Environment Committee on Sept. 16th, 2024

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses who have come to committee today for this first day of Parliament.

My questions will be for Ms. Plotkin from the David Suzuki Foundation.

First, over the course of the last couple of weeks, we've heard a lot of conflicting rhetoric around the state of caribou populations, primarily in Quebec. Could you provide us with your take and with what the science tells us about caribou population numbers and how they've changed over the last 10 or 20 years or whatever time frame you have available?

[Rachel Plotkin]

The discussion paper for this committee shows the population trajectories of the three herds that are in question, and these three herds are just holding on. They face imminent extirpation unless measures are taken to restore their habitat and protect remaining viable habitat. At present the Quebec government lacks the political will to take these measures and put them into place.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thanks, Ms. Plotkin.

I often reflect on how many of the obligations we have as elected people don't have much to do with getting elected, in the sense that caribou don't vote. People who care about caribou vote, but caribou can't themselves. Neither do polar bears, and neither do clean and fresh air, water and land, but these are considerations we need to take under advisement when making decisions that are going to affect people, jobs, the economy and the environment.

If you were in our shoes and were part of the government, and you had to make a decision that was inevitably going to affect people's bottom lines at a time like this, when things are expensive and we need to build homes, and homes are often built out of wood.... We have a lot of wood in Canada, but we also have a lot of caribou and a lot of things and places and species to take care of. I won't use the word “balance”, because I know it's not one that you appreciate, but we do need to take into consideration all of these variables.

I have a follow-up question there, and I think I've probably overdone it already, but what would you do?

[Rachel Plotkin]

You need healthy forest ecosystems to maintain healthy employment opportunities. It's the idea of whether it's three legs of a table or whether it's concentric circles; the foundation for healthy jobs is healthy forest ecosystems. As Mr. Bélanger said, what we need are plans, and they need to be SARA-equivalent. That means it's not about mitigating our impacts and just reducing them. It's not about saying we'll protect some caribou habitat.

Caribou is one of the most studied species in Canada. Because of the recovery strategy and the scientific committee that was struck to identify critical habitat, we know what caribou need to survive, and I would take a pause in Quebec to reconfigure forest management so that we're looking first at what it looks like to truly, sustainably manage our forests and then at how we can reconfigure the industry so that it maintains viable wildlife habitat.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you.

Is sustainable logging and sustainable forestry an oxymoron?

[Rachel Plotkin]

No. The David Suzuki Foundation believes that you can have sustainable forestry, but it has to have limits. It can't be continually expanding its footprint into primary forests that have not yet been logged. It has to take into consideration cumulative impacts like hydro, and it has to factor wildlife habitat needs into forest management planning.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thanks.

Given that both the federal government and the Quebec government are signatories to the global biodiversity framework and that this was ratified and worked on in Montreal, are you surprised by a lack of willingness from the provincial government to take it seriously?

[Rachel Plotkin]

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I've been working on this file for a long time, and I've seen a lot of provincial inaction and not just in Quebec. I think there needs to be a system change. We have to change. We have to recognize that we're in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, and we have to recognize that changes to the status quo are needed. In my line of work, everyone says that changes to the status quo are impossible until they're mandated, and then people find a way to make them happen, so I do believe the changes are possible.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Great.

I got to spend some time outside this summer, and it's always really amazing when you see a large, charismatic mega-species out there, and it'd be a real shame if in 25 years or so that was more and more rare.

Is there a province in Canada or a jurisdiction elsewhere, perhaps in another country that has a lot of trees and does a lot of forestry, that is a gold standard that Quebec and Canada could look to for insight and inspiration?

[Rachel Plotkin]

Again, I wish, but a lot of places that are doing the best sustainable forest management now are doing it retroactively, because they've already logged too much. They're leaning in on restoration, but there needs to be a systemic change across all provinces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, the floor is yours.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

It's my turn to thank our witnesses for appearing today and helping us find solutions.

My question is for Mr. Bélanger.

Mr. Bélanger, you were part of the Équipe de rétablissement du caribou forestier du Québec. I imagine you've had the opportunity to talk a lot about forest management. We know that, if we don't talk about management in general, there will be repercussions in terms of climate change, fires, insects and other things.

