{"id":16559,"date":"2025-12-10T19:30:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/innu-nation-forum-slams-quebec-government-for-inaction-to-protect-caribou\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T19:30:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:30:19","slug":"innu-nation-forum-slams-quebec-government-for-inaction-to-protect-caribou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/innu-nation-forum-slams-quebec-government-for-inaction-to-protect-caribou\/","title":{"rendered":"Innu Nation forum slams Quebec government for inaction to protect caribou"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>                                        The Innu Nation in Quebec is slamming the provincial government for failing to properly protect caribou herds from climate change, resource development and consequent habitat loss. \u201cQuebec is doing nothing, absolutely nothing,\u201d said Guy Bellefleur, the Innu Nation\u2019s lead on the caribou issue. Bellefleur said it has fallen to his people to manage a resource the province has abandoned. \u201cThe communities with knowledge of the caribou are realizing that they have to take responsibility for the species that has always been their symbol,\u201d he told APTN News. Bellefleur said the Innu Nation\u2019s goal is to ensure the sustainability of caribou into the future and to leave a legacy for Innu children. He added they are willing to work with governments on the plan. \u201cThat\u2019s how we\u2019ll create real partnerships. That\u2019s how we\u2019ll develop our work together with respect. Because if we don\u2019t start now, when will we ever start again?\u201d Bellefleur, a councillor in the Innu Community of Pakua-Shipi, said the Innu Nation held a two-day gathering on Dec. 4 and 5, in the Tshissenitamun Mitshuap Centre at Mani-Utenam, to discuss what to do about the caribou herd. The discussion began with a presentation by Bellefleur and his colleagues offering an overview of the situation for both migratory and woodland caribou. In Quebec, \u201cmigratory caribou\u201d refers to members of the George River and Leaf River caribou herds in the north of the province. Both herds have been in serious decline since their peaks in the early 1990s. According to Polar Knowledge Canada, the George River caribou has collapsed in numbers from some 800,000 in the early 1990s to only 8,100 in 2020. The Leaf River herd has also lost population, but not as dramatically. The Cree Nation Government released research in 2024 finding 155,000 Leaf River caribou remained, down from 430,000 counted by Quebec government aerial surveys in 2011. Woodland caribou, by contrast, live farther south, and have even fewer numbers: a 2023 Quebec government report estimated the remaining population at between 6,162 and 7,554. In some areas, they are considered nearly extinct: according to Environment Canada, there are only nine boreal caribou in the Val d\u2019Or area, and only 30 in the Charlevoix area. Both of those populations live in enclosures. After discussing the caribou numbers and their circumstances, Bellefleur said, forum organizers invited attendees to come up with a plan to help save the caribou \u2013 an animal, he noted, \u201cwhich has always helped us in the past.\u201d \u201cIt was enjoyable to listen to them and share their knowledge about caribou,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really informed all the communities about the true situation of the woodland caribou and the migratory caribou, and we achieved our goal of making people aware that caribou are not an inexhaustible resource.\u201d  Read more: Innu Nations in northern Quebec want better protection of the woodland caribou Ottawa dragging its feet on protecting endangered caribou: B.C. conservation groups  Debate over caribou policy has raged for nine years in Quebec, dating back to the previous Liberal government. In 2016, the government created an action-plan for woodland caribou management that was supposed to lead to a published strategy. However, that strategy has never been released. Days prior to the gathering, La Presse published reporting revealing that by 2023, the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec (CAQ) government had developed plans for 15 protected areas for woodland caribou. However, following concerns about the effects of the plan on the forestry industry, the CAQ government reduced the number of planned protected areas to two. Pilot projects in those two regions were to begin sometime in 2024, but never did. La Presse also reported the government acknowledged having ignored a 2021 request by the Innu Council of Pessamit for a caribou moratorium. Federal government intervention The issue has created friction between Quebec and Ottawa, where the federal government has placed pressure on the province to protect the woodland caribou. In June of 2024, then\u2013Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault placed an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act to protect Quebec\u2019s boreal caribou habitat. Quebec rejected that federal intervention intended to force the province to act on the issue. Then\u2013Environment minister Benoit Charette described the 2024 emergency order as \u201carrogant\u201d and a threat to the economic survival of Quebec regions dependent on forestry. At the time, Charette complained the CAQ government had been blamed for a problem that had been getting worse for some time. \u201cThis species has been in decline not for four years, not for six years, but for decades,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is documented and well known that this decline began several years ago. And we are the first government to try to reverse this trend.