Pierre Dufour says consultations on protecting the caribou population are continuing until May 17.
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Quebec is warning the federal government that its zeal to protect caribou could cost jobs, like the cod fishing moratorium of 1992.
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Ottawa has threatened to intervene directly to save the caribou, using the Species at Risk Act, and demanded Quebec present a plan by April 20.
Pierre Dufour, Quebec’s minister of forests, fauna and parks, said Wednesday negotiations are continuing and consultations he launched are still in progress through an independent committee, and they will continue until May 17.
He compared the federal government’s threat to a moratorium imposed on cod fishing in 1992, which led to the loss of 40,000 jobs but saved the species. Dufour said the committee is going “into these territories where the caribou are, to get the pulse of the population.”
In a letter dated April 8, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said absent a plan he would recommend to cabinet to issue a decree protecting the parts of the caribou habitat on Quebec territory, regardless of the province’s objections.
The woodland caribou was designated a “vulnerable” species in 2005 through Quebec’s law on endangered species, while the mountain caribou was designated as “endangered” in 2009.