No sooner tabled than criticized: Quebec’s proposed reform of its forestry regime is far from meeting with unanimous approval.
A coalition of groups has roundly denounced the bill tabled by the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, claiming that what she is proposing represents “major environmental and social setbacks.”
Tabled on Wednesday, Bill 97 aims to create “priority forest management zones” to give the forestry industry a free hand to optimize every hectare of felling.
According to Nature Québec director general Alice-Anne Simard, the government is going too far.
“In priority forest management zones, the plan even goes so far as to ban protected areas, which means banning conservation. Now that’s something! It’s as if the Ministry of Forests is trying to protect itself legally against the Ministry of the Environment,” she said at a news briefing in Quebec City on Friday.
According to Simard, by “compromising the achievement of our conservation objectives,” Quebec could even damage its “reputation on the international stage.”
‘Afraid of losing jobs’
According to the national representative of the Unifor union, Simon Lavigne, the government is making mill supply more precarious in addition to “attenuating tensions with several partners in the forestry industry.”
“This will create a business environment that is unpredictable, more uncertain, and will drive away the investment we need for the future of our industry,” he said.
The trade unionist said that he agreed with the government’s desire to preserve jobs in the forestry sector, but that it was not going about it in the right way.
“We’re not going to get there with a quick ‘boost’ based on short-term profitability, on more cuts in the end, on more powers shared between the ministry, the chief forester and the industry,” said Lavigne.
He pointed out that more than 30,000 jobs were lost in the forestry sector over the past 25 years. “We are sick and tired of losing jobs,” he said.
Meetings behind closed doors
The coalition also criticized the opacity of the consultation process carried out prior to the tabling of the bill.
“All we had were meetings behind closed doors with confidentiality agreements,” said Simard.
Questioned at the news briefing about the reasons given by the government to justify the confidentiality agreements, the Nature Québec director general said: “What they told us was that they wanted to ensure that their team could take the time to work on the bill and not have to waste time answering questions from journalists. That’s why we didn’t want to talk about it.”
Several unions will be organizing their own consultation on May 20 in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, on “the future of the forest.”
“We really want to create a context for social dialogue that doesn’t currently exist,” said Lavigne.
The coalition criticizing the bill includes a number of forest stakeholders, such as environmental groups, unions and outfitter managers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 25, 2025.
