BC’s Parliamentary Secretary for Forestry says he thinks the forest tenure transfer north of Kamloops strikes a good balance for communities affected.

Ravi Kahlon was speaking on NL Newsday after the government approved the $60-million forest tenure transfer from Canfor to Interfor last Friday.

“Obviously there’s a benefit for the Adams Lake sawmill because they’ll see more fibre security, and then the spinoff right there,” he said.

“Domtar and the other operations will continue to see a little more security in fibre as well. So it’s good for the region and again I’m happy to see the decision is done, and people can get to work.”

Kahlon says decisions like the one made by government are ‘always tough’ to make.

” There’s not many easy decisions in government, but that being said, I think they’ve struck a balance here that is good for the communities,” noted Kahlon. “You know we’ve tried to strike a balance in pretty much all of the decisions we’re making in government.”

Meanwhile, the MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson is reaching out to local communities to see if details of the tenure transfer are what people in Clearwater, Vavenby, and the Simpcw First Nation wanted.

“This is something that the community has been waiting nine long months for since the first announcement,” said Peter Milobar.

“The package was in front of the Minister four months ago. And I’m glad that as part of my job I guess, I get to stand up in Question Period and ask the Minister, but after two weeks of questions, it seems that the eleventh hour the Minister met the deadline. So that’s a good thing.”

He tells NL News that before Friday’s decision by Forest’s Minister Doug Donaldson, several community members in Clearwater and Vavenby were growing restless at the delays.

“It was made known to people that if Feb. 28 comes and goes without a clear direction from the Minister, then Canfor would have to reevaluate the original deal and how it would impact people,” Milobar said.

“That would have added another level of uncertainty, another time-lag. So that’s why there was such urgency over the last couple of weeks.”

Milobar however says it is also good to see that Canfor will have to create a $200,000 legacy fund in Clearwater, while also donating to both the United Way and the Wells Gray Community Forest – a point also echoed by Kahlon.