A Fort Frances town councillor has written Ontario’s Natural Resources Minister for more information about a deal between the Ministry and Resolute Forest Products that absolved Resolute from having to pay back a more than 20-million conditional grant given to construct the biomass boiler.
Mention of that agreement was made in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by the company.
The Ministry asked for the money back in 2014 when Resolute shuttered its Fort Frances mill and set a deadline for the end of that year if the biomass being utilized by then.
That deadline was extended several times before an agreement was reached three years later.
Doug Judson now wants to know what measures were put in place that protects the structure from being demolished.
“I think it’s important for us as a community to understand what restrictions, what limitations, if any, were put on the future of the facility by the previous government,” says Judson.
The deal was struck while the previous Liberal government was in place.
