Thank you. I think it's reasonable to have those consultations.
Again, this is the environment committee, so I looked at the science. One of the most robust reports I could find was from Ecological Applications in the United States, which cites that Serrouya et al., in a 2019 study, “synthesized the results of several recovery actions applied to southern mountain caribou.” Although it's the same species, it is a different ecotype. Our B.C. and Alberta examples are ones that we can look to for the remediation efforts that have been undertaken. The report notes, “They concluded that wolf reductions and combinations of multiple measures, such as wolf reductions and maternal penning, were effective at increasing caribou population growth.”
I took note of the Saulteau First Nations in B.C., part of an indigenous-led effort that has been guarding maternity pens with rifles and removing predators as they come about. That has increased the population there from 36 to 135 as of 2022.
We have emergency decrees. We have emergency meetings that we don't know will be going towards the consultation of this. Everything is an emergency, so it seems to me that we should act with the urgency that reflects results happening imminently. The evidence seems to show that in totality, penning and predator reduction are the most imminent ways to increase the caribou population.
Now, there are long-term implications. There could be increases in coyotes and beavers. Wolves could figure out how to change their behaviour to avoid the reduction or culling of these animals, so it might not be the long-term solution. You would have to do it in perpetuity. However, rather than just destroy communities, destroy forestry industries and destroy livelihoods, would it not make sense to take action that is imminent, that makes sense immediately, that will halt the reduction, that has been proven to halt the reduction in caribou populations and that will in fact increase it? It's a measure we can work on with the appropriate government of authority over wildlife and natural resources, which is the provincial government. We can work with industry and find the old-growth forests that make sense to be maintained and make sense to be protected. Would that not be a reasonable approach that solves a lot of the problems of this innate emergency that we're facing?
I'll start with Ms. Simard, and then I'll open it up to other panellists.