The federal Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, is certain that the Government of Quebec will give itself a delay in its caribou protection strategy which he has promised to publish by the end of the month, but says he is ready to be patient as the province grapples with massive wildfires.
“I think we can understand and we can accept that there are going to be delays,” he said Thursday during a brief interview with The Canadian Press before he took part in the period. questions in the House of Commons.
Mr. Guilbeault pointed out that Quebec is “on high alert” since more than a hundred fires are active and more than 13,000 people have been evacuated. “It is certain that with the forest fires there will be delays,” he said.
The office of Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette was less categorical, reports The duty in the morning.
“It is too early to tell. For now, the filing is still expected in the next few weeks, but we will assess the situation when all the relevant information is available,” it said in a written statement provided to the daily.
The duty also pointed out that the director of conservation for the Society for Nature and Parks of Quebec (SNAP-Quebec), Pier-Olivier Boudreault, noticed that the fires occur in particular in important habitats for caribou. CPAWS-Quebec opposes any postponement of the publication of the strategy by the Quebec government of François Legault.
Ottawa and Quebec were at loggerheads last year when Minister Guilbeault threatened to intervene by federal decree to limit the decline of the caribou population if the Legault government did not move forward quickly with a plan.
“Things are going much better and there is good collaboration,” said Mr. Guilbeault on Thursday. He associates this improvement with the fact that Mr. Charette has been responsible for the conservation file since the Quebec election last fall. Previously, MP Pierre Dufour had this responsibility as Minister of Forests.
“We work well with them. I was still talking to him this morning,” said the federal minister about Mr. Charette.
Mr. Guilbeault specified that he had not yet seen the proposal that Quebec promised to unveil soon, but had heard about it rather negatively from representatives of Aboriginal communities.
“Many are very unhappy with what they saw,” he said from conversations he had on Wednesday. However, he added that he believes Quebec, Ottawa and the Aboriginal peoples “can” reach common ground.
“We are going to give ourselves a little more time, but you have to have this plan. I have a legal obligation to protect caribou habitat,” concluded the Minister.