The environment is not for sale

Green Coalition serves the Quebec government with a formal notice to withdraw Bill 61

Montreal, Quebec, June 11, 2020

The Green Coalition, with the support of the Legacy Fund for the Environment, mandated a law firm to send a formal notice to the Legault government to withdraw the anti-environmental clauses of its Bill 61.

Our government must enact and enforce regulations that strengthen environmental protection, not gut it!

Bill 61 is an illegal abrogation of the right of all Quebeckers to a healthy environment. Instead of protecting the environment, the government is putting it up for sale. The bill continues the process of dismantling environmental protections initiated by the government with its Regulation respecting the supervision of activities according to their impact on the environment. In particular, Bill 61 :

• unilaterally suspends certain provisions of the Loi sur la qualité de l’environnement at the discretion of the Minister ;
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• does not at any time include the right of the public to be informed or to participate in the debate ;
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• grants the Minister the exclusive and arbitrary right to establish the amount of financial compensation for projects relating to flora, fish and wildlife habitats ;
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• does not allow the Minister to discuss projects, but only to impose conditions on them.

The Green Coalition requests that Bill 61 be amended to rectify the abuses mentioned above, and to allow the Green Coalition and any other interested organization or individual to have the right to participate in debates on these issues.

Our government must enact and enforce regulations that strengthen environmental protection, not gut it!

Feature image: Tero Laakso / CC BY

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The Green Coalition is a non-profit association of groups and individuals with a mandate to promote the conservation, protection and restoration of the environment and the wise use of green and blue spaces.