Quebec Solidaire (QS) says it's "dismayed" by the government's reported intention to relocate 200 households located near the Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, information reported in La Presse Wednesday morning.

QS environment critic Alejandra Zaga Mendez said that "asking 200 families to pack their boxes to accommodate a multi-billion dollar company that refuses to respect our environmental standards is appalling."

In a statement, she added, "that the people of Rouyn-Noranda never asked to be uprooted from their homes."

"What they are asking for, and rightly so, is that the smelter meet the three ng/m3 standard, and Glencore has all the means to do so."

An agreement with the government signed in 2017 allows the smelter's emissions to average 100 ng/m3 annually, 33 times the standard.

But that agreement is about to expire.

The Quebec government issued a new certificate to the controversial smelter last January, and according to information reported in La Presse, Quebec will unveil the new ministerial authorization for the Horne smelter on Thursday.

Quebec Solidaire is asking that the government consult the population on the creation of a buffer zone.

"If, at the end of these consultations, the solution of a relocation appears inevitable and that it is a consensus among citizens, it is to the Horne foundry to assume the bill, not to Quebecers," reads the statement issued by Mendez.

Last week, the Horne foundry published a document stating that the concentration of arsenic it emitted into the air in 2022 was 73 nanograms (ng) per cubic meter, less than in 2021, but more than in 2020.

In a document published on its website, Glencore Canada, owner of the smelter, indicated that for the last year, "the annual average arsenic level at the legal station" of the Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda "is 73.1 ng/m3, which confirms that our reduction projects are working."

The smelter therefore emitted 24 times more arsenic on average in 2022 than the provincial standard of 3 ng/m3.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 15, 2023.