\u201d After Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault shuffled his cabinet in September, Charette became minister responsible for infrastructure, and Bernard Drainville took his role as minister of environment. Caribou photographed in near Abitibiwinni First Nation (Pikogan) in the west of Quebec. Photo: APTN News  Bellefleur said he has little patience for the government of Quebec\u2019s caribou position, which he sees as a non-position. \u201cWhen the federal government puts pressure on Quebec,\u201d he said, \u201cQuebec creates various committees, meetings, and commissions. There is a commission that makes very strong recommendations in favor of the caribou. Quebec does not follow the recommendations. Nothing happens. \u201cThey just talk about good intentions to appease the federal government. After that, nothing.\u201d For Bellefleur, the task of protecting caribou requires protection to the environment and habitat in which caribou live. \u201cThere are too many predators. It\u2019s not just animals like bears and wolves,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s human beings who are doing a lot of damage to the caribou. The roads that penetrate the interior of the terrain make it easier for bears and wolves to attack the caribou. Because that\u2019s where the caribou walk.\u201d Bellefleur said he understands how difficult it is to ask Innu not to hunt caribou, the animal that has sustained his people for thousands of years. The relationship between Innu and caribou is foundational to the history and culture of the entire Innu Nation. \u201cThe Innus from Uashat to Shefferville [500 km north of Uashat] and migrating forest caribou have always coexisted,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the animal that made us travel across the territory. It\u2019s not for nothing that we were nomadic peoples. We followed where the caribou were. And when it was time to settle down, people would return to the riverbank to make canoes, make snowshoes, find a wife or a husband. After that, we would return inland.\u201d Yet he said that currently, overhunting by both non-Indigenous and First Nations hunters concerns him. \u201cWe\u2019re invading the caribou\u2019s bedroom,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re disturbing them. We have to take steps to help them. Women and young people are saying, \u2018When we\u2019re older, we want to see caribou.\u2019 So we\u2019re asking hunters to reduce the pressure of hunting.\u201d The response Bellefleur said he has received is simply that hunters are unlikely to stop hunting, and he understands that. \u201cThere has been no conclusion,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause it\u2019s a very sensitive subject, because it directly attacks the food supply or pantry of the Innu Nation. So it\u2019s causing a lot of debate.\u201d Consequently, Bellefleur said the Innu Nation wishes to hold a follow-up meeting on caribou at the end of January, in order to try to reach some conclusions. \u201cThe caribou needs to be monitored,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to do inventories on the caribou. We need to protect the caribou\u2019s habitat. And we need to limit access to the caribou\u2019s habitat. So we want to be involved in these matters, not just as a small interest group. We are the holders of thousands of years of Indigenous knowledge, and we know very well how important the caribou is. We know the hunters, and we know what\u2019s happening inland.\u201d Bellefleur said that in meetings between Innu leadership and Quebec officials previously, Innu leaders felt as though Quebec treated them as a minor interest group. \u201cThat\u2019s not how we\u2019re going to work with Quebec,\u201d he told APTN. \u201cBecause Quebec [and] all the governments talk about partnership with Indigenous communities. They talk about reconciliation. These are great principles, but when it comes time to implement them, it seems like it\u2019s just unidirectional. We can\u2019t agree on a real partnership. They have their own definition. What they\u2019re telling us is to fit into the mold that\u2019s already been made.\u201d For several years, some Innu hunters have voluntarily stopped hunting caribou, despite the impacts to communities of going without one of their most central traditional foods. Yet Bellefleur noted Innu communities can only do so much without support from Quebec. \u201cThere are communities that have imposed moratoriums on themselves,\u201d he said, \u201cBut the forestry companies continue to carry on. They don\u2019t have a moratorium. That\u2019s how it is. If we sit down as partners, we have to decide. If there is an imposed moratorium, then it has to be a moratorium that goes both ways. We have to react as a true government. We really want to save the species.\u201d                                                                Continue Reading                                                                                                                                                                                                                          <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Innu Nation in Quebec is slamming the provincial government for failing to properly protect caribou herds from climate change, resource development and consequent habitat loss. \u201cQuebec is doing nothing, absolutely nothing,\u201d said Guy Bellefleur, the Innu Nation\u2019s lead on the caribou issue. Bellefleur said it has fallen to his people to manage a resource [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,1,119],"tags":[116,117],"class_list":["post-16559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-uncategorized","category-windspeaker","tag-indigenous","tag-windspeaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}