Locals urged to oppose Endangered Species Act

The Ontario Forestry Coalition (OFC) offered a presentation during a public meeting here Monday urging local residents to send a message to the McGuinty government that the new Endangered Species Act (ESA) will hurt communities like Fort Frances.
“We’re not opposed to the act, but we’re opposed to how it is being implemented,” stressed Atikokan mayor Dennis Brown, who was a part of the panel of presenters at the Memorial Sports Centre at noon.
The OFC said the act should be called the “Endangered Communities Act” as it “will cripple forest companies without any additional benefit to the species that may be at risk,” and consequently devastate families and communities which rely on the forest industry.
“If we can’t harvest wood, it will force our mills to close and we all know how important the wood industry is in Fort Frances,” Brown warned. “We’re already faced with very challenging times and now here’s another issue that doesn’t make sense.”
Scott Jackson and Jamie Lim, with the Ontario Forestry Industry Association, explained the OFC and other industry groups are concerned the act’s implementation, without a long-term regulation for forestry under Section 55, will have significant social and economic impacts.
Section 55 of the act authorizes forestry activities through a permitting process, as opposed to the forest management planning system which currently is conducted under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act.
The natural resources minister has told the OFC that this year will be used by the province to develop a permit system that will require forest companies to apply for their planned work on each individual cutting block—and perhaps for each separate activity (such as reforestation, harvesting, and road building).
But because each permit could be challenged by special interest groups opposed to logging, landing the province and forest industry in court, the permit system potentially could close down forestry operations “for months, if not years,” the OFC charged.
“And plain and simply, permits won’t work,” Jackson stressed, noting the language is flawed and now cannot be changed.
For example, it reads “an overall benefit to the species will be achieved.”
“‘Overall benefits’—that’s such as nebulous term,” he remarked. “And it’s the courts that will decide what that means.
“The permits are designed to fail because it will give [the government] veto power,” Jackson added.
Lim said she has spoken to many people in Oregon and they all tell the same story about the outcome of an experiment that went terribly wrong.
“They lost jobs and communities were decimated,” she noted, adding the U.S. Congress passed the ESA there back in 1973, removing seven million acres of forest for the northern spotted owl.
“The northern spotted owl remains endangered today,” Lim indicated. “After 20 years, the communities have not recovered.”
With a similar situation facing the province with its recent ESA, Lim stressed we’re going to see a future of retirement, poverty, or separation from families.
And she noted the McGuinty government is looking to remove three times what was removed in Oregon.
“We can’t let this happen in our province,” Lim stressed.
She also explained why the OFC is coming to the public now instead of when the ESA was first proposed.
She indicated they had received a commitment from the natural resources minister that we’d receive a long-term regulation. The premier at the time repeated the commitment.
“We spent months working with the government on the language for the act,” Lim said. “Then all of a sudden, we were told all our work was off the table and they were looking at another option—the permitting system.”
While the province noted it will delay for one year the application of the ESA on the forestry sector in Northern Ontario, labour representative Steve Boon charged the grace period is for their benefit, not ours.
“It will take that long for them to develop the regulations,” he argued.
Meanwhile, Jackson explained the OFC is requesting the government implement a long-term regulation under Section 55 of the ESA, which recognizes that the primary objectives of the ESA are met through the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (CFSA) and its required Forest Management Plans (FMP), and further fulfills government’s commitment to recognize the CFSA and FMPs as equivalent processes to the ESA with respect to planning for and providing for species at risk.
“We want nothing less than what was promised to us,” he maintained.
“We have to challenge everything,” stressed Lim. “And if we don’t get a change, we’ll keep fighting.”
The OFC had letters drawn up for those interested in signing and offered to fax them to Queen’s Park. These are also available to pick up at the Civic Centre and can be faxed from there.
Residents can also visit www.forestrycoaltion.com to voice their opinions.
“If you don’t speak out, the government assumes everyone is happy,” Boon remarked, noting they almost bypassed the entire forestry industry and did not allow for proper feedback.
In fact, the government has made it difficult for people to offer input by limiting a single entry per computer.
“They’re trying to make it difficult to get less feedback,” he said. “Everyone has computers, so get out there and use them and send a message to the government.”
Monday’s meeting here was part of a regional tour, with other stops being held in Atikokan, Kenora, Ear Falls, Dryden, Sioux Lookout, Ignace, Nipigon/Red Rock, Marathon, Terrace Bay-Schreiber, Thunder Bay, and Greenstone.
The deadline to provide feedback is June 16.