Two local candidates are pledging to fight the closure of the tree seed plant in Angus.
Simcoe-Grey Progressive Conservative incumbent Jim Wilson stood outside the gates of the Ontario Tree Seed Plant on Monday, and made his promise to more than a dozen people.
“As long as I'm in office, and for hundreds of years more that this property is preserved, and there be a tree seed plant of some scale here, as long as it’s needed,” Wilson said.
A spokesperson for Doug Ford tells CTV News that the PC leader would reconsider the closure if he is elected.
“Doug Ford stands with his candidate, Jim Wilson, and is committed to reviewing the current government’s plans to close the Ontario Tree Seed Plant in Angus,” says spokesperson Melissa Lantsman.
Liberal candidate Dan Hambly is promising to push to keep the plant open. He says the closure was a “bad bureaucratic decision.”
He finds it “extremely difficult to believe that the PC party of today, with the massive cuts to spending that they are threatening, has a plan for forestry, even if they did keep our plant open."
Tree seeds from Ontario's forests have been gathered and sorted at the plant since the 1920s. The