The area director in Vavenby says Canfor will not give the community more money in legacy funding.
After closing its sawmill in Vavenby last year, Canfor has sold its cutting rights to Interfor for $60 million. It gave the District of Clearwater $200,000 in legacy funding, and Vavenby received $25,000.
TNRD Area A director Carol Schaffer had asked Canfor to buck up for her community of Vavenby. The Canfor Mill had been located in the town for nearly 70 years before it shut down last summer.
“I feel that we should still go after them for the $200,000. For the simple reason that they are putting us in with Clearwater, and we shouldn’t be in with Clearwater. We’re a separate entity, and we’re going after this separately,” Schaffer says.
Meanwhile, a Ministry of Forests staff member tells NL News that it cannot get involved in negotiations between Canfor and the community of Vavenby on that concern.
Forest Minister Doug Donaldson and Deputy Forest Minister John Allan both told NL News they hadn’t been made aware that Vavenby was looking for more money, during months of negotiations on Canfor’s tenure transfer to Interfor.
“People should know that those considerations that ended up being to the benefit of Clearwater, and workers and other communities and First Nations in the area, wouldn’t of been possible unless Bill 22 was in place. We passed that in order to ensure public interests were taken into account when one licensee wanted to sell their tenure to another licensee,” Donaldson says.