QUEBEC GOVERNMENT & BOMBARDIER STATE CAPITALISM IN QUEBEC DISRUPTS CEMENT INDUSTRY The cement industry reacted with “anger, even fury” Friday after Pauline Marois confirmed Quebec would invest $350 million in a $1-billion cement factory in Gaspésie. But Laurent Beaudoin, the driving force behind the McInnis Cement project, said in a telephone interview that “it’s because these guys are in the markets we’re targeting (in the U.S. northeast), and they don’t want to see us around. We’ve done a lot of work on efficiency (for the future plant) and it’ll be one of the most modern and productive in the world. And they haven’t invested in their facilities in 40 years.” Beaudoin is chairman of aircraft and rail manufacturer Bombardier Inc. and the principal in personal investment firm Groupe Beaudier, which controls McInnis Cement. The industry and unions representing the four existing cement kilns in Quebec said they were gobsmacked by the announcement of the funding for McInnis Cement, which announced it would go ahead with the vast industrial project that will start construction this spring. At completion, slated for 2016, it would produce 2.2 million tons of cement powder annually, with a possible 15 per cent increase subsequently. Michael McSweeney, president of the Cement Association of Canada, said in a telephone interview that “our members are feeling anger, even fury” that the vast sum of taxpayer money Quebec is spending would harm his four members, whose businesses were built with private financing. The four Quebec plants received a total of about $7 million in funding for various projects from Quebec over the last 25 years, he said. The project is not only unnecessary, McSweeney argued, but would seriously exacerbate the cement overcapacity that is expected to last for another decade. montrealgazette/business/Cement+industry+furious+after+Quebec+gives+million+competing+factory/9456247/story.html
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 10:35:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015