Rachel Plotkin, a caribou expert at the David Suzuki Foundation, says Guilbeault’s threat to create a unilaterally protected habitat in Quebec for declining herds is a “bow overhead” sign that Ottawa is ready to do so. tough after years of playing well.
“As an activist involved in advocating for tools under the Endangered Species Act, I am very excited to see that a minister seems ultimately willing to put those tools into play,” she said in a recent interview.  .
Plotkin says the federal government asked counties to draw up plans to protect critical caribbean habitats in 2012. However, he said, Ottawa was reluctant to force them to comply, although herds continued to shrink due to habitat destruction. .
“This shows that the federal government is tired of waiting for the provinces to do the right thing (and) their patience is running out,” he said.
In a letter dated April 8, Guilbeault gave the Quebec government until April 20 to provide him with its plan to protect the caribbean and their habitat.  If the plan is deemed inadequate, Guilbeault said he would recommend the cabinet to issue an ordinance to protect parts of the animal habitat in Quebec territory, regardless of provincial objections.
Speaking north of Montreal on Thursday, Guilbeault said that while Ottawa had recently reached an agreement with Alberta on a protection plan and was negotiating with British Columbia and Ontario, “unfortunately, there seems to be little will on the part of the Quebec government. to find common ground. “
He said he still hoped to reach an agreement with Quebec that would avoid the need for a decree.
Jeremy Kerr, a professor of biology at the University of Ottawa, said Gilbo’s move was “a sharp reminder that provincial environmental ministries must actually fulfill their responsibilities.”
He said the federal environment minister would not casually decide to enforce Ottawa’s will in a province – especially in a province that strongly opposes federal intervention.
“If the federal minister is willing to get into this kind of potentially controversial situation with Quebec, then the minister is willing to do it potentially anywhere,” Kerr said in a recent interview.
Anne-Sophie Doré, an attorney at the Center Québécois du droit de l’environnement environmental law team, said Ottawa had issued emergency orders to prevent imminent threats to a species, including the cessation of construction work in southern Cyprus. of the western choral frog.  But the action Guilbeault is considering has not been done in the past, Doré said.
Contrary to emergency orders, a decree will protect “habitats as a whole” and could last for five years, he said.  The Endangered Species Act, he added, imposes sanctions for non-compliance with the order, adding that Quebec may try to challenge it in court.
Guilbeault said Thursday that the protection order would cover about 35,000 square kilometers in Quebec.  The whole land should not necessarily be left untouched, he said, but “additional measures” should be taken to ensure the survival of the caribou.
Kerr said the decree could contain many different elements, “ranging from the cessation of land use activities that affect caribbean survival in these areas, to a kind of requirement that the management of these areas be very different from that which is today.  “
He said countless studies have shown that caribou need dense old-growth forests that provide food and shelter from predators.
But governments have been reluctant to curtail industrial activities such as logging, which have replaced older trees with newer ones and created paths that allow predators to have easy access to caribou game.  In order to protect caribou, there is no doubt that industrial labor in their territory should be significantly reduced, Kerr said.
Quebec Prime Minister François Lego said on Tuesday that Gilbo’s ultimatum was another example of the involvement of Prime Minister Justin Trinto’s government in areas of provincial jurisdiction.  Quebec, he said, has an independent committee examining caribbean protection that seeks to strike a balance between “protecting jobs that are important in some parts of Quebec”.
But Kerr, Plotkin and Doré all say that successive Quebec governments have shown that they are unwilling to take action unless their hands are forced to do so.
“The status quo cannot continue if we want to have a future where wildlife survives and recovers,” Plotkin said.  “Hopefully this federal shot will spur these changes.”
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 17, 2022.
– With records from Stéphane Blais at St-Jerome.