In reaction to the findings of a CBC investigation into the ownership scheme behind Canada's biggest logging company, Priyanka Vittal, Legal Counsel with Greenpeace Canada, said:
"The public deserves much more transparency from Paper Excellence, Canada's biggest logging company, now that the Resolute Forest Group acquisition is sealed. We're talking about a multinational corporation whose operations in five provinces will have an impact on forests for generations to come. Paper Excellence's complicated ownership structure prevents local communities and Indigenous Peoples from holding them accountable for their actions. People have a right to know who is profiting from all of this logging, what's the impact on threatened wildlife and what their plans are for the future.
The company's unprecedented takeover of the logging industry comes at a critical time for forests across Canada. Loss of biodiversity, soaring emissions from unsustainable logging and failure to protect old growth have prompted some of the largest civil society protests in Canadian history. This makes it all the more important for Paper Excellence to commit to cleaning up the operations of Resolute Forest Products and other logging companies they have purchased and to being completely transparent about their true ownership and beneficiaries.
In light of Paper Excellence and the Sinar Mas Group empire's global track record of deforestation and biodiversity loss, we urgently need stronger laws across the country to better protect forests and wildlife at risk. This should start with Minister of the Environment Steven Guilbeault moving more quickly to pass new legislation strengthening nature protection in Canada."
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