According to Minister Steven Guilbeault, the Quebec government will be entitled to a two-month consultation period after the imposition of an emergency decree by Ottawa to protect caribou.
During a press briefing Tuesday morning in Ottawa, the federal Minister of the Environment indicated that he had “no choice” and that the law obliges him “to recommend an emergency decree” if a species is threatened.
As “the caribou habitat in Quebec is not protected”, the minister intends to recommend to the federal government to impose protection measures.
“The Quebec government has committed in 2022 to protecting 65% of caribou air. Did you see that in what Quebec tabled recently? No. So they broke their own promise. And this is not the first time that they have done it,” indicated Minister Guilbeault, referring to the protection measures announced by Quebec Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, in April.
These measures only concern three of the 13 caribou populations in the province; they are therefore insufficient, according to the federal minister.
The jurisdiction is clear, according to Guilbeault
It has now been two years since Minister Guilbeault issued ultimatums to the Quebec government to protect the caribou.
When he first raised the idea of imposing measures on the province in April 2022, Prime Minister François Legault deplored the “centralizing” tone of Ottawa and indicated that the protection of the caribou was “a field jurisdiction of Quebec”.
An opinion that Steven Guilbeault does not share.
“For those who think that we have no jurisdiction on this issue, the Supreme Court, in its decision last year on environmental assessment, was very clear. The issue of endangered species is an area of jurisdiction where the federal government can intervene,” indicated the Minister of the Environment on Tuesday.
“The law provides that there is a consultation period. If the cabinet were to decide that we should move forward with an emergency decree, as we did with the chorus frog, there is a consultation period before the decree is put in place. So Quebec still has at least two months, 60 days of consultation,” added the federal minister.
Threatened by human activity
Over time, the logging industry removed much of the old forest and replaced it with younger trees, depriving caribou of their habitat and food. Also, forest roads encourage the movement of caribou’s natural predators such as bears and wolves.
In August 2022, the Independent Commission on Forest and Mountain Caribou submitted a report to the government of Quebec, in which it underlined that there is an “urgent need to act” and that it was necessary to “proceed as quickly as possible to the development and implementation of a woodland caribou protection and recovery strategy.”
A few days after this report, Quebec and Ottawa reached an agreement in principle to protect the species and the province committed to publishing its final strategy on forest and mountain caribou before the end of June 2023.
Minister Charette, however, pushed back the date because of the forest fires which were then hitting Quebec territory. The government wanted to examine the impact of the fires on caribou and logging.
Then, Minister Guilbeault asked the province to submit its strategy before 1er May 2024.
The caribou population has been declining in Quebec for several years. There would only be around 5,000 forest or mountain caribou left in the province.