Image Credit: CFJC Today

By James Peters

B.C. Forestry

Merritt officials say the community may miss out on forest industry relief funds

Oct 2, 2019 | 4:40 PM

MERRITT, B.C. — Merritt-area officials are expressing concern that their community will be frozen out of the province’s $69 million forest industry relief fund.

According to a news release from Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart, Merritt will have a hard time qualifying for a piece of that pie.

Tegart says Merritt mayor Linda Brown recently met with NDP MLA Ravi Kahlon, and learned that the funds are not retroactive to when Merritt’s Tolko mill closed in 2016.

Brown noted because Aspen Planers is still operating, Merritt doesn’t meet the qualifications for relief.

In addition, Tegart laments the community may have received funding through the former rural dividend fund, but the government has suspended that program.

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Tegart called the government’s response “an insult to every single community hit hard by the forestry crisis.”