Bloc accuses Liberals of making woodland caribou a partisan issue

(Montreal) The Bloc Québécois accuses the Liberal government of making the forest caribou a partisan issue.

Yves-François Blanchet urges the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, to refrain from imposing a decree and instead discuss the issue with forestry experts and the Quebec government.

“I formally ask the minister to admit that the Quebec forest is not under federal jurisdiction, it is an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec. It is only in this framework, both in environmental terms and in purely economic terms, that a solution must be found to the current crisis concerning the woodland caribou. The crisis is serious and it is getting worse,” declared the Bloc leader at a press briefing in Ottawa on Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Blanchet suggested to Mr. Guilbeault that he suspend the consultations and resume them after September 30, once those of the Quebec government with the First Nations have been concluded.

On June 21, the Court of Quebec ruled in favor of Mashteuiatsh and Essipit, who felt they had not been adequately consulted by the Legault government. The latter has until September 30 to rectify the situation.

He stressed that he had spoken more than once to the provincial Minister of Natural Resources and Forests, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, and that she is “totally in good faith in this matter.”

According to Mr. Blanchet, imposing a decree is “the worst solution.” “I am convinced that there are possible solutions so that Minister Guilbeault will decide that it is preferable for him, in substance and in political terms, to abandon this eminently ill-advised decree. At the very least, make a gesture of good faith and delay the continuation of the consultations until after September 30,” he said.

“The only solution, which we have been advocating for months, is a discussion between the extremes on a model which, in the medium term, will ensure the preservation of the species. This discussion must be calm, serious and based on knowledge and science,” he added.

Another argument brought up by the leader of the Bloc Québécois: the timing is bad. “In the middle of summer, people from the forestry sector are in the forest. It’s the worst time to consult people for whom this is their main period of activity,” he said.

An “eminently political” reasoning

Mr. Blanchet is concerned about the repercussions on the forestry industry and certain regions of Quebec.

“The minister reacted with astonishing lightness, almost mockingly, to the analysis made by the Chief Forester of Quebec according to which there would be 1.4 million cubic metres of wood that would be removed from the possible harvest in the forest. I think that Minister Guilbeault must realize what 1.4 million cubic metres of wood is. For example, that is twice the total loss of wood from the major fires of 2023. If the major fires of 2023 were a terrible tragedy for the forestry sector, imagine what the effects of the decree would be, which are double that loss.”

Mr. Blanchet believes that Mr. Guilbeault’s reasoning is “eminently political.”

“There is a kind of short-sightedness, a bit ideological and surprising. The minister is not imposing a decree on the oil industry so that it retains its activities off the coast of Newfoundland, which is an area where the right whale normally hangs out. But no, the oil companies will be able to go prospecting to go explore and, eventually, exploit.”

In his opinion, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is “indifferent to the fate of 2,000 workers, entire villages threatened with closure and two companies that are suffering greatly: Boisaco and Chantiers Chibougamau.”