The Quebec Ministry of the Environment has never had the means to assume the protective role it should play, despite all the commitments made over the years by governments. They have instead placed this ministry in a position of submission, particularly in the face of economic interests, writes Louis-Gilles Francœur, a former journalist for the Homeworkin a book just published, entitled The green deposit.
“If we listen to all political parties and all governments, the environment is a top priority. But the Ministry of the Environment has never had, in all its history, half of 1% of the state budget. It’s quite maddening. In this context, does the ministry have the means for its environmental missions? The answer is no,” argues the author, who was a journalist specializing in the environment in Homework for 30 years, from 1982 to 2012.
Ever since it was created in 1979, the Ministère de l’Environnement was supposed to safeguard natural environments for the benefit of the province’s residents. “We thought that it would limit pollution, that it would regulate agriculture, urban development and the industrial sector”, recalls Mr. Francœur, who underlines in particular that at the time, waterways were considered as veritable “garbage cans”.
However, the governments have never given this ministry the financial means that would have allowed it to assume its role. In collaboration with researcher Jonathan Ramacieri, from the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, Louis-Gilles Francœur analyzed the evolution of the budget devoted to the Environment over more than 40 years. Result: “the budget fluctuated between a third and a quarter of 1% of the state budget”.
Over the years, the ministry has even taken a decline in the sums devoted to “conservation”, can we read in the book published by Écosociété. “It shows, in a crude way, that governments have neglected the protection of the environment and ecosystems. And if we added an analysis of forest protection, the picture would probably be worse. »
The former journalist, who knew several Ministers of the Environment and who exchanged on many occasions – sometimes on condition of anonymity – with members of the state apparatus, does not however blame the ministry. “If he lacks resources, it’s not his fault. It’s a decision of the state, and it’s the Prime Minister’s Office that decides on the budgets. And with the book, I see what the effects of historical underfunding are. »
A quiet erosion
In addition to depriving the ministry of the necessary means, the governments imposed on it “an erosion, not to say a cutting up” of its mission of “control” of harmful activities, deplores Louis-Gilles Francœur. From the beginning of the 1990s, its role was inflected, so as to define the authority as a “guide”, in particular for the promoters of potentially polluting projects.
“This change in philosophy still prevails today, which largely explains why, in the popular perception, the Environment now seems more often than not aligned with economic agents, a deadly image for the officials of this ministry. who are struggling with reduced means to carry out their mission”, one can read in The green deposit. The disengagement of the Quebec state in the environment.
In 1998, Lucien Bouchard’s government also decided to withdraw the Department’s “Wildlife” component, which was initially placed under the leadership of the then Minister of Transport. Files related to the wildlife sector were then entrusted to what would become the Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs. A revealing decision, according to the former journalist. “The Environment Quality Act says that the Ministry of the Environment is responsible for the quality of ecosystems. But wildlife is not part of it, because it is managed by another ministry. Can you imagine a more inconsistent management? “he drops in the interview.
Since this change, wildlife expertise has literally melted away, explains Mr. Francœur. “What is the ecosystem state of our forests? Nobody asks that kind of question. There is no longer a research service like there used to be. [Le secteur de] wildlife has historically been the greatest critic of the forestry sector. Today they fixed the problem. They are in the basement of the ministry. And when there are financial drains to be made, it doesn’t happen at the level of forest engineers. It’s happening on the wildlife floor. »
The Ministry of the Environment has also largely lost the supervisory tasks of the mining sector, he adds, referring to the site restoration plans, which are approved by the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. .
Subject to economy
The Ministry of the Environment also has little weight in government decisions, says Louis-Gilles Francœur. The Legault government has thus set aside, in 2020, 83 protected area projects which had nevertheless been proposed by the Ministry of the Environment. He would have set them aside mainly to protect economic interests, including those of the forestry industry.
Supposed to be the prime contractor for Quebec’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan, the Ministry of the Environment has instead served as a “green guarantee”, according to Louis-Gilles Francœur. The reports of the Auditor General and the Sustainable Development Commissioner have shown that departments have spent billions of dollars from the Green Fund without having to submit to rigorous scrutiny. This has contributed to climate failures.
The book also mentions the decline in the number of inspections carried out by experts from the Ministry of the Environment to ensure compliance with the conditions set. And with the reform of the Environmental Quality Act in 2017, the government reduced the number of projects that require a certificate of authorization. A decision that testifies to “an abdication of state control” in the environment.
Louis-Gilles Francœur, who was vice-president of the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement for five years, therefore proposes an examination of conscience. “Should we have an in-depth debate, to ask ourselves what type of Ministry of the Environment we want and what place we want to give it in the government apparatus? It is because I like this ministry that I ask the question, but also because I believe that the people of Quebec deserve a real ministry of the environment. »