More than half of the 2,000 job losses estimated by Quebec as a result of the federal decree on caribou would affect forestry companies operating in an area straddling the Côte-Nord and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions.
The province recently indicated that it estimates there would be a minimum loss of 2,000 jobs when Ottawa implements a possible emergency decree to protect the caribou, and on Friday, provincial government officials gave some details on the nature of the jobs that would be lost.
Companies cutting in the habitat of the Pipmuakan caribou herd would be hardest hit, with 1,041 job losses, according to estimates by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.
Of these, 692 are direct jobs and 349 are indirect jobs.
The Pipmuakan caribou herd is estimated at 300 individuals.
In the Charlevoix region, where only around 30 caribou remain in year-round enclosures, a total of 609 jobs, including 405 direct ones, could be lost, according to Québec.
In Val-d’Or, where the caribou population consists of just nine animals also living in a pen, the decree could result in 340 job losses, including 226 direct jobs.
According to the Ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts (MRNF) definition, direct jobs “are those in harvesting companies and processing plants”, while indirect jobs are “those linked to the supply chain, for example, forest machinery repair.”
Government officials said they had come to the conclusion that at least 2,000 jobs would be lost in Quebec following the adoption of a federal emergency decree to protect woodland caribou, based on an analysis published last week by Quebec’s chief forester, Louis Pelletier.
According to this analysis, the decree would lead to a 4.1 per cent reduction in allowable cut, equivalent to 1.4 million cubic metres of wood per year.
Methodology
The Chief Forester’s estimates “are in gross merchantable volumes”, according to the MRNF, which “applied reduction factors” to “obtain impacts in net merchantable volumes”. Estimates of job losses were “calculated using the Quebec intersectoral model based on Statistics Canada data”.
Last June, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault made good on his threat by officially initiating proceedings to impose a decree on Quebec to force the province to protect three caribou populations: Val-d’Or, Charlevoix, and Pipmuacan.
The majority of caribou populations in Quebec have been in decline for several years, and logging operations are the main cause of this precarious situation, due in particular to logging roads that destroy habitat and encourage the displacement of caribou’s natural predators, such as bears and wolves.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews