Past due

Dear editor:
Please re-print the text of an e-mail I sent to Premier Kathleen Wynne and Natural Resources and Forestry minister Bill Mauro:
Mr. Mauro and Ms. Wynne:
As a resident of Fort Frances, I am utterly flabbergasted by this government’s inaction on the issue of the wood rights to the forests that historically have been allocated to the mill in Fort Frances, and more importantly, to, and for the benefit of, the residents of the Town of Fort Frances and surrounding district!
This is our fiber! These are our forests! They belong to us, to be used in our district for our benefit!
Why has this government, and by extension, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, put the business interests of a company from Quebec (Resolute) ahead of the economic stability of our entire district! Not to mention ahead of our right to have our forests be used for our benefit.
This is a company that willingly would see our town and district become nothing more than an empty shell of what it was, and still could be, rather than allow the mill here in Fort Frances to be run by another company that might present some competition.
Expera was ready to take over the Fort Frances mill and invest into it—as much as $100 million. That’s a lot of money (maybe not in Toronto but here it is) and a lot of construction work (jobs) that would have resulted from it.
Not to mention the full-time, good-paying jobs that would have been restored at the mill, and the jobs recovered in supporting industries.
But due to your inaction, and the unwillingness of Resolute to deal in good faith, that opportunity was lost!
Kathleen and Bill, you two are directly responsible for that. You could have made sure that the wood rights had been made available to Expera, and in so doing, motivated Resolute to either restart the mill itself or to sell it on the cheap—as it is nothing but a liability to them in its current state.
You have put the interests of Resolute ahead of more than 20,000 people, your constituents, here in Northwestern Ontario. And worst of all, you are still letting it happen.
There is still a possibility that our mill could be sold, and put back into service, for the benefit of our people, our district. But any new owner is going to need to be assured they have unfettered access to an ample wood supply.
You two can make that happen with the stroke of a pen. It is way past due.
Ms. Wynne, your track record as premier so far has been far from stellar. If you ever hope to gain voters for your party in this district, being instrumental in getting the mill here up and running again might go a long way towards that end.
But in any case, it is time for the two of you to start working for Fort Frances, instead of allowing Resolute to pillage and steal what rightfully belongs to us, not them.
So get off your collective fat-cat behinds and make something positive happen here!
(Signed),
Travis MacIntyre
Fort Frances, Ont.