Want to rent a lake? That'll be $900!

Restricted public access to Crown land continues to trouble a Northern Ontario MPP.

Gilles Bisson, a New Democrat representing Timmins-James Bay, returned to the matter this past week in the Ontario Legislature.

During question period on November 11, he had asked Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey why large areas of public land were being set aside for the exclusive use of remotely located tourist outfitters.

Bisson [shown] said many Northerners are angry because they can’t enjoy areas available to earlier generations.

He also claims operators can rent a Crown-land lake for as little as $900 a year and deny access to ordinary people.

Then, during question period on November 18, Bisson upped the ante by saying he's been told that some current and former MNR employees are operating as outfitters and benefiting from the very rules they helped to set as public servants.

Following, from Hansard, is Thursday’s exchange in the Ontario Legislature between Bisson and Jeffrey:

************************* Access to public lands

Mr. Gilles Bisson

My question is to the minister of natural resources.

Two weeks ago, I raised in the House the issue that people in Northern Ontario are being restricted from getting access to forest roads in Northern Ontario.

At that time, you said you're doing great work working with tourist outfitters, and that's raised quite an ire of protest from people in Northern Ontario.

It's been brought to my attention that, apparently, there are former and current MNR employees, who are actually in the outfitters business, setting the rules in order to restrict access to the forest while, at the same time, being employees of the ministry of natural resources.

Now, you know that subsection 39(1) of the Public Lands Act says, "No person holding an office in or under the ministry and no person employed in or under the ministry shall, directly or indirectly, purchase any right, title or interest in any public lands ..."

If this is the case - what are you prepared to do about it?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey:

I'm really pleased to have another opportunity to talk about some of our northern outfitters and some of our northern recreational industry opportunities.

I didn't get a chance to elaborate on it the last time as much as I would have liked to, because certainly we have a long history of providing service in the north, to the business climate, and encouraging investments in Northern Ontario.

Many of our staff in the north work very hard to make sure that there are wonderful opportunities, because I think many people in the south don't think there are recreational opportunities in the north once the summer ends.

I want to encourage them to visit the north, to visit those remote locations, and see the great opportunities.

We've been working with Nodo, particularly.

They've been a great partner in working with our government, and certainly our ministry employees are seized with the opportunity to elaborate and engage people in travelling to the north to visit those locations.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters)

Supplementary?

Mr. Gilles Bisson

Minister, you don't even get it.

The point of the question is: There is an allegation by people in Northern Ontario that your staff, staff of MNR, have purchased or had land leased to them, Crown land; that they're benefiting from that land; that they're setting the rules to protect the land so they're able to run their own businesses and bring tourists in while keeping local residents out.

You're not the minister of tourism; you're the minister of natural resources.

I'm asking you, what are you going to do in order to investigate this and, if so, take corrective action?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey:

I'm not going to speculate on some of the assumptions and allegations that are made by the other member, but I would like to assure Ontario residents that we have some wonderful areas in Ontario's north, and those crown lands are available for recreational purposes.

We want to make sure that people get to use those parks, whether they come in and fly in or they portage in.

I get letters all the time from people who fish and hunt in the north about how excited they are.

We have a lot of people from outside of Ontario coming to visit.

It's a critical part of our economy to make sure that the north is strong, that we provide those recreational opportunities and that we engage people to see the wonderful asset we have in Northern Ontario.

This industry brings a lot of jobs to northerners, and I think this contributes to the overall economy.

It's something we're excited about. It's something we're engaged about.

And we want to ensure that the experience is enjoyed by as many Ontarians and people outside of Ontario as possible.

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