(Quebec and Ottawa) Ottawa’s decree aimed at protecting caribou habitat would result in the loss of 2,400 to 30,000 direct and indirect jobs in Quebec, depending on whether the federal government targets isolated populations in certain regions or targets the entire their territory of residence. Villages are threatened, lamented Minister Benoît Charette.
“The approach of the federal government cannot be described as anything other than irresponsible. We are threatening a decree, without knowing what the impacts would be on local populations without having assessed the socio-economic impacts,” denounced Quebec Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette in a press scrum on Wednesday morning.
The economic risk was assessed in an analysis produced Tuesday by the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests, a document that La Presse obtained.
Mr. Charette added that preventing industry from accessing large swaths of forest could undermine the economic security of villages. He took Sacré-Cœur, on the North Shore, as an example. “It not only brings the entire village of Sacré-Cœur to life, but part of the region as well. If we come and place a glass bell on this territory, we literally threaten economic development or otherwise the economic survival of the village,” he said.
Ottawa responds for its part that it is Quebec’s response that is “irresponsible”. “I think it is very, very, very premature to put forward figures and even I would say irresponsible on the part of the Quebec government to put forward figures like that,” reacted the federal Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, in the press scrum before the weekly meeting of the Liberal caucus.
The Trudeau government’s Cabinet gave the green light Tuesday to a decree that would allow Ottawa to “take control of a territory” where the animal lives. Mr. Guilbeault accuses his Quebec counterpart, Benoit Charette, of not doing enough to protect the caribou, an endangered species. Quebec – just like the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa – criticizes the federal government for neglecting the impacts on the forestry industry.
There are still a few steps to take before the final adoption of the federal decree, which should happen before the end of the summer. The government plans to hold a 60-day consultation period.
“Let’s do the consultations and then we will come to the conclusion of which areas we must protect and what the socio-economic impacts could be and how we manage these socio-economic impacts,” explained Minister Guilbeault.
He said he did not have figures on possible job losses in the forestry industry.
On Monday, Steven Guilbeault informed Benoit Charette in writing that he would “recommend to the Governor in Council to adopt an emergency decree to protect the boreal caribou.” The Forestry Sector of the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests “was subsequently asked” to assess the socio-economic impacts associated with a potential reduction in forestry potential if the federal government actually issued a decree to this effect. can we read in his analysis dated June 18.
This analysis makes a preliminary estimate of the reductions in allowable forestry that the decree would cause. This is the reduction in the volume of net wood that can be subject to industrial processing. This volume is or could be the subject of the granting of forest rights aimed at wood processing, it is specified. To measure the impacts, we took into account “the volumes of wood actually harvested historically in order, in the case of job losses, to be able to link them to a specific processing plant”.
Result: “The issuance of a decree for isolated populations [of caribou of Val-d’Or, Charlevoix and Pipmuacan] would cause a reduction in allowable forestry of 1.1 million gross cubic meters per year,” we can read . There would be “an annual loss of added value of $183.2 million” and “an estimated loss of approximately 2,400 direct and indirect jobs.”
And “if the federal decree applied to the entire range of forest caribou and mountain caribou, the reduction in allowable forestry would be 14 million gross cubic meters per year,” it says. “This would have the impact of: an annual loss of added value of more than 2.2 billion per year and an estimated loss of more than 30,000 direct and indirect jobs.”
The document specifies that the calculations are based on an evaluation of the allowable cut produced in 2022 by the Chief Forester of Quebec.
La Presse reported last week that the Legault government had once again postponed caribou protection measures by extending consultation on pilot projects announced in April until October 31. It was scheduled to end on July 30. In April, he unveiled a partial plan to restore habitats, protect territories, supervise uses and make regulatory changes for the very vulnerable herds of mountain caribou in Gaspésie and forest caribou in Charlevoix instead of a global strategy for protecting all of the province’s dozen caribou herds.
Minister Guilbeault recalled that the Government of Quebec had made a commitment in 2016 to implement a recovery plan for caribou populations which continue to decline and that in 2022, it had committed in a joint letter with Ottawa to submit a plan to maintain at least 65% of caribou habitat undisturbed and to consult indigenous populations.
Quebec could still present a plan to protect caribou habitat during the two months that the federal consultation will last.