By Lucas-Matthew Marsh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Iori:wase Rising tensions and repeated breakdowns in negotiations between stakeholders has resulted in the provincial government scrapping Bill 97 in its entirety, although some form of forestry reform is still a possibility. The decision was made after Jean-François Simard was appointed as the province’s new minister of Natural Resources and Forests in last month’s cabinet shuffle. “Today, Premier François Legault announced the end of Bill 97 in order to start fresh,” Ian Lafrenière, minister of First Nations and Inuit Relations, said last Thursday. The proposed forestry bill was responsible for amassing an unprecedented coalition against it, from First Nations, environmental groups and labour unions to forestry associations. According to Peter Graefe, a political science professor at McMaster University, this overwhelming opposition has made…
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