Protecting the wood basket: Northwest leaders push value of forestry on Queen's Park.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO

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With the northwestern Ontario's forestry industry on the rebound, municipal leaders vow to continue lobbying the provincial government to keep up the flow of wood fibre to this region's sawmills.

The looming spectre of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and coming changes to the province's forest management planning manual, has mayors of forestry towns worried that an ideologically-based agenda at work to protect the habitat of woodland caribou may threaten the availability of Crown wood supply to industry.

"The Endangered Species Act could kill us," said Kenora Mayor Dave Canfield, president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA), which held its annual conference in Thunder Bay, April 27-29, attracting more than 250 delegates, including Premier Kathleen Wynne and six cabinet ministers.

Forestry, climate change, pipelines, tax assessment and regional health care were topics and presentation on the agenda.

Canfield said there are areas of the northwest where there is no logging or human interaction with caribou yet the animals are, mysteriously, disappearing.

His fear is that environmental special interest groups will convince the province that the forestry industry is endangered caribou habitat and Crown land will be taken out of use. Protection of habitat is already covered in forest management licences, said Canfield arguing that the requirements of the ESA are duplication.

The environmentalists realize it holds things up and drives up the cost of doing business when it's already covered."

Atikokan Mayor Dennis Brown echoed that industry must be assured that it will have reliable access to annually harvest 26-million cubic metres of Crown fibre.

With Resolute Forest Products operating a new sawmill in his town, delivering 90 direct jobs plus many more in harvesting and transportation, "they need to sure of a wood supply."

Brown expects the government will incorporate aspects of the ESA into the forest management manual by July 1, and he promises to keep up the fight to stop it.

A stable U.S. housing market and changes to the Ontario Building Code, permitting six-storey wood-framed buildings, represent "huge" opportunities an industry that's on upswing, Canfield said.

He made a joint presentation to delegates with FP Innovations, the federal forestry research arm, that responsible and sustainable harvesting is good for the Northern boreal forest and actually fights climate change.

"The Northern...