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February 2, 2007
Union grills up funds for
MNR;
OPSEU barbecue attempts to get province to halt
staff cuts
Michael Peeling / The Daily Press
- www.timminspress.com
Union members held a barbecue Thursday to raise
money for what they describe as a cash-strapped
Ministry of Natural Resources.
The barbecue, organized by Ontario Public
Service Employees Union Local 649, was held in
the parking lot of the Ontario government
services complex Thursday in South Porcupine.
The plan is to donate the proceeds from the
barbecue to the Ontario government.
"For
over 100 years we've provided taxpayers with
service second to none that others have tried to
duplicate," said Jim Finnigan, president of
local 649 and an MNR employee. "Now those
services are rapidly deteriorating. The
flatlining of budgets and staff reductions are
slowly sucking the life out of the ministry."
The
union has started an online petition on behalf
of the 4,300 MNR employees it represents.
The petition says the 2006-07 budget is 24 per
cent lower overall than it was 14 years ago.
The portion of that budget allotted for the work
done by the ministry has gone down by 31 per
cent.
Fourteen years ago there were 257 conservation
officers working in the field, but that number
had dropped to 173 as of July 2006.
"The government is
giving away parts of the public service in a
desperate attempt to serve what's left of it,"
Finnigan said. "This fundraiser is an attempt to
bring attention to the death of Ontario services
and the MNR."
Finnigan said some of the signs he has seen of
the MNR's impending death is the missing
presence of co-op students and the disappearance
of the MNR name on field trucks.
He believes the name Ministry of Natural
Resources will slowly be phased out as its
services dwindle, until it eventually becomes a
general purpose organization called Services
Ontario.
"It will become like other government services,"
Finnigan said. "You'll call a phone number and
go through endless number pushing until a voice
tells you it would be easier to use the
Internet."
MNR services such as identifying species and
forestry inventories have been discarded or
delegated to other government branches according
to MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP - Timmins-James Bay).
"The MNR doesn't have the staff to respond to
mining exploration requests," Bisson said. "If
the exploration companies have to wait two or
three weeks for a response, that can make a big
difference." Bisson added reductions have meant
officers now routinely react to tips.
MNR aquatic specialist Charles Hendry sees the
barbecue and Save the MNR campaign as a way of
spreading awareness of the changing nature of
the ministry.
"We're not able to connect with the public the
way we use to," Hendry said. "We're more
stewards of the environment now and we really
need our partners in the government."
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