Duane Hicks
A week after district municipal and First Nations’ leaders descended on Queen’s Park to make their voice heard on the breakdown of talks between Expera and Resolute, as well as the future control of the Crossroute wood supply, Mayor Roy Avis said politicians and citizens alike must keep up the fight for “Our Forests, Our Future.”
Just because district leaders are waiting to hear back from the provincial government doesn’t mean they’ve stopped demanding action, Mayor Avis noted at Monday night’s town council meeting.
“We’re pushing. We’re making sure that every avenue is covered,” he stressed.
“Nobody is going to be able to come back and say, ‘You didn’t try.’”
Mayor Avis said a delegation met with Natural Resources and Forestry minister Bill Mauro and Northern Development and Mines minister Michael Gravelle last week in Toronto.
But while he called the talks productive, there have been “no results as yet.”
Mayor Avis also said he’s been in touch with Expera and noted the Wisconsin-based company wants senior government to contact them and tell them they’re not “wasting their time” looking at the kraft mill here.
“My biggest concern is that with all this here lobbying and everything that’s going on, I hope that Expera doesn’t feel that, ‘Hey, maybe they don’t want us. We won’t want to be in Ontario,’” he remarked.
“We have an open door for Expera. We have to get that mill going,” added Mayor Avis.
“We are spending as much energy and resource commitment as possible.”
But Mayor Avis also learned late yesterday that Expera has just purchased a pulp mill in Maine, which took only three weeks to complete compared to the months’ long saga with this mill.
Mayor Avis also had brief contact with Resolute CEO Richard Garneau and is confident “they’ve heard us.”
The mayor said the district’s plight has been receiving good media coverage in print and on the airwaves, both locally, regionally, and as far away as Toronto.
In fact, the Globe & Mail is in Fort Frances this week to do a three-part story while the Toronto Sun is expected to publish a story sometime this week.
Mayor Avis added his spirits also have been buoyed by the swell of public support, such as today’s noon-hour march through downtown Fort Frances organized by the local ENGAGE young professionals network.
“They’re the future of this town and district,” he noted. “And as we said, it’s ‘Our Forest, Our Future.’
“It’s really, really great to see that.”
Mayor Avis also said people have been writing letters and e-mails to Premier Kathleen Wynne and Mauro, and urged more citizens to do so.
They can write an original letter or sign their name to sample letters that can be found on the town’s website at www.fort-frances.com
“We can’t afford to stop,” the mayor stressed. “If we do stop, we get run over.
He said everyone—politicians and citizens alike—have to continually try to pressure the powers-that-be in Toronto that the Enhanced Sustainable Forest Licence (ESFL) must start, or that the five-point plan the town has asked for be implemented.
The town is asking the MNRF and the province to:
•commit to pay the costs for the heating of the mill in the interests of protecting this vital asset;
•confirm that the traditional wood supply to the Fort Frances mill remains intact, which would mean that the total Crossroute Spruce Pine Fir (SPF) wood supply is available to the owner of the Fort Frances mill (business agreements would be structured by companies to trade saw logs for wood chips);
•rescind the Crossroute SFL immediately and hire a third-party forest manager to provide services on an interim basis while an ESFL is established;
•require Resolute Forest Products to return the $22.5-million grant previously provided by the province for the construction of the biomass facility here (these funds could be used as part of a capital package for the purchaser of the mill for capital improvements); and
•immediately initiate negotiations for the establishment of an ESFL for the Crossroute Forest for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Emo Coun. Anthony Leek, one of the 30 district reps to go to Toronto last week, said he felt the trip was worthwhile in the sense that “it shows how serious the communities are about getting involved in this process and the need for the province to step up its role in this current situation.”
“Minister Mauro and Minister Gravelle were very welcoming and good listeners in understanding the viewpoint of Fort Frances and surrounding communities,” added Coun. Leek, who was the local Liberal candidate in the past two provincial elections.
“I believe they will continue to work with the companies and the communities to see what can be achieved and resolved.”
Coun. Leek said there’s no doubt the security and availability of the wood supply is very important.
“We have to look and work at proper management of the forests to maintain long-term sustainability in both an environment and economic sense,” he remarked.
“If you cannot access the forest, then industry cannot exist,” he reasoned.
Looking to the immediate future, Coun. Leek said he feels it’s important to continue to keep the issue on the front of people’s minds—and to the government.
“While there is opportunity in other resource development such as mining, it does not mean that we should just give up on forestry,” he stressed.
“It is obvious that there is demand for the mill in Fort Frances,” Coun. Leek noted. “Expera is an example of that production demand.
“This is an opportunity to enhance our economy to include both mining and forestry, not one or the other.”
Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli, a candidate to be leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party, is among the district’s political allies waiting for Premier Kathleen Wynne “to support community leaders in Fort Frances, help get the community back to work, and put Ontario first.”
“Since the Liberals have been in power, thousands of people have been put out of work in the forestry sector,” Fedeli noted Friday.
“Kathleen Wynne has created confusion and turmoil in how forest resources are allocated.
“This has pitted companies against each other instead of maximizing the economic resources of a well-managed forest,” he argued.
Fedeli said Premier Wynne’s continued failure to take action may now result in the loss of another Ontario manufacturing facility.
“The Fort Frances pulp mill may be torn down instead of being sold to an innovative, growing specialty paper company who want to invest in Ontario,” he remarked.
“Ontario is now harvesting roughly half of the wood that we once did,” Fedeli added.
“Yet the Ontario government refuses to support new investments in forestry that will create 1,000 jobs and generate $100 million in new investments.”
