A Montreal holding company will be listed on Canada’s Environmental Offenders Registry for violating PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) regulations at a low-rise office building, known as the Baltex Building, in the city’s Cartierville precinct. Yesterday, 4422236 Canada Inc. pleaded guilty and was fined $260,000 for failing to comply with an environmental protection order to remove and dispose of a transformer containing prohibitively high levels of PCBs.

Enforcement officers with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change first issued the order in September 2018 then found the transformer still in use during a follow-up investigation in June 2019. The fine will be paid into the federal Environmental Damages Fund, which is used to support community-based environmental and conservation projects.

Under the PCB regulations, electrical equipment with a PCB concentration of more than 500 milligrams per kilogram, equating to 500 parts per million (ppm), was to have been taken out of service no later than December 31, 2014. Looking to the future, electrical equipment with a PCB concentration of more than 50 mg/kg or 50 ppm is slated to be removed from service no later than December 31, 2025.