The Forest Appeals Commission dismissed a Vanderhoof hunting and fishing lodge’s appeal of a $25,000 fine for cutting Crown timber without a licence.
In an Aug. 13 decision, panel chair Maureen Baird upheld the March 2023 fine against Crystal Lake Resort Ltd. by the Ministry of Forests.
Daniel Brooks, whose family bought the resort in 1975, admitted trees were cut without a licence in July 2020 on a right of way and the company asked, after the fact, for the Ministry of Forests to authorize the removal of merchantable timber. The ministry advised the company that it needed to have a licence to harvest in the first place.
Brooks said he did not know he needed a licence and believed that the management plan allowed road-clearing activities and argued there should be no penalty because of financial hardship. He claimed he would not have proceeded had a Ministry representative told him the he would be subject to pay stumpage that he could not afford.
Baird wrote that the ministry issued the resort a licence of occupation for the road in 2016, which included a requirement to obtain Forest Act authorization to cut or remove any Crown timber. In June 2020, the Ministry approved the required management plan, that allowed cutting trees if the resort had a forestry licence to do so.
In its submission, the ministry said the “onus is on the [company] to understand its rights and obligations” under the law and licence of occupation. By not doing so, Crystal Lake Resort Ltd. contravened the Forest and Range Practices Act.
Baird decided that Brooks could not be excused on the basis of due diligence, mistake of fact or officially induced error. The ministry had calculated $818,768 as the maximum penalty, but deemed $25,000 in this case to be appropriate.
“I appreciate that the consequences of this contravention to the appellant are serious and
substantial,” Baird wrote. “However, the appellant did not provide sufficient evidence to persuade me to change the penalty assessed and therefore I decline to do so.”
