Big River Mayor Wants Answers On Timber Rights

Big River Mayor Wants Answers On Timber Rights

Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 12:14

The provincial government is under fire from a northern leader.

Big River mayor Sandra Gilbert wants to know what is happening with the Prince Albert Forest Management Agreement.

She explains that an outside company is looking at buying the town’s defunct sawmill, but it hasn’t been guaranteed any timber rights by the provincial government.

Gilbert says if the company doesn’t get any guarantees, it could end up moving the facility out-of-province:

“And we think that would be tragic, because that would be a loss of 200 direct jobs, and probably 300 to 400 indirect jobs,” she says.

Meantime, an official from the Big River First Nation says they’re not sure what’s going on either.

Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd wasn’t immediately available for comment.