TO the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

WHEREAS, Resolute Forest Products (RFP) has chosen to close the Resolute Trestle Bridge in Iroquois Falls. WHEREAS, they have left the bridge in a state of severe disrepair due to non-maintenance since taking ownership in 2010. Whereas, the citizens of Iroquois Falls, and Northeastern Ontario have traditionally used the Resolute trestle bridge since 1954, and have had public access to Crown Land and water via the bridge. WHEREAS, there is an onus upon the company to maintain the bridges structural integrity for public safety and social responsibility as a corporate citizen. WHEREAS, the citizens of this community, and area, helped build this company and community, since 1913, & feel abandoned by this new emergence company RFP. WHEREAS, this bridge serves as a multi-­user crossing for recreational, safety and economic etc. uses. WHEREAS, emergency services such as Fire, OPP, Ambulance, etc. will be severely compromised, delayed, yet needed. WHEREAS, the discontinuation of bridge service usage will devastate the real estate value of the recreational cottaging, and community housing, and accessibility to crown land will be eliminated for any future crown land economic development opportunities. Therefore;

Recommend that the Ontario Provincial Legislature get immediately involved and advise Resolute Forest Products that they have a social and corporate responsibility to maintain year round access to crown land. Since they have been collecting user fees, from subcontractors, for the past four years and haven’t used any of it for maintenance, that they reinvest the collected funds back into structural maintenance of the bridge in order to have it reopened to all, year round. If RFP choose not to reopen the bridge, that the Provincial Government will add additional fees to RFP crown permits in order to recoup the denied maintenance funds to maintain open access to crown land using the Resolute Trestle Bridge as a crossing point.