Emergency Alert


Catherine McKenna

The Honourable Catherine McKenna
Minister of Environment and Climate Change
200 Sacré-Coeur Boulevard
Gatineau QC K1A 0H3
ec.ministre-minister.ec@canada.ca

7 April 2017

Re: Species at Risk Act, Application for an Emergency Order, Southern Mountain Caribou, Wells Gray-Thompson Local Population Unit

Dear Madam Minister:

I represent Wells Gray Gateway Protection Society, Clearwater Referral Group, BC Nature, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club British Columbia, Kamloops Naturalist Club, Kamloops Unitarians for Social Justice, Shuswap Naturalist Club, Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Vermilion Forks Field Naturalists Society, South Okanagan Naturalists’ Club, Squamish Environmental Conservation Society, Chilliwack Field Naturalists, Trevor Goward, Roland Neave, Erik Milton, Dr. Cathie Hickson, Dr. Lyn Baldwin, Dr. Nancy Flood, Dawn Morrison, Kanahus Manuel (the Applicants).

Enclosed please find an Application under section 80 of the Species at Risk Act. In summary, this is an application for you, as the Minister, to recommend, and for the Governor in Council to make, an emergency order to provide for the protection of the Wells Gray-Thompson LPU of southern mountain caribou by prohibiting timber harvesting and related road building within matrix range critical habitat on provincial Crown land including, for identification, in the Upper Clearwater Valley of British Columbia adjacent to southern Wells Gray Provincial Park.

In addition, the Applicants respectfully request that you expedite completion of an ‘effective protection report’ for the Southern Group of the southern mountain caribou and form an opinion to support a recommendation for a ‘safety net’ order under s.61 of SARA.

The factual and legal bases for the requests are set out in detail in the Application.

The Minister’s decision under s.80(2) must be made in a timely manner, bearing in mind the emergency nature of the order requested. Accordingly, I respectfully request a substantive response within 45 days.

Yours truly,

Willian J. Andrews
Barrister & Solicitor
Encl.

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