La Presse-Jérôme Dupras
As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing launches the national conversation on urban planning and land‑use planning, it is timely to ask ourselves why it is desirable to adopt such a policy in Québec.
First, because territory is at the heart of Québec’s identity. The exceptional nature that surrounds us reminds us of the beauty of living diversity—from the woodland caribou to the Hautes‑Gorges‑de‑la‑Rivière‑Malbaie National Park, and of course the St. Lawrence River, our collective backbone. Territory is also the place where we set foot, live together as communities, and raise our families.
Our identity has also been shaped by the activities that our territory makes possible, from the farmland that feeds us to the forests that allow us to build our homes. We have used our territory to meet our demographic, economic, and social needs, and together, we have succeeded in building a prosperous Québec, offering one of the highest standards of living in the world. This prosperity clearly demonstrates the importance and interconnectedness of each of the essential components that make it possible: productive capital, human capital, and natural capital.
While productive capital—the tools, infrastructure, and buildings that support the production of consumer goods—and human capital—our individual and collective abilities, experiences, and knowledge—are well integrated into our economies, the same cannot be said of natural capital.
Plants, animals, ecosystems, water, soil, and air, which through their interactions also produce essential goods and services, ecosystem services, are excluded from the equation.
Yet, actions such as combating heat islands, purifying air, and enabling recreational activities are all services produced by natural capital within an urban landscape. Several studies report these natural contributions to our economy: these non‑market services have been valued at more than $2.2 billion and $1.1 billion per year in the Montréal and Québec City regions, and more than $330 million for the Ottawa–Gatineau Greenbelt.
Natural Capital
Even though these benefits are both tangible and significant, our land‑use policies and tools take them into account only marginally and superficially. Due to the mobile, silent, and often invisible nature of natural capital, we have taken for granted everything that nature offers us, without considering, protecting, or restoring it at its true value
On February 2, a major report on the global economy of natural capital, commissioned by the British government, was released. It revealed that while global GDP per capita doubled between 1992 and 2014, the benefits derived from natural capital declined by 40%. The study also highlighted that we invest between US$4 trillion and US$6 trillion in policies and programs that destroy nature, and barely US$70 billion to protect it. These figures illustrate the magnitude of the changes that need to be made.
Today, more than one million species are threatened with extinction, and at no time in human history has the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere been so high, pointing to unprecedented disruptions to come.
In Québec, 80% of the wetlands in the St. Lawrence lowlands have disappeared in recent decades, and nearly 20% of vertebrate species are threatened or likely to become threatened.
In science, we no longer speak simply of climate change or biodiversity loss, but literally of collapses.
This reality is the result not of isolated pressures, but of cumulative and interrelated ones. We are now facing global changes, whose effects are already very real in Québec, with the increased frequency and intensity of extreme events (floods, heat waves) and the presence of invasive species such as the emerald ash borer, which is causing the disappearance of 10% to 20% of Québec’s urban forests.
Given this complex, uncertain, and entirely new reality, relying on old approaches would be like putting a bandage on an open wound. The solutions we consider must be aligned with today’s environmental crisis, a planet in profound transformation.
In this sense, the first milestone of this major undertaking, which many hope will be transformative, is deceptively simple: transversality. From now on, we can no longer think of territory as a collection of sectors or interests to be balanced. We must adopt an approach in which territorial integrity and the collective interest are placed at the heart of our decisions. I dare to believe the stars are aligned, as the recovery that will accompany our emergence from the current crisis is an opportunity to multiply our successes.
Accelerating ecological transition through sustainable land‑use planning and a thoughtful economic recovery. This is what must guide us in the coming year.