The forest industry, not Hydro-Québec, is targeted by the decree on forest caribou

Photo: Valentin Bonnefont SEPAQ The caribou population has been declining in Quebec for several years and logging is the main cause of this precariousness.

The federal emergency decree on the protection of woodland caribou could be amended to accommodate Hydro-Québec projects, its author, Minister Steven Guilbeault, confirmed on Friday.

“There is no question for us of not penalizing the transition to the green economy. That will be part of a conversation with the Crown corporation,” declared the Canadian Minister of the Environment on the sidelines of a press briefing in Trois-Rivières. He had specified earlier in the day that this decree primarily targets “logging activities and the proliferation of forest roads that fragment the habitat as the main risk factors.”

Le Devoir reported that the Neiges wind projects, in which Hydro-Québec is a partner, risk harming the rescue of the Charlevoix caribou. In its current form, the caribou protection decree could thus conflict with the project.

Presented in June as a response to Quebec’s inaction in protecting this threatened species, the decree on the woodland caribou is currently the subject of consultations until mid-September. These consultations could lead to amendments to the text; Hydro-Québec’s activities could therefore be excluded from them. The Legault government has already indicated that it does not intend to participate in the federal consultations.

However, it is up to the Quebec government to find an agreement with Ottawa to tear up the draft decree, says Minister Guilbeault. “My greatest wish is that we reach an agreement with the Quebec government,” he repeated Friday. For its part, Hydro-Québec is “beginning” to participate in the consultations.

Reallocate stumpage rights

The minister also referred to Quebec the entire issue of the impacts presented as catastrophic for the Boisaco company, in Haute Côte-Nord, and for the municipality of Sacré-Coeur, which is at risk of becoming a “ghost town,” according to its mayor. The Legault government has “all the latitude necessary” to “reallocate cutting rights from one region to another, from one company to another,” he says.

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At the same time, Minister Guilbeault was contradicted by a witness who appeared in Ottawa before a parliamentary committee charged with examining the effects of the emergency order on the woodland caribou.

It is “utopian” to think about asking companies in the affected sectors to source elsewhere, given the issues of transportation and competition in the industry, believes Yanick Baillargeon, president of the Boreal Forest Alliance. His group, made up of municipal elected officials from Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and the Côte-Nord, echoes several arguments put forward by the forestry industry.

He cited the example of the village of Val-Jalbert as a community that lost its pulp mill, which led to its definitive decline.

Like Boisaco before him, Mr. Baillargeon argued that the forestry industry has nothing to do with the threat to the caribou, 74% of whose range is too far north to cut timber. “And they say that [the species] is still in decline. Is it really the forestry industry itself that is putting it in danger? ? I think that’s the question that needs to be asked.”

The chief of the Innu Essipit First Nation, Martin Dufour, shared his dream of seeing his children work in forestry, but at the same time seeing a recovery of the caribou sufficient to practice ancestral hunting. Even though his community is a partner in the industry, he approves of the imposition of a federal decree. “I invite the Quebec government to participate with us, and the federal government, to find solutions that will ensure that we save the caribou but also preserve jobs,” he implored.

Why protect

The Conservative Party of Canada continued to hammer home its opposition to the federal decree on Friday, after its leader had outright suggested making it an election issue the day before. “Why protect a territory in the Laurentides Park when the caribou is already safe in its enclosure ?” asked Conservative MP Richard Martel in committee.

The Quebec director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Alain Branchaud, responded that it was to “project into the future” and aim for self-sufficiency for the species. “The goal is not to create zoos everywhere where we are going to have species in enclosures.”

According to an international study, most of the caribou herds in Quebec are at risk of disappearing due to industrial logging that disrupts their habitats, including the mature coniferous forests where they feed. The Quebec government claims that Ottawa's decision will result in the loss of at least 2,000 jobs.

With The Canadian Press