A Woodland Caribou decree that revives tensions with Quebec

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Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has found himself in another spat with a province, and this time it’s not one in the West.

For months, Guilbeault has been demanding Quebec adopt a new plan to protect the province’s woodland caribou from the impact of logging for industrial activities and road-network expansions, as herd numbers in the province appear to be dwindling.

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Now the federal minister is going over the province’s head, with an emergency decree ordering his own plan, outraging Quebec’s provincial government and the Bloc Québécois.

Last year, Guilbeault told his cabinet colleagues that by law the federal government had a duty to intervene. They told him to negotiate with his provincial counterpart, Quebec’s Environment Minister Benoit Charette, to resolve the issue.

He did. Until last month, when the minister used his federal powers to issue an emergency order to protect caribou habitat in Quebec and prohibit activities that contribute to “imminent threats.”

“I cannot idly sit by and let a species disappear because the Quebec government is not willing to do what it had committed to do,” Guilbeault said in an interview.

In 2023, the Quebec government estimated the caribou population to be between 6,162 and 7,445 individual animals. Ottawa maintains the majority of Quebec’s caribou populations are declining because of the loss or alteration of its habitat.

Guilbeault is known for getting into heated spats with the provinces. The former Greenpeace activist is known for his tense public relationships with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe over the carbon tax, clean electricity regulations and his proposed oil sands emissions cap. He has also clashed with Ontario Premier Doug Ford after the federal government tried blocking a proposed highway in the province using a federal act that was later found unconstitutional.

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This time, he is dealing with a government that reveres questions of jurisdiction like no other province in the country.  

“I didn’t pick a fight with the Quebec government, I think I’ve explained very clearly that I was legally obligated to act the way I did,” Guilbeault said. 

Woodland caribou has been designated a “vulnerable” species since 2005 in Quebec and a “threatened” species since 2003 in Canada. Quebec is home to approximately 15 per cent of Canada’s woodland caribou population.

The emergency order, which could be implemented in August, is still at the consultation stage. If Quebec presents a new plan soon, Guilbeault says he will back down.   

The province argues that it has spent more than $100 million since 2019 on the protection and recovery of caribou in the province and says it is committed to long-term monitoring of herd populations. Quebec recently announced two protected-area caribou projects, representing nearly 100,771 square kilometres.

“Considering all the efforts made in recent years, the Quebec government considers the adoption of an emergency decree unjustified,” said a statement from Charette’s office sent to National Post. 

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Quebec has approximately 500,000 kilometres of logging roads, which Ottawa blames for declining numbers because the roads are used by bears and wolves to more easily hunt caribou.

With his decree, Minister Guilbeault will prohibit activities that contribute to imminent threats against the species. This could mean the industry being required to reforest abandoned roads in Val-d’Or, Charlevoix and Pipmuacan regions. The order could also lead to a decline in logging activity and significant job losses.

“We find it difficult to understand the federal government’s stubbornness in imposing a decree that would have potentially devastating effects for several communities, when Quebec is a leader in biodiversity conservation,” the statement from Charette’s office said. 

In rural communities, mayors and business leaders have expressed their profound concerns with the federal government’s decision.  

In an interview, the CEO of Quebec’s Forest Industry Council, Jean-François Samray, said that if the decree is adopted, the industry could lose 6,500 jobs.  

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“We feel like Quebec has done enough in the last 20 years to be able to present a credible plan to the federal government and show them actions were taken in regards of the caribou,” he said.  

Samray says that with the growing demand in the construction sector, particularly for more housing, the need for lumber will only rise.

Quebec’s chief forester Louis Pelletier, who is responsible for determining the logging potential of publicly owned forests, has said the federal decree announced would reduce the quantity of wood produced in the province each year by 1.4 million cubic meters, or about four per cent.

There are nine caribous in Val-d’Or and 30 in Charlevoix. All of them respectively live in enclosures set up by Quebec few years ago.

According to the feds, the population in Val-d’Or has already crossed a threshold where it will die out, and the one in Charlevoix is very close to reaching it.  

Environmental groups argue that governments must ensure the protection of caribou in the province because the species and its habitats are protected by law both at the provincial and federal levels, caribou are important for biodiversity and they are a spiritual and cultural icon for Indigenous people.

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“Honestly, the province is doing a poor job,” said Martin-Hugues St-Laurent, an animal ecologist and a professor at Université du Québec in Rimouski. 

At this point, he believes Ottawa is better able to protect the caribou than the province. 

“Is Quebec right to stand up to Ottawa? I think it’s a question of pride. If Quebec applied its own law, we would not need the safety net of federal law,” added St-Laurent. 

Guilbeault said he acknowledges the potential economic impact and anger over his decree, but is sticking to it. 

“I’m the minister of environment and climate change. I’m basically the government stick when it comes to the environment. It makes some people happy, it makes some people unhappy. Being a cabinet minister is not a popularity contest,” he said. 

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called the order “Trudeau’s job-killing decree and intrusion into Quebec’s jurisdiction” and promises to scrap it if his party wins government. The Bloc also completely rejects Guilbeault’s decree.

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“It is not Ottawa’s role to deal with Quebec’s natural resources,” said Mario Simard, the Bloc MP for Jonquière, an area that relies heavily on the forestry industry. “We will never, never accept the decree,’’ he added.  

In a press conference on Parliament Hill Thursday, BQ Leader Yves-François Blanchet called on Guilbeault to immediately back down. He also called on him recognize that “he does not have the legitimacy to act alone and replace the government of Quebec”.

“I honestly think that this is not Mr. Guilbeault’s preference. I spoke with Steven (Guilbeault) several weeks ago and he prefers an agreement containing parameters that are likely to preserve the caribou which is his priority … So I ask him to postpone the rest of the consultations until the end of September,” said Blanchet.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have been pressing for an emergency meeting of the natural resources committee of the House of Commons this month to discuss the matter, but the Bloc has not yet supported it.

The Bloc argues that a meeting in July “is the absolute worst time of the year to hold consultations with the industry”, because it’s high season and members of the industry wouldn’t be able to show up.

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Samray, head of the Forest Industry Council, has supported a meeting but doesn’t think summer, the industry’s busiest season, would be real.

“It is always a good idea to have all parties in one room and discuss the future of our industry and make sure we are all on the same page,” he said. “We need to stop making this a provincial-federal issue.”

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com  

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