The Canadian Press – MONTREAL — More than 500 scientists from Canada and around the world are urging Quebec’s premier to stick to his pledge to preserve a huge section of the province’s north as part of an ambitious development plan.
Philippe Couillard has been promising to breathe new life into the Liberals’ multibillion-dollar northern development project since the party regained power earlier this year.
For years, the Liberals have touted the “Plan Nord” as a way to create thousands of jobs through energy development, mining and tourism in Quebec’s north, on an area about twice the size of France.
But the proposal, first unveiled in 2011, caught the attention of the international scientific community for its other key goal: to protect half of that boreal wilderness from industrial development.
On Friday, a group of international scientists will send a letter to Couillard, encouraging him to move forward on a sustainable-development and conservation project they believe could “serve as a model for the rest of the world.”
The scientists are also calling on Couillard to ensure aboriginal and local communities in the remote region are partners in the project.
“We feel certain that, in taking this action, Quebec will emerge as a world leader in sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and combating climate change, while growing its economy and creating a new ecosystem management model for the 21st century that will set the standard for countries around the world,” reads the letter, obtained by The Canadian Press.
Couillard is scheduled to announce the main points of the renewed Plan Nord during a business conference next Tuesday in Montreal.
The project was introduced in 2011 by then-Liberal premier Jean Charest, who had hoped it would become a centrepiece of his political legacy.
At the time, government estimates boasted Plan Nord would generate $80 billion in public and private investment over a quarter-century while creating 20,000 jobs over the same period.
Liberals promoted it as a project that would eventually pump $14 billion into provincial coffers, cash they said would help Quebec shed its status as a have-not province. They said it would make Quebec a contributor to equalization.
The project, however, was met with skepticism from opponents who called it everything from a marketing gimmick to a sellout of Quebec’s resources. Some voiced concern that locals would see few of the benefits generated by the development projects.
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