B.C.’s Forest Minister says his ministry staff met late last week with the Simpcw First Nation about local timber concerns.
Doug Donaldson says the two sides had a productive meeting regarding Canfor’s proposed $60-million-dollar sale of its cutting rights to Interfor, which the Simpcw wants to be involved in.
“I don’t have a proposal in front of me on my desk yet. It’s up to the company, the proponent, Interfor, to consult with the Simpcw, with local communities and with labor and with unions and contractors and incorporate results of those consultations into the proposal at this time,” Donaldson tells NL News.
“What I’ve committed to is once I see a final proposal on my desk, then I will be able to speak to those parties who are part of the public interest consideration that Bill 22 now requires.”
Kamloops North MLA Peter Milobar says Simpcw Chief Shelly Loring has voiced concern to him on wanting to speak with the Forest Ministry about being involved.
“Interfor obviously needs to the volume to keep their mill running at full production, and I think anyone in both the South and North Thompson valleys understands that, that there’s only so much volume. The question is how other stands of logs will be moved around. Some of the smaller mills, whether they’ll have access to certain species of log or access to a log, period.”
Donaldson says the meeting between his staff and the First Nation happened on Thursday. Prior to that, Milobar had said the Minister needed to return calls to Chief Loring, and wrote to Premier John Horgan asking for some sort of dialogue.
“These are hard conversations to have with people, absolutely. But there’s a whole lot of waiting for Minister Donaldson to simply pick up the phone, have a conversation. If it’s going to turn into this perpetual ‘the Minister doesn’t want to talk until everything’s been dealt with by the forest companies,’ then why do we have a Minister?”
Donaldson responded to that criticism by saying Milobar voted against the new Bill 22, which he says is what will enable the First Nation to be involved.
“He and his party railed against it in the legislature for hours. We managed to pass the bill but to be saying that the Simpcw should be involved after voting against the very legislation that enables them to be involved is the height of hyprocisy, you can’t have it both ways.”
The provincial government will be able to decide whether to allow the transaction to happen as it stands.
Tonight, representatives from both Canfor and Interfor will be at a community meeting at Clearwater Secondary School to answer questions from the public on their proposed transaction.
