Bloc not doing enough to block caribou decree, accuses Quebec

Photo: Spencer Colby The Canadian Press Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette in Ottawa, Oct. 1, 2024

Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette arrived in Ottawa Tuesday presenting himself as the victim of an unfair federal decree “that sets back the cause of the caribou.” He is asking the Bloc Québécois to demand its abandonment more firmly.

“I would like the Bloc Québécois to very assertively demand the withdrawal of this threatened decree. I would like the Bloc Québécois to say that the money supposedly left on the table is a sham,” Charette said during a press briefing held at the federal parliament.

Quebec’s environment minister traveled to Ottawa to meet with federal officials and assure them that his government is doing enough to protect caribou. He argues that a federal order protecting the species would be devastating to the economy of the affected regions. He did not inform his federal counterpart, Steven Guilbeault, who was unaware of the visit that morning. “Unfortunately, [the federal environment minister] has not heard our message in recent weeks. We said to ourselves: why repeat ?” justified Mr. Charette.

The Quebec minister met with representatives of the Conservative Party of Canada, which mentioned the caribou issue among its reasons for defeating the current government, and the Bloc Québécois, the second opposition party, which these days finds itself in a good position to bargain for the survival of Justin Trudeau's government.

The final form of the caribou decree should be known by the end of the year, while Ottawa examines the results of the consultations that have just ended. The federal government assures that it will abandon this decree if Quebec presents its own caribou protection plan.

The Bloc defends its record

“He has a recent tendency to tell me what I should or should not do,” reacted Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, who defended his record on the matter. “Quebec, in a document that they sent us, they say the same thing as us,” also reacted Bloc MP Mario Simard.

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The party made several appearances over the summer to call for the abandonment — or at least delay — of the decree that Ottawa plans to impose in forested regions of Quebec. Mr. Blanchet also suggested acting as a mediator himself to find an agreement between the two levels of government.

These efforts were, however, overshadowed by comments published on the X platform early Tuesday that shocked Minister Charette. Yves-François Blanchet states that “the decree on caribou is suspended and will not return in 2024, and probably not at all,” while boasting of having obtained “money to finance the preservation, transformation and transition of certain forest practices.”

The Trudeau government is proposing to Quebec the payment of $443.4 million by 2028 for various nature conservation projects, details a letter obtained by the Devoir, provided that his government agrees to conclude an agreement on a caribou protection plan by Christmas. A misleading promise, according to Quebec, since it compiles money promised in a variety of federal programs, such as the federal program to plant 2 billion trees, in which Quebec is not participating.

“It's a decoy, nothing more, nothing less. We're confusing extremely different issues,” argues Mr. Charette.

He estimates that the real amount proposed by Ottawa for the caribou is limited to $78 million, an amount that is very far from offsetting the anticipated negative effects of the decree on the economy, which could reach $900 million, according to some estimates. In addition, the sums provided for the protection of nature are not attached to as many conditions in the other provinces, denounces the minister.

Changing the law ?

To Minister Guilbeault, who claims that the Species at Risk Act forces him to adopt such a decree when he finds that a species is on the verge of extinction, Benoit Charette responds that the law must be amended. “When a law is poorly thought out, we change it. The federal law is poorly thought out.”

It is unthinkable, according to him, to apply a single protection recipe to the 35,000 km2 of territory where the three caribou herds targeted by the federal decree live. These herds are present in regions with realities that are too different for a “uniform national approach” to be applied, he says, coming to the particular defence of Sacré-Coeur, on the Haute-Côte-Nord, where the Boisaco workers’ cooperative is at work.

The company questioned the very relevance of protecting the critical habitat of the woodland caribou before a parliamentary committee in Ottawa. Indigenous communities, for their part, support the federal approach of an order to protect the caribou.

Benoit Charette was also scheduled to meet with representatives of the New Democratic Party (NDP) on Tuesday, but had not yet confirmed an appointment with Liberal elected officials at the time of writing.