Fear of arsenic emissions from smelter weighs on moms in Rouyn-Noranda, Que.

Jennifer Turcotte says no one wants to raise kids in a town knowing their backyard, soil and air contain high levels of arsenic.

A resident of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., home of the Horne Smelter which has been in operation since 1927, the mom of three says the solution is not as simple as moving away.

"It's very complex," said Turcotte, standing outside Quebec's National Assembly, taking part in a protest on Thursday.

"We're attached to the area, we love our community… it's extremely difficult to know you have to deal with this risk."

For years, residents like Turcotte have been raising awareness about the need to lower arsenic emissions in her hometown.

While there have been several studies on the effects of Canada's only copper smelter, a 2022 study by Quebec's Institute of Public Health (INSPQ) confirmed higher rates of cancer and pulmonary diseases are directly linked to high arsenic and cadmium emissions in Rouyn-Noranda due to the Horne Smelter.

The co-spokesperson for Mères au front de Rouyn-Noranda, Turcotte is among the locals demanding that those living in the town located in western Quebec face the same level of risk as other Quebecers.

In the early 1900s, prospector Edmund Henry Horne discovered copper and gold in the area, which led to mining and the development of the town of Noranda — which later merged with neighbouring Rouyn.

The smelter was built in 1926, long before environmental norms were established. It is owned now by Glencore Canada, whose Swiss parent company produces and markets a range of metals and minerals worldwide.

In 2024, the smelter announced it was making progress toward reducing arsenic emissions, saying it was down nearly 40 per cent from the year before.

The smelter said about 99 per cent of the urban area of Rouyn-Noranda had emissions of 15 nanograms of arsenic per cubic metre of air or below. Meanwhile, Quebec's provincial norm for arsenic emissions is an annual average of three nanograms per cubic metre.

In 2021, the smelter was permitted to emit a maximum of 100 nanograms per cubic metre of arsenic into the air, or 33 times the Quebec standard.

Arsenic is associated with things like skin, lung, liver and bladder cancer, says Dr. Koren Mann, professor and chair of pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill University.

Having studied the effects of arsenic, she says it's also associated with cardiovascular diseases, immune changes and diabetes.