The lobbyists in power | The Press

Multiple choice question for François Legault.

Is Pierre Dufour, your Minister of Forests, Wildlife and Parks:

• forest industry lobbyist?
• manipulated by its senior officials?
• your pawn?

If the Prime Minister has another hypothesis, I would be curious to hear it. Because what is happening behind the scenes deserves some explanation…

As my colleague Jean-Thomas Léveillé revealed, Mr. Dufour’s department is negotiating with industry on the sly to harvest more wood than the forest can afford.

The file shows the lightness with which the CAQ government treats science and institutions.

The Caquistes believe they are defending a vital industry for the regions. The problem is that they do it with a short-term vision, protecting the jobs of today without thinking about those of tomorrow. By viewing the forest as a two-by-four reservoir instead of an ecosystem. And by relying more on the industry than on the competent authorities.

Things were supposed to have changed though.

In 2003, following the documentary The boreal error, Quebec set up the Coulombe Study Commission. It led to the creation of the position of Chief Forester. It is he who now determines the “allowable cut” – the volume that the industry can harvest, by species and by territory, without threatening the renewal of the forest.

The new forest regime, which entered into force in 2013, was to enshrine this vision^⁠1.

But industry pressures on the Department have always been immense. And even when the policies were adequate, there was a lack of inspectors to enforce them on the ground.

In February, the chief forester announced that the volume of wood was to be reduced by 7% on the North Shore during the 2023-2028 period. Mr. Dufour and the industry have since been maneuvering to circumvent this decline. Among the scenarios studied: cutting small trees or postponing the regeneration of old growth forests. These discussions are taking place without the knowledge of the members of the Integrated Resource and Land Management Table.

Like a good serf, the minister puts himself at the service of the industry, and the Prime Minister endorses everything, saying that he is protecting current jobs without thinking about those of tomorrow.

Mr. Dufour has achieved a feat: creating an “independent” commission on woodland and mountain caribou that does not include a biologist specializing in this subject.

After the Val-d’Or herd, it is now the Charlevoix herd’s turn to be placed in an enclosure. One of the scenarios studied by the commission consists in maintaining the harvest, until their extinction.

However, biologists repeat that Quebec has all the data in hand to act. This commission looks like a pretext to save time. Waiting for the “problem” of caribou existence to resolve itself.

Caquists are better at finding the culprits.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is accused of interference because he wants to protect caribou. Yet he is just doing his job. Species protection is a shared competence.

It is suggested that if Mr. Guilbeault defends the caribou, it is to make people forget the federal approval of the Bay du Nord oil project. Even if the Trudeau government is happy to talk about something else, it is not opportunism. His approach has not changed. Last year he passed an emergency executive order to save the chorus frog when there was little political gain in doing so.

In addition to Mr. Guilbeault, Pierre Dufour has found another villain: the Aboriginals. He accuses the Innu community of Nutashkuan, on the North Shore, of having killed 50 woodland caribou, or 10% of the herd.

Certainly, this hunt is worrying, and Quebec is right to investigate. But Mr. Dufour was incredibly clumsy. Communities are fighting to save this species vital to their culture. For example, in Pessamit, hunting was prohibited. The First Nations are also calling for protected areas to save the caribou, but the minister is blocking them.

The caribou and the calculation of the allowable cut boil down to the same idea: consider this resource as part of an ecosystem and exploit it in a sustainable manner.

But according to the CAQ government, respecting institutions and science would be an activist’s whim.

In his opening speech in November 2019, Mr. Legault promised not to govern Quebec based on “interest groups” such as an industrial lobby.

This is a promise that does not age well.