OPINION
The declining Forestry Sector
The Forestry Sector has been the single largest employer in the Ottawa Valley. Several sawmills are located between Whitney and Eganville along Highway 60 in Renfrew County alone.
Traditionally market demand has exceeded the regeneration rate of the forests being cut. This has led to smaller and younger trees of poorer quality being harvested for lumber in the past quarter century.
Logging both inside and outside Algonquin Park remains a contentious issue as it conflicts with outdoor recreation and tourism, the latter two being economic rivals to the Forestry Sector critical for the economic survival of the Ottawa Valley.
Last year (2024) witnessed an unprecedented closure of saw and pulp mills throughout Ontario. The Asian market has declined since the 2021 pandemic as China’s population has gradually stabilized requiring less demand for Canadian lumber for their domestic housing construction.
The USA is threatening a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods including softwood lumber.
Invariably Renfrew County will witness mill closures and forestry workers will find themselves unemployed.
Question: What transition strategy and training to other forms of employment do the candidates propose for the predicted rise in unemployment and its ripple effect on social stability to forestry sector workers and their families?
Unregulated construction in Renfrew County’s “unorganized territory”
In a region where outdoor recreation is important, and summer vacationers own cottages, canoe, or go camping, private waterfront development continues to detract from the outdoor experience for everyone. Shoreline habitat is degraded by dredging and back-filling by contractors for new homes. Infilling vacant waterfront lots has resulted in crowding and noise. Unsupervised mobile homes, trailers and shipping containers mar the backdrop to the waterfront. Water quality declines.
Regulatory bodies such as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) fail to fulfil their statutory responsibilities to Renfrew citizens despite being public employees. The MNRF can not be reached at their district offices by phone or email. In essence the Ministry has cut off all forms of communication with the public. Yet it still caters to commercial interests such as mining and logging.
The lack of ministerial oversight and administrative approval for the public’s personal use of Crown land in the past 25 years has led to wholesale exploitation from commercial businesses and the less scrupulous public who illegally strip mine hillsides, alter beaver ponds and wetlands, plant permanent trailers on lakefronts, dredge waterways, and install docks.
Question: What action will the candidates take to reconnect the MNRF with the public to address concerns over the abuse of Crown land and make them accountable for protecting public waterways, shorelines and Crown forests from unauthorized use?
The lack of public consent over the construction and approval of telecommunication towers.
The construction of telecommunication towers throughout rural Ontario was a funding commitment by the federal government to provide universal internet service.
However, little legislation or regulations exist to protect neighbouring homeowners from the associated effects of radio-frequencies, radiation and other health hazards. Moreover, private land owners can sign agreements with telecommunication companies to obtain exclusive privileges or revenue, at the expense of neighbours who watch their property values plummet.
Finally, in a natural landscape which takes pride at attracting visitors, transmission towers situated at three km intervals throughout the Valley’s escapements and ridge tops present an unsightly industrial quality incompatible with Nature.
Question: What strategy do the candidates envision to level the playing field in order to protect existing residents from the negative effects of the ubiquitous installation of transmission towers throughout the Valley?
Photo at top: Harrison Haines
Editor’s Note: An All Candidates meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 20th at 6:30pm at the Royal Canadian Legion Barry’s Bay Branch 406, 250 John Street in Barry’s Bay. This meeting, organized by the Valley Gazette, may be your last chance to hear in public from those who seek your vote on February 27th.
Only three candidates showed up for last week’s All Candidates meeting in Cobden, and later in the week the winter storm caused postponement of the YourTV Ottawa Valley candidates meeting which was due to be rebroadcast regularly. At time of writing, The Current was unable to find a new listing for it on the station’s website.