The MPP for Nipissing says there will be bad news for the north’s forest industry after proposed legislation passed without amendments to stop groups from making false claims about the sector. Vic Fedeli says the failure of the NDP and Liberals to support the amendments at the committee stage gives environmental groups a free hand to say whatever they want without fear of reprisals. Fedeli says earlier, Resolute Forests closed its doors after it lost a major contract with an electronics retailer. Fedeli says the members of an environmental group threatened to write a false product review the retailer sold if it continued to deal with Resolute. The Tory MPP says the threat left the retailer with no options. He says the company was so overwhelmed with the cyber-attack that it phoned Resolute and said it can’t buy newsprint from it anymore otherwise the environmental group would continue to boycott it.   Fedeli says amending the proposed legislation would have prevented large environmental groups from making this kind of threat in the future. Fedeli also says that at the hearing stage northern mayors, First nation chiefs and the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities asked for the amendments but were ignored by the Liberals and NDP. The legislation, known as Bill 52, is expected to come for final reading at Queens Park sometime in the near future.