Can you tell us about your specialty, sustainable forest management?

[Louis Bélanger]

In 2013, Quebec did pass a new act called the Sustainable Forest Development Act. In that act, consideration of biodiversity and development, which was called “ecosystemic”, was at the heart of the new regime. In 2016, Quebec consistently adopted a process to develop a strategy to conserve biodiversity, including caribou. That was part of our national sustainable forest management strategy.

The problem is that it came to a halt in 2021. The collaborative processes that were supposed to allow us to develop our solutions were blocked. Since then, the debate has become ideological, and we are unable to try to find compromise solutions. Furthermore, we knew that the Pipmuacan reservoir sector was probably the area in Quebec where the challenge was greatest. We also knew that Boisaco would probably be greatly affected and threatened, hence the idea of pooling the impact, of finding other sources of supply, so that Boisaco wouldn't have to shoulder the burden of the boreal caribou issue.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'll stop you there, Mr. Bélanger. I think you're right, especially since Boisaco's practices seem to be quite exemplary.

Would you agree that a partnership table, similar to the one you participated in, should be created by the federal government to try to find solutions? As I was saying earlier, you put people in a room and lock the door until they reach a consensus.

[Louis Bélanger]

The federal government could set up this table, but without Quebec, it would lack the forestry data to be able to simulate these elements.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Yes, absolutely.

I'll yield the floor to my colleague Mr. Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Calzado, you may have read the socio-economic impact assessment report that was submitted to the committee. It indicated that there were two cogeneration projects in the area of interest that would be directly affected. These projects already exist, including the cogeneration plant in Saint‑Félicien.

I'm telling you this because there are residual biomass projects that don't yet exist, but that a number of companies are working on. As we know, the forest industry is a chain. If you cut one link, if you reduce the availability of the chips, the entire chain is affected.

I'd like to know whether you can submit to the committee the various projects of your association, of the members you represent, that are directly affected by a decline in forest biomass.

I'd also like to get an idea of the wind projects that are likely to be affected by the area of interest in the order.

[Luis Calzado]

Yes, of course. It's not a problem for us to provide you with that information.

Also, I agree with you that it would have an impact on this industry. The Association québécoise de la production d'énergie renouvelable, or AQPER, for example, represents members who, as you say, use chips in the energy transition, whether for heat or bioenergy. As I said, these products can be used to decarbonize high-temperature sectors, which electrification cannot do effectively. That's why it's important to ensure that these industries aren't affected. Obviously, it's important to maintain cohabitation—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much. We have to move on to Mr. Boulerice.

Mr. Boulerice, you have the floor.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. This is extremely interesting in the context of this debate, which is complex and affects thousands of people, entire communities, who are feeling very insecure.

We talked about balance. Ms. Plotkin, I found it interesting that you didn't like that word very much. It can indeed be quite problematic, because we want to protect and maintain all the jobs or create others as well so that the communities can survive. However, it is true that it's not really a balance when a species disappears, because there is no way to make it reappear afterwards. So it's a bit of a difficult balance to strike.

So I would like to ask you the following question. We've heard from many people representing first nations communities about how boreal caribou are not only part of their identity and way of life, but also that a healthy caribou is proof of a healthy forest and that there is no sustainable development without a healthy forest.

[Rachel Plotkin]

I'm sorry, but was there a direct question?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Yes. What do you think about the survival of the boreal caribou as evidence of the vitality and health of a forest?

[Rachel Plotkin]

I am not the only one who thinks that. Caribou are an umbrella species, and they are a bellwether of a healthy forest. They depend upon intact and mature forests in order to survive, so when caribou are in decline, again, it's a sign that the ecological health of the forest is also in decline.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Plotkin, you've already talked about the measures put in place to date by the Quebec government. As I've asked other witnesses, could you to tell me what measures you consider to be effective?

Is it woefully inadequate to stop the decline of this endangered population?

[Rachel Plotkin]

I think Mr. St-Laurent also addressed this by saying that when you do things like the band-aid measures, like putting up fences or killing wolves, you're basically just kicking down the road the measures that are going to be needed to actually build sustainable employment opportunities and sustainable forests. The measures that caribou need to survive and recover are the restoration of habitat that has been degraded and the maintenance of habitat that helps them to survive.