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Premier François Legault recently gave a little pep talk to Quebecers during one of his regular media scrums. Actually, it was more like a lecture.

In an unscripted preamble before answering journalists’ questions, Legault waxed about the strategic, environmental and economic benefits of Swedish lithium-ion battery maker Northvolt deciding to build its massive North American plant in Quebec.

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“That’s how we’re going to eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions. That’s how we’re going to create wealth so that we’re capable of better financing health and education without raising taxes,” Legault said, describing the importance of Northvolt in Legault’s own long-term vision for Quebec. “Because if we’re always opposed to every project, well, we won’t be able to address the major challenges that are before us. We owe that to our children, we owe that to future generations.

“So my message today is pretty clear: we have to change our attitude in Quebec.”

And that, in a nutshell, explains the problems now dogging the Northvolt venture.

Arrogance.

There’s no denying the $7-billion Northvolt plant is a coup for Quebec. It’s the biggest private investment in the province’s history. The Trudeau and Legault governments are also offering big incentives, including $4 billion from Ottawa and up to $5 billion from Quebec in various forms of financing. More importantly Northvolt is a step toward Legault’s ambition of leveraging Quebec’s relatively clean hydro power to build the green economy of the future. With the electrification of transportation already underway, Quebec has the potential to become a hub for battery development and production — a thriving part of the nexus of electric vehicle manufacturing in North America.

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Nevertheless, the project has aroused skepticism about the speed with which it was approved, the ecological significance of the site where construction is already underway, and whether rules were bent in the haste to roll out the red carpet for the manufacturer.

With trees being felled and shovels in the ground, the court challenges are multiplying, the access-to-information requests are proliferating and the scrutiny is intensifying.

First there are questions about the suitability of the location itself, a 170-hectare tract of land that once hosted an explosives factory that straddles St-Basile-le-Grand and McMasterville, about 25 kilometres east of Montreal.

Economy, Innovation and Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon once described it as “probably a place where the fish have three eyes” due to contamination.

But the Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement and three citizens who sought an injunction to stop tree cutting last month said the site contains wetlands and has significant ecological value. In support of its bid — which was ultimately rejected by the court — it filed an earlier assessment by the Quebec environment ministry biologist denying a proposed housing development in the exact same spot for those reasons.

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Radio-Canada this week published a comparison of that first report and a second one by the same ministry biologist green-lighting the Northvolt facility, where some of the earlier concerns about the sensitivity of the biodiversity were absent.

Asked about the discrepancies, the sometimes flippant Fitzgibbon was defensive.

“It’s not the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve took a bite of the apple,” he insisted. “It was a property that was contaminated. It was a property that was left on its own for many years … It’s a property that was forgotten.”

Perhaps the Bureau des audiences publiques sur l’environnement would have been able to settle this matter once and for all. But the Northvolt plant is exempt from an independent examination — one of the government’s key missteps.

Last year, Quebec changed the rules on the size and scale of electric battery projects that must be subjected to BAPE analysis. This excluded Northvolt, before it even made the decision to set up shop in Quebec.

The alteration was made with little fanfare just two weeks after a lunch between Fitzgibbon and Northvolt cofounder and CEO Paolo Cerruti, a freedom of information request by La Presse revealed. The meeting was not previously declared and took place before the company registered as a lobbyist.

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Fitzgibbon claimed there was no link between the meeting and the rule change. But should we take the word of a minister who has been investigated by Quebec’s ethics commissioner at least half a dozen times?

Nevertheless, Fitzgibbon keeps insisting that Quebec has some of the strictest environmental laws in the world and Northvolt will respect them, so BAPE hearings are unnecessary. Perhaps. But that’s not the point.

Skipping a BAPE review may have saved some time, given Northvolt’s intention of having the factory operational by 2026, but it robbed the whole project of the social acceptability full and transparent hearings might have provided. The independent body’s stamp of approval would have helped rally people behind the project and convince the public that this is the brilliant investment the government claims. Instead, people are left wondering what’s being hidden.

The mistrust does no favours for Northvolt, either. In numerous interviews aimed at quelling public concerns, Cerruti has said that sustainability and ecological responsibility are in part of the company’s “DNA.” He seems genuinely mystified that Quebecers could be against a huge investment in transformational technology by a green company.

Who knows what Cerruti was told during the courtship to get Northvolt to Quebec?

Perhaps the same arrogance the Legault government showed towards the approval process simply blinded them to the possibility anyone would oppose the arrival of the battery plant.

Indeed, Legault seems irritated at the growing public backlash, while Fitzgibbon is grumbling about “militant” ecologists and journalists digging up dirt.

Papa Legault can wag his finger all he wants urging Quebecers to “change their attitude.” He has no one to blame for the suspicion but himself.

A little transparency and openness would have gone a long way for Northvolt, the Legault government and Quebecers alike.

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