By Frank Dobrovnik
Source: Sault Star / Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 09:00
Local News - The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear a British Columbia timber company’s appeal to use a logging road in Lake Superior Provincial Park, effectively ending three years of legal wrangling and what an environmental group calls unsanctioned access.
Calling it “a victory for our protected areas,” a representative for the Wildlands League said Friday’s decision to dismiss leave to appeal, with costs, amounts to Canada’s top court barring the numbered company from continuing to use the road. “They’ve lost every decision and appeal along the way, so clearly they’re supposed to stop using the road,” said Evan Ferrari, director of the league’s parks and protected areas program.
The battle began after a B.C. man, Michael Jenks, bought former Algoma Central Railway land east of the park in November 2002 and Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources refused him access via Sand River Road. Most recently, last September the Ontario Court of Appeal sided with the MNR, saying that the 1995 park management plan allows access to Crown land rather than private land.
Although the MNR halted logging operations in the park in the late 1980s, it has allowed Clergue Forest Management to continue to use the road to access Crown land east of there.
The appeals court also granted Jenks’s company a temporary injunction to continue using the road while seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Wildlands League, which was given intervener status in the Ontario appeals process, wrote to Jenks and the province last week “to discuss long-term closure of the road,” Ferrari said.
The “bigger issue” is now to “stop anyone from using the road, and possibly changing the forest management plan and park management plan . . . that the right-of-way will be rehabilitated,” he said.
One appeal court judge, in a written decision, said the management plan could have stated more clearly whether the road is limited to access to Crown land.
The environmental group is also heartened by recent moves by the Ontario government to update the Provincial Parks Act. One proposal is to ban industrial activities within parks altogether.
As to whether the ACR was allowed to sell off vast swaths of Northern Ontario to private interests in the first place, “that’s a much bigger fish to fry,” Ferrari said.
“It’s private land,” he said. “We have so many problems with the 85 per cent of Northern Ontario land that is in the public hands . . . as far as the forestry practices are concerned, we have no recourse.(*)
