A dozen municipalities and regional county municipalities (RCMs) of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean submitted the same brief, word for word, to the Independent Commission on Woodland and Mountain Caribou, a document that also conveys falsehoods. on the situation of the species, note experts.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The briefs of the cities of Roberval and Dolbeau-Mistassini, but also of smaller municipalities such as Girardville or Saint-Henri-de-Taillon, are themselves a transcription of passages from the brief submitted by the Alliance forêt boréale (AFB).
This non-profit organization, made up of elected officials from Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and the Côte-Nord, defends the “right to harvest and create wealth by developing the boreal forest” and questions caribou decline.
“We deplore that the Government of Quebec wishes to develop a protection strategy for woodland caribou without really knowing the state of woodland caribou populations across the entire range,” write the AFB and the municipalities that have taken up his memoir on their behalf.
“That’s a bit of nonsense! exclaims Daniel Fortin, full professor in the biology department at Université Laval, woodland caribou specialist and co-author of the joint memoir of the Center d’études de la forêt, the Center d’études nordiques and the Center de la science of Québec’s biodiversity, signed by some sixty researchers from a dozen educational establishments in Québec.
List of municipalities and RCMs having submitted the same brief
- RCM of Domaine-du-Roy
- MRC of Lac-Saint-Jean-East
- Municipality of Albanel
- Municipality of Girardville
- Municipality of Saint-Ambroise
- Municipality of Saint-Henri-de-Taillon
- Municipality of Saint-Nazaire
- Municipality of Saint-Stanislas
- Sainte-Monique-de-Honfleur
- Saint-Eugene-d’Argentenay
- City of Dolbeau-Mistassini
- City of Roberval
The forest industry always tries to cast doubt on the knowledge we already have. There is no doubt that the populations are declining.
Daniel Fortin, professor at Laval University
He criticizes the Boreal Forest Alliance and the municipalities that have taken up passages from his brief for making cherry pickingpicking up data, to retain only those that support their theories.
The famous literature review1 on the caribou, made public last February by the Minister of Forests, Wildlife and Parks, Pierre Dufour, “shows that almost all populations are in decline, but that, they don’t talk about it” , he illustrates.
“It’s bad faith! “, he launches.
Wait… again
The municipalities conclude their brief by demanding that caribou protection “have positive impacts on forest workers and communities” and call for the renewal of the recovery plan currently in force, decried by specialists, who consider it clearly insufficient.
“Asking for delays and delays, which they still do, is deplorable,” indignant Daniel Fortin, who disagrees with the AFB, which claims that we do not know enough about the effect climate change will have on caribou to take action.
We know, in fact, what will happen, [et] the effect of climate change will be very weak compared to that of logging.
Daniel Fortin, professor at Laval University
The memoir co-signed by Daniel Fortin calls instead for rapid and enhanced action, and rejects the two protection scenarios developed by Quebec within the framework of the commission, which he severely stings.
“We consider these two scenarios to be too unambitious, well anchored in the unsustainable economic model that has led to the decline of the woodland caribou, when we should favor a sustainable management perspective based on ecosystem bases and supported by evidence. and the most rigorous scientific evidence”, one can read there.
“current” strategy
Sending the same document by different people or organizations is “a common tactic”, observes Scott McKay, former member of the National Assembly and former city councilor for the City of Montreal, who is additional commissioner at the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE).
“In my opinion, it doesn’t have much impact, because it doesn’t show great credibility. [et] a very high level of commitment,” he says.
It is not the quantity, it is the quality of the argument that influences the commissioners.
Scott McKay
This strategy “can show a certain form of representativeness”, but does not necessarily have more weight, since “the commissioners have the duty to report all the comments”, estimates Stéphanie Yates, professor in the department of social and public communication from the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), specialist in lobbying and public participation issues.
The former vice-president of the BAPE and retired environmental journalist Louis-Gilles Francœur also believes that the value of the arguments counts more than the number of briefs, but underlines that the multiplication of identical briefs “indicates something, a trend”.
The commission he chaired in 2015 on “the challenges of the uranium industry in Quebec” had also received from 482 different people the same brief consisting of five texts prepared by the coalition For a Quebec without uranium.
“You consider it a social fact [et] social facts are part of the environmental analysis,” explains Mr. Francœur.
The Independent Commission on Woodland and Mountain Caribou says that the commissioners “are more focused on content than on quantity”, but that “the repetition of briefs can demonstrate that municipalities and citizens have several concerns about caribou conservation”. , said its president, Nancy Gélinas, in a written statement sent to The Press.
The Order of Forest Engineers is flaying the government
The caribou protection scenarios developed by the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (MFFP) “only fuel the polarization of the debate” between forest management and conservation, regrets the Order of Forest Engineers of Quebec in its memory. The organization, of which many MFFP employees are members, thus refuses to comment on these scenarios, believing that it is rather time to move on to a more global approach to forest management. Affirming that the solutions for the caribou “are well documented”, the Order of Engineers urges Quebec to take action, as well as “a real diversification of the forest industry” which would focus on value rather than volume.
Boisaco denies caribou decline
“There is no report that shows [le déclin du caribou], nor any inventory”, states in its brief the Boisaco forestry company, active in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and on the North Shore. The company fears that caribou protection will have more significant consequences in the region “for the humans who live there than for the woodland caribou themselves”. His position is “difficult to defend and serves above all to sow doubt in people’s minds,” laments biologist Martin-Hugues Saint-Laurent, professor at the University of Quebec at Rimouski (UQAR). “It’s manufacturing uncertainty”, a strategy used in the past by tobacco companies and still today in the climate change file, he observes. Boisaco concludes his memoir by writing that the search for a solution requires that “stakeholders do not remain in a closed position”.
Learn more
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- 144
- Number of briefs submitted to the Independent Commission on Woodland and Mountain Caribou
source: Independent Commission on Woodland and Mountain Caribou