Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 21/99) - There'll be a short-term response to the crisis at Great Slave Forest Products while a long-term solution is worked out.

Representatives of the NWT Development Corp., the government and community leaders reached the decision late Monday night in Fort Resolution, when they sat down to discuss the fate of the community's troubled sawmill.

"A lot of proposals were put forward," said Dev. Corp. president Fred Koe after the meeting. "We have three or four business proposals to assess and have to come up with a plan of action -- that's what we're doing to get the mill going."

Meanwhile, Koe said it looks like the mill's $800,000 current stock of logs will be milled soon.

"In May we were looking at milling in mid-July, and we're still on target," he said. "It's just a matter of finding the best way to run the business during the summer."

Fort Resolution Mayor Euan Hunter said the town is still reacting to Dev. Corp.'s recent news that it plans to stop funding the Fort Resolution subsidiary -- which the government said has been absorbing about three times its targeted salary subsidy level of $10,000 per job.

"I think the town is still reeling in shock from when the decision came down," Hunter said. "I think they figured we would get bailed out and (the Dev. Corp) would keep it going and make it viable."

But the mayor called the meeting a positive step.

"I think it went very well," he said. "We've got the short-term plan to go into effect in the next few weeks."

Koe said that ultimately the Dev. Corp. is looking at divesting its interests in Great Slave -- which he said also has "quite a large liability" in excess of $1 million -- so that a long-term solution should involve some sort of community ownership.

"Dev. Corp. still owns the business and we can't just walk away...so we have to look at our least expensive options," he said. "One option is them buying it, or we could wind down the business, sell the assets and set up something new."

Bob Bailey, assistant deputy minister at the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, was also at Monday's meeting and said beforehand that both the department and Dev. Corp. have a number of business programs they can apply to Great Slave if it proves necessary.

"The purpose of the meeting is to see what can be done to maintain a forestry industry in Fort Resolution for the future," he said. "It was never our intention to see that industry disappear."

Hunter said Great Slave's uncertain future -- no work's been done since winter -- and its position as the town's biggest employer has had a decided impact on Fort Resolution.

"There's usually 25 local employees -- everyone from the sawyer to the foreman is local," he said, "I think they'll be in a little bit of a dilemma as to what to do all summer, because if this goes into the fall, it'll interfere with their trapping and hunting."