Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has given Quebec an ultimatum to come up with a plan by next month to protect three endangered herds of woodland caribou or face a federal order that would ban logging in parts of the province.
The unprecedented move by Mr. Guilbeault has drawn not just the ire of Premier François Legault’s government, which warns that 2,000 jobs could be lost if Ottawa moves forward with its threat of a federal order to protect the habitat of caribou populations in Val d’Or, Charlevoix and Pipmuacan, an area that straddles the Saguenay and North Shore regions.
The federal Conservative Party and Bloc Québécois have also denounced Mr. Guilbeault’s move as a heavy-handed intrusion into provincial jurisdiction and called for the minister to appear before an emergency meeting of the House of Commons environment committee.
The issue is shaping up as a major political issue as the Bloc and Tories wage a battle over which party can best protect the interests of Quebec regions that depend on the forest and mining industries that would be most affected by a federal order to save the caribou. A federal order could force forest companies to spend millions to reforest abandoned logging roads that experts say make it easier for bears and wolves to prey on caribou.
While the Bloc is torn between appealing to progressives around Montreal and conservative-leaning voters in Quebec’s regions, the Conservatives face no such conflict. They are mainly targeting rural Quebec ridings, on top of their current seats in the Quebec City area.
An Abacus Data poll released earlier this month showed the Conservatives and the Bloc in a statistical tie with the support of 31 per cent and 30 per cent of Quebec voters, respectively. The Liberals trailed at 24 per cent, while the New Democratic Party stood at 12 per cent.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to repeal any federal order to protect the caribou if his party wins the next election. He accuses the Bloc of propping up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, referring to it as the “Bloc-Liberal coalition.”
On Monday, Mr. Poilievre visited the Upper North Shore community of Sacré-Coeur, where local forestry workers have erected “Village for Sale” signs bearing Mr. Guilbeault’s image. More than 600 of Sacré-Coeur’s 1,700 residents work directly for the Boisaco forestry co-op and their jobs could be wiped out if Mr. Guilbeault proceeds with his order.
“Our Conservative team in Quebec says No to the Bloc-Liberal decree,” Mr. Poilievre wrote on X, with an accompanying photo of himself and two of his Quebec Tory MPs in front of a placard denouncing Mr. Guilbeault. The riding that encompasses Sacré-Coeur is currently held by the Bloc.
Mr. Guilbeault first announced his intention to seek cabinet approval for a federal order to protect the caribou in the three most “at-risk” ranges in Quebec in June, setting up a 60-day consultation period. The Val d’Or and Charlevoix herds have lived in protective enclosures since 2020 and 2022, respectively, with only nine animals in the first herd and 39 in the second. The Pipmuacan range has an estimated 300 caribou.
“We pursued a collaborative approach, waited for Quebec to table a comprehensive strategy, and it was repeatedly postponed,” Mr. Guilbeault said. “In the absence of a strategy in place, and faced with the imminent threat to these populations, we have a responsibility to act to ensure the recovery and sustainability of caribou.”
Quebec refused to participate in the federal consultation, calling Mr. Guilbeault’s move “unilateral and illegitimate.” In addition to costing about 2,000 forestry jobs, the province warned a federal order would jeopardize Hydro-Québec’s strategy to add 10,000 megawatts of wind power capacity over the next decade.
The Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador rallied behind Mr. Guilbeault, accusing the Quebec government of repeatedly delaying the elaboration of a comprehensive strategy to protect the caribou. And the Quebec Superior Court ruled in June that Quebec had failed in its duty to adequately consult Indigenous communities on the issue.
In early August, however, Mr. Guilbeault announced a 30-day extension of the federal consultation period that had been scheduled to end last Sunday. That pushes the deadline to mid-September, after which Ottawa could still move under Section 80 of the Species at Risk Act, which allows the Minister of the Environment to take unilateral action if he “is of the opinion that the species faces imminent threats to its survival or recovery.”
A progress report released by Mr. Guilbeault’s department in May noted that Ottawa had signed “comprehensive agreements” on caribou-recovery measures with Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories and Yukon. But Quebec and Ottawa have been at loggerheads on the issue since a three-year “co-operation agreement” expired in 2022.
Mr. Guilbeault may be fed up with Quebec’s stalling, and most urban progressive voters – including those in his own Montreal riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie – likely agree with him on the issue. But it is another story in the rest of Quebec.