Report - Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale

Opinions of participants
the expected disturbances” (DM602, p. 83). Regardless of the approval or rejection of
this project, the consequences of this social split will remain, because “there is
already a profound split within the population, and whether the project sees the light of
day or not, this split will remain for years to come” (Municipality of Beaumont, DM619,
p. 50). Another participant added:
Since March 2004, this project has left scars on our citizens which will probably
never go away. Regardless if you are for or against it, I don’t know any citizen
who could state that the social fabric has not been harmed in the Ville-
Guay/Beaumont region.
(Mr. Yves St-Laurent, DM377, p. 187)
Lastly, some participants wondered how the social cohesion could be rebuilt within
the community. For one of them, the bridge between the local community and the
proponent will be hard to rebuild:
If this project gets the green light, the area’s population will feel beaten and
betrayed. […] Many will leave the area, but the wounds will never disappear. The
follow-up committee proposed by the proponent to take charge of this matter and
arrive at solutions will in no way appease any of the bitterness and conflicts, and
will quickly become a source of strife in itself. Things will only get harder.
(Mr. Jacques Levasseur, DM460, p. 9)
Impacts on the natural environment
Several participants, becoming more and more conscious of how fragile ecosystems
are and how human activity causes environmental degradation, were concerned by
the project’s impact on the natural environment (Mses. Louise Cazelais Côté and
Stéphanie Côté, and Mr. Réal Côté, DM177, p. 2; Ms. Mélanie Jalbert, DM437, p. 1;
Mr. Pierre Morency, DM434, p. 1). In this respect, one resident of the île d’Orléans
quoted a Cree saying: “when the last tree falls, the last river is poisoned, and the last
fish is caught, only then will you realize that you can’t eat money” (Ms. Yvonne
Tschirky-Melançon, DM524, p. 20). For another participant, “whether we like it or not,
we are all involved collectively in a fight to save our immediate environment. It is
being degraded on a yearly basis exponentially, given that our efforts to protect it are
weak and totally insufficient” (Mr. Claude Lapointe, DM197, p. 2). Québec solidaire
underscored the necessity of taking into account the cumulative impacts of human
activity on the environment:
Rabaska Project – Implementation of an LNG Terminal and Related Infrastructure 59