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Wilderness group wants Tolko logging roads shut down when Manitoba mill closes

Last Updated Aug 24, 2016 at 3:40 pm MDT

THE PAS, Man. – An environmental group wants logging roads built by a forest products company in northern Manitoba to be shut down when its plant closes.

Tolko Industries has announced the mill near the town of The Pas will close on Dec. 2, putting 332 employees out of work.

The Manitoba chapter of The Wilderness Committee said logging roads will continue to disrupt Grass River Provincial Park, woodland caribou and northern forests unless the company is required to decommission them.

The group wants the provincial government to ensure Tolko closes the roads as required by its environmental licence.

“Having Tolko abruptly put more than 300 people out of work is already painful enough. The corporation can’t be allowed to leave a mess of the northern forests too,” Eric Reder, Manitoba campaign director for The Wilderness Committee, said in a release Wednesday.

“We must show corporations that they can’t cut and run, leaving the public on the hook for millions of dollars and decades of damages.”

Tolko has built thousands of kilometres of all-weather logging roads that spread out over one-fifth of Manitoba’s forest region, Reder said.

Leaving the roads in place will make it easy for wolves to prey on moose and woodland caribou, as well as provide access for humans into forests that should be off-limits, he added.

Some of the communities affected by the mill’s closure should be given first crack at any decommissioning work, he said.

But Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister said the request is premature.

“We should not assume because Tolko does not wish to continue operations there that we are forever destined to have no more logging or no more pulp and paper or no more industries in that region,” he told reporters outside his legislature office Wednesday.

Tolko said earlier this week that the decision to shut down its operation in The Pas wasn’t made lightly, but the plant is not financially sustainable despite years of trying to improve results.

Pallister said Manitoba has given Tolko support in previous years, but it clearly wasn’t enough to persuade the company to carry on.

“No government has the resources … that guarantee that a money-losing company is going to remain in its environment,” he said. “Any dollars that are invested in those types of ventures, the owners of the company will tell you are potentially wasted dollars.”

The premier said his Progressive Conservative government, just a few months into its term after defeating the NDP in last spring’s election, isn’t prepared to put any more money into Tolko.

“We can’t take resources from every Manitoba family and prop up companies if they can’t make money. If we do that, that means there’s less money for everybody else. And that means your taxes … will simply go higher.”

Pallister said his government is working toward longer-term solutions for businesses in northern communities such as more competitive tax rates, better infrastructure and fairer regulations.