arrival of a mega open pit graphite mine in their municipality. Deeply concerned for the future of the region in the face of a mining boom, the Green Party of Quebec takes a stand against the construction of the Lomiko mine.
“This mine will have devastating and catastrophic effects on biodiversity, on water and air pollution and on the industrialization of a beautiful region with a recreational and tourist area. Everyone here is opposed, including the 25 municipalities of the Papineau MRC. The citizens are mobilized to say no to the project, to protect their living environment, their homes and the environment. If this huge open-pit mine project, located between two lakes, goes ahead, the region will never be the same again. The water will be polluted, the air will be filled with dust, the roads will be destroyed by industrial trucking and no one will want to live here,” said Green Party Leader Alex Tyrrell, who has lived in the area since childhood. Not only is the Green Party opposed to this project, but our election platform, the New Green Plan, aims to give all municipalities in Quebec the power to veto mining activity, pipeline crossings and development projects that they deem not to be in their best interests. With the entire MRC opposed, the Quebec government has no legitimacy to authorize the project. The area is incompatible with mining activity.
The Green Party of Quebec supports the Regroupement de protection des lacs de la Petite-Nation (RPLPN) and considers such pressure on municipalities to be intolerable and wishes to increase the powers of municipalities. The GPQ believes in strong local communities, with control over their development, and the right to say NO to economic development projects. Decentralization of power will allow municipalities to ensure their own development, while respecting their environment and their interests, and while respecting their values. “It makes no sense for municipalities to fight to protect their resources and territory and be turned down by the Quebec government,” said Alex Tyrrell.
The day before his visit to Lac-des-Plages, Mr. Tyrrell made a statement in front of Mont Rigaud where, once again, the MRC is strongly opposed to a mining project because of the significant ecological impacts, but is being refused by the Legault government to designate the site as incompatible with the mining industry.
The leader of the Green Party was also accompanied by the local candidate in the riding of Papineau, Mélissa Arbour, as well as Luis Alvarez and Karine Steinberger, Green Party candidates in Argenteuil and Bertrand, who are also opposed to the Lomiko mine, which is of concern to Quebecers of all backgrounds.
