A limestone and clay mix sits in a pile inside a warehouse at Holcim Ltd.'s cement plant in Untervaz, Switzerland, on Wednesday, July, 17, 2013.Gianluca Colla/Bloomberg
The survival of a $1.1-billion project to build a state-of-the-art cement-making plant in the Gaspé region is threatened if work is suspended to allow for environmental hearings, McInnis Cement says.
The Quebec company said in a court filing made public Monday that more than $450-million will have been spent by the end of the year on construction equipment, supplies and services at the work site in Port-Daniel-Gascons, Que.
"A suspension of the work at this advanced stage of the project" would "not only imperil the survival of the project but in no uncertain way cause considerable financial losses" for McInnis, its suppliers and other players, a filing in Quebec Superior Court said.
The company – which has been engaged in a bitter fight over the project with rivals Lafarge SA of Paris and Swiss-based Holcim Ltd. – also alleges that the merger between the two multinational giants now under way would likely result in less incentive to upgrade their older facilities in Quebec and make them more environmentally friendly.
Lafarge – which is 21 per cent indirectly owned by the Desmarais family of Montreal – is trying to stop McInnis' project only because it fears the arrival of a lower-cost, environmentally friendly competitor, according to allegations in the filing.
Another high-profile family in Quebec, the Beaudoin-Bombardiers, owns a controlling stake in McInnis.
Lafarge and two environmental groups are seeking to halt McInnis' project on grounds it should not be exempted from a full review by the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE).
McInnis says it has confirmed on more than 30 occasions over the project's 20-year history that it is exempted from the BAPE process.
McInnis also said it is false to claim that the project is getting provincial subsidies and that only a handful of jobs will be created.
Government involvement in the project is limited to a $250-million loan, a $100-million equity investment by Investissement Québec and up to $100-million from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in partnership with the Beaudoin-Bombardier holding company Beaudier Inc., according to the court document. There is no 10-year tax holiday, as some news outlets have reported, it said.
Over a 20-year period, the Quebec government will take in about $359-million in tax revenue from the project, the filing claims.
Lafarge Canada Inc. declined to comment because the matter is before the courts.
Bertrand Marotte