Ottawa and Quebec are not seeing eye-to-eye, again. With the fate of woodland caribous at stake, the federal government is flexing its muscles, and Quebec is far from happy.
Woodland caribou, the iconic bellwether species that graces the reverse side of the Canadian 25-cent coin, are in peril.
The North American subspecies of reindeer is also at the center of a heated tussle between Ottawa and Quebec, the third dispute in the past three years over a species at risk between the two orders of government, underscoring the tension that exists between federal and provincial jurisdiction in environmental protection. “It’s a shame to see this kind of tension between the provincial and federal governments, because everyone agrees that it’s first and foremost up to the provincial government to put in place sufficient measures to ensure adequate protection of biodiversity,” says Marc Bishai, a lawyer with the Quebec Environmental Law Centre in Montreal.
