Cook up full-funding for the MNR, Local 649
tells McGuinty
The Liberal government took a well-deserved
“grilling” over the deep funding cuts it has
imposed on the Ministry of Natural Resources
during a mid-winter barbecue Thursday near
Timmins.
Organized by Local 649, the barbecue in
South Porcupine was the latest step in OPSEU’s
“Save the MNR” campaign, which has been building
strength across the province since its launch
last year. As with earlier fundraising efforts
by OPSEU members, the proceeds from Thursday’s
barbecue will be handed over to the government
in a gesture to restore full funding after years
of relentless budget cutting.
Under funding has become such a problem at
the MNR that enforcement vehicles like trucks,
ATVs and boats used by Conservation Officers
(COs) often sit idle for lack of expense money
to pay for gasoline.
“For more than 100 years we’ve provided
taxpayers with services second to none that
others have tried to duplicate,” said Jim
Finnigan, president of Local 649. “Now those
services are rapidly deteriorating. The
flatlining budgets and staff reductions are
slowly sucking life out of the ministry.”
The statistics tell a sorry tale of how a
once-proud ministry is being crippled by chronic
financial neglect. The hatchet taken to the MNR
by the Harris-Eves regime hasn’t abated under
the McGuinty government. The overall budget of
the Ministry in 2006-07 is 24 per cent lower, in
real terms, than it was in 1992-93 and the
number of uniformed
COs has dropped from 257 in 1992 to 199 in 2006.
Gilles Bisson, NDP MPP for
Timmins-James Bay, was on hand to lend support
to the dozens of employees and local residents
who stopped by in sub-zero temperatures to warm
up with burgers and sausages. To add an extra
layer of warmth, many at the barbecue wore
OPSEU’s special black-and-orange “Save the MNR”
pullover shirts.
The event received extensive media coverage
in
Timmins
and across northeastern
Ontario.
Thursday’s event in South Porcupine followed
on the heels of the campaign’s stop-over at last
weekend’s NDP convention in
Toronto
where hundreds of delegates visited OPSEU’s
booth to learn first-hand of the funding
problems at the ministry. Dozens signaled their
support by signing the “Save the MNR” petition.
An electronic version of the petition can be
signed by visiting
www.savethemnr.ca
