David Orazietti talks MNR cuts

The Ministry of Natural Resources is cutting 130 jobs in an effort to help eliminate Ontario's deficit and streamline operations, but Sault Ste. Marie MPP David Orazietti stressed the local impact will be minimal.

Along with the job reductions - 28 full-time and 102 seasonal positions - 10 parks with low visitation rates have been re-designated to non-operational by the province.

The newly downgraded parks will remain open, but will not be staffed when the changes will come into effect next season.

“Those parks had limited financial sustainability,” said Orazietti. “In order to help deal with our financial reality we looked at parks being used far less frequently.”

The 10 re-designated parks are: Caliper Lake (Nestor Falls), Fushimi Lake (Hearst), Greenwater (Cochrane), Ivanhoe Lake (Foleyet), Mississagi (Elliot Lake), Obatanga (Wawa), Rene Brunelle (Kapuskasing), Springwater (Midhurst), Tidewater (Moosonee) and The Shoals (Chapleau).

The cuts are part of the province’s MNR transformation plan aimed at ‘modernizing’ the ministry over a three-year period.

Orazietti said four seasonal positions related to the Ontario Ranger Program will be lost in the Sault and no local parks have been downgraded.

Rebranded the Stewardship Youth Ranger program, no longer are workers to required stay overnight, removing the need for costly accommodations.

Last year, the ranger program hired 1,974 summer students and Orazietti pledged that number will not drop moving forward.

“The changes we've made will allow the program to continue,” said Orazietti. “The MNR hires the largest number of summer students per ministry each year and the ranger program is a big part of that.”

The cuts and changes to the MNR will net the province annual savings of $7.1 million throughout their three-year plan and eliminate $12.3 million in future capital costs.

Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Michael Mantha is frustrated by the government's action towards provincial parks in the northern part of the province.

Mantha thinks our parks are being unfairly targeted after the early close of provincial parkland this summer and reductions announced this week to the MNR.

“It's very discouraging to see more cuts,” said Mantha. “These cutbacks show how far out of touch the (Dalton) McGunity government has become with Northern Ontario residents.”

Saying low visitation rates aren't a justified reason for staffing decreases - Mantha feels these types of decisions need to be made by those who understand the region and impact job losses can have.

“The government has lost touch with the realities of the north,” said Mantha. “Things look different when you're running numbers in Toronto.”

Mantha is disappointed the MNR is being targeting by the province for cuts considering the north is home to a large portion of the natural resources in Ontario.

He said funding to the MNR was slashed by 30 percent in 2011 and 6 percent in the past year.

"When individuals within the ministry are telling me they're having a hard time doing their job, we need to make a change," Mantha said.

Orazietti said the province simply targeted parks that were not drawing visitors and countered cuts within the MNR's transformation plan will not have a significant impact to public services and major decisions made within the ministry.

He pointed to the forestry division of the MNR in Sault Ste. Marie, which has escaped cuts in the modernization plan thus far, as proof.

"We're making a transformation that will have the least impact to public services and protect the greatest number of decisions possible," Orazietti said.