While Quebec’s agricultural territory is at risk, offenders continue to cause damage with impunity, according to a recent report.
Sustainable Development commissioner Janique Lambert presented her annual report on Thursday, which focused on agricultural practices and land protection.
She noted that the Commission de protection agricole du Québec (CPTAQ) provides “insufficient and ineffective” surveillance of the agricultural zone – surveillance based almost exclusively on the infractions it receives.
Thus, it “does not allow the CPTAQ to detect infractions that are not reported to it.”
It is also “dependent on the ability of citizens and municipalities to detect infractions,” Lambert pointed out in her report.
However, some offences have “disastrous” consequences for farmland, warns the Commissioner, citing recent examples.
“In Mirabel, thousands of tonnes of waste were buried under farmland, while a former sand pit in Sainte-Marie-Salomé was illegally backfilled with potentially contaminated material”, she wrote.
What’s more, “denunciations rarely make it possible to limit damage to agricultural land, since they concern offences that took place, sometimes a long time ago, and which may have harmed the resource.”
“For example, a 1.5-hectare cut had already been made in a maple grove when the report was received. It takes an average of 40 years for a sugar maple to produce maple syrup,” noted the commissioner.
The orders issued to an offender by the CPTAQ are “not very dissuasive since they are not accompanied by any coercive means;” only a contempt of court judgment rendered by the Superior Court can give rise to possible sanctions.
However, between April 1, 2018 and March 31, 2023, the CPTAQ did not forward any files to the attorney general, and consequently did not use the penal sanction mechanism provided for in the law.
However, 116 infractions involving the removal of topsoil or the cutting of maple trees were observed by the CPTAQ.
“These could potentially have been the subject of fines. It is distressing to note that this situation is similar to that found by the auditor general in 1994,” said the commissioner.
In her report, Lambert also criticized the delays in processing infractions: some 21 per cent of complaints received more than five years ago are still in progress. Nearly 90 investigation files have been in progress for more than 10 years.
In her view, “such delays weaken the CPTAQ’s credibility in its supervisory role.”
“Although it has the power to do so, the CPTAQ has not recommended to the minister any improvements that would make its surveillance of the agricultural zone more effective, such as changes to sanction mechanisms,” she wrote.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 25, 2024.