Glencore’s 95-year-old copper smelter in Quebec is a prized asset. It should pay to clean up its act

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Any Canadian who grew up in a mining town knows of the trade-offs that come with relying on a single major employer involved in the metals business.

For residents of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., the ups and downs of the commodities cycle have defined their town’s existence since prospector Edmund Horne staked the first copper claims in the region a century ago, leading to the 1922 founding of Noranda Inc. The mining colossus, whose rise was intricately tied to Canada’s economic development, was eventually absorbed by Swiss-based multinational Glencore in 2013. But its name lives on in the town where it got its start.

While the copper mine closed in 1976, the 95-year-old Horne smelter continues to use imported copper concentrate and recycle copper from old electronic devices (known as e-scrap) to produce 210,000 tonnes of copper anodes that are sent for further processing at Glencore’s CCR Refinery in Montreal. As the only copper smelter and refinery in Canada, with each relying on clean hydroelectricity to power its operations, the Horne and CCR facilities are critical links in Glencore’s global supply chain as the company aims for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Indeed, recycled copper from e-scrap is set to play an increasingly important role in meeting global copper demand that Glencore projects could double annually by mid-century. That has made the Horne smelter in northwestern Quebec a valuable asset among Glencore’s global operations.

But the Rouyn-Noranda smelter also spews huge amounts of arsenic and cadmium into the air – so much so that a study released July 6 by the Institut national de la santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) concluded that the town’s residents are at a higher risk of developing lung cancer than those who live elsewhere in the province. At current pollution levels, the INSPQ projected about 14 additional cases of lung cancer over seven decades among the town’s population of 43,000. Everyone agrees the status quo is unacceptable, and Glencore must do better.

“Either they reduce their [arsenic] emissions to a level that respects the health of the citizens or, unfortunately, we will have to shut down the business,” Quebec Premier François Legault said on the heels of the study’s release. “There will be no compromise for the health of the citizens.”

According the study, the Horne smelter’s arsenic emissions stand at around 100 nanograms of per cubic metre, or about 33 times the allowable limit set by the Quebec Environment Ministry. While the smelter’s arsenic emissions have declined from 1,000 ng/m3 in 1999 and 165 ng/m3 in 2017, reducing them more would require an investment of at least $500-million. And even then, a Glencore engineer recently conceded it would be “technically impossible” to reach 3 ng/m3.

Several prominent voices in Quebec, including folk singer Richard Desjardins, have recently called for the smelter to be closed outright, arguing that Rouyn-Noranda’s economy should transition from the mining and forestry sectors that have been its mainstay for the past century to less environmentally-damaging activities.

Mr. Legault is instead urging Glencore to make the necessary investments to cut its arsenic emissions – if not to meet the provincial norm, at least come much closer to it – and has even offered provincial subsidies to the Swiss-based commodities giant. The Premier argues that provincial tax revenues generated by the smelter’s activities justify subsidizing any investments by Glencore to cut pollution.

A 2020 consultant’s study produced for Glencore concluded that the Horne smelter accounted for 4.3 per cent of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region’s gross domestic product, generating $369-million in value-added. The smelter’s 549 jobs paid an average of almost $107,000 in 2020, or almost 70 per cent more than the average income for workers in Rouyn-Noranda. Employment at the smelter has since risen to more than 600 employees.

The issue has become a political hot potato in the run-up to the Oct. 3 provincial election. Mr. Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec narrowly lost the Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue riding to the far-left Québec Solidaire by 506 votes in the 2018 election and is keen to win it this time.

Québec Solidaire is fiercely opposed to subsidizing Glencore – which posted revenue of more than US$203-billion and profits of US$4.3-billion in 2021 – to bring the smelter’s arsenic emissions closer in line with the provincial standard.

Still, concerns about local air quality have made it harder for Rouyn-Noranda to attract new residents, including badly-need health care workers and entrepreneurs who might help the local economy reduce its dependence on natural resource extraction and processing. Such is the curse of mining company towns.

Glencore should do Rouyn-Noranda right by picking up the tab – all of it – to clean up its act.

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