Action boréale en Abitibi is not surprised by the abrupt exclusion of the Péribonka River Safeguarding Committee (CSRP) from the consultation table that must define the protected area project for the river.1. We were entitled to the same treatment two years ago when the consultation committee (GOR) on the fate of woodland caribou showed us the door. In both cases, the order came directly from Quebec.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Both are organizations that have been working on a voluntary basis for decades to preserve areas of beauty in this country and bring them to the attention of the general public. And successfully. And in both cases, the Action boréale and the CSRP must confront both the continual arrogance of the forest industry and the now proverbial duplicity of the government, which is only reluctantly committed to protecting the environment. environment, the doors of its offices wide open to lobbyists from timber companies. They are the ones who have squarely taken the place of the CSRP at the Lac Saint-Jean roundtable.
Thus the Boreal Alliance, this collection of mayors-wrens from the region who consider that a protected area constitutes “a considerable threat to regional forestry”, sits peacefully at this table. To have excluded Ève Tremblay, soul of the Péribonka project, as well as her team, is a matter of provocation and personal offense.
The strong tendency animating the band at Legault-Fitzgibbon is clearly apparent. In order to obtain consensus on controversial issues — particularly those which oppose, on the one hand, the proponents of long-term conservation and, on the other, those of short-term exploitation — we immediately exclude those who disagree with the band.
While their natural heritage is being squandered, the contempt expressed towards those who worry about the fate reserved for future generations and who, voluntarily, devote part of their lives to preparing a livable territory for them while respecting democratic processes, this contempt towards them is matched only by that of Trump towards democracy.
Are they now being deprived of their right to speak? The very principle of a democratic society? The seed of a totalitarian drift is well planted on the Plains of Abraham.
The scientists of this world keep telling us that we are on the edge of an ecosystemic precipice and that we must make a radical and immediate shift. However, it is marked, on the electoral sign erected on the edge of the cliff, the slogan of the band in Legault-Fitzgibbon: “LET’S CONTINUE”.
After you, gentlemen…