Ontario Group Says Fly-In Tourists Given More Access To Crown Land Than Locals

A northern Ontario recreational group says the Ministry of Natural Resources is blocking local access to lakes and rivers in favour of foreign-based tourist outfitters who charge premium rates to fly customers into remote camps on Crown lands.

The Ontario Outdoors Recreational Alliance complains the ministry posts signs on logging roads, after forestry companies move on, that prevent residents and local tour companies from driving into remote areas to hunt, fish or canoe.

“A select group of remote-based outfitters are controlling vast areas of our land, and local operators have lost access to significant numbers of roads and can’t run their tours,” said alliance president Tom Brason.

“It’s an exclusive club. We’re referring to it as a private game preserve with our Ministry of Natural Resources acting as wardens.”

The complaints are rolling in from such northern Ontario regions as Timmins and Temiskaming and Wawa.

Every government has had to strike a balance between tourism, forestry and local residents who want to do everything from hunt and fish to pick blueberries, but the Liberals have lost that balance, said New Democrat Howard Hampton.

“This was not a big issue in the past because you had local citizens’ committees where these issues were addressed at the local level,” said Hampton.

“This government seems to have become very enthralled with the advocates for what they call the remote tourism industry at the expense of local people, and sometimes at the expense of First Nations as well,” he said.

The only people who seem to have the ear of the government are those who operate remote tourism companies, added Hampton.

“Many people feel these decisions aren’t being made at the local level any more,” he said.

“They’re being made in downtown Toronto, by the premier’s office.”

Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey said logging roads are sometimes closed because of a public safety risk or to protect environmentally sensitive areas, but insisted remote tour operators were not given preference over local residents.

“Obviously there’s a desire to keep some remoteness in certain areas for some of the recreational tourist operators,” Jeffrey said in an interview.

“The majority of Crown land is entirely accessible and we want people to enjoy the parks and lakes and the remote experiences as much as possible.”

Jeffrey said the ministry is in the midst of a three-year review of its land use policy in the Wawa area, and she wants input from as many groups and individuals as possible.

“The uncertainty is causing people some fear that they’re not going to be able to have access and that’s not the reason,” she said.

“This is about land use planning. We don’t do anything without consulting with the area and the municipality about what they want.”

However, Brason said he had no confidence the minister will make any changes to open up more Crown lands to local residents because the government closed the roads to promote “remote tourism values.”

“That is the ability to charge between two-and-a-half to-three times more for a similar experience that a person would have when they can drive to the location,” he said.

“The reason for doing this isn’t to promote tourism, it’s to drive the price up.”

Some locals believe some ministry employees are actually working with or for the remote tourist operators, said Brason, but Ombudsman Andre Marin decided not to proceed with an investigation into those claims.

Marin’s office looked into a complaint filed in 2008 that raised allegations of a potential conflict of interest involving Ministry of Natural Resources workers and tourism operators from two incidents, one in 1985 and one in 1994.

“Our investigator checked with the ministry and they were aware of the cases, and said the employees had properly followed the conflict-of-interest policies that were in place at the time,” said Marin’s spokeswoman, Linda Williamson.

“Therefore there was no basis to go further with the complaint.”

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