MONTRÉAL - A Quebec Superior Court judge has authorized a class-action lawsuit on behalf of citizens who claim to have been affected by emissions from Glencore's Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Que.

In a 50-page decision released Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Daniel Dumais authorized the lawsuit against the copper smelter and the Quebec government.

The plaintiffs had wanted to claim damages dating back to 1991, but the judge limited that to 2020 due to a statute of limitations.

The Swiss-owned smelter has come under fire in recent years for arsenic emissions that Quebec had allowed to be 33 times the provincewide standard.

In 2022, the province said it would permit the smelter to emit arsenic levels five times the norm, but the company had only succeeded in getting its annual average

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