The province says the emergency decree announced last month by Ottawa is a “unilateral and illegitimate decision by the federal government.”
Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette and provincial Forestry Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina have informed federal Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault that their government will not participate in consultations on the development of an emergency decree to protect caribou.
In a six-page letter sent on Wednesday, the provincial ministers reiterated that the emergency decree announced last month by Ottawa is a “unilateral and illegitimate decision by the federal government that is categorically rejected by Quebec.”
Ottawa’s approach “constitutes an unspeakable affront and is in opposition to the respect for the sharing of constitutional powers between the levels of government,” the ministers contend.
Not only will Quebec not participate in consultations to determine the scope of the decree, but “the federal government must fully assume the economic and social consequences of its decision,” the ministers warned.
Those consequences, according to Quebec, include “a minimum loss of 2,000 jobs, and that’s just for the proposed zones (covered by the decree).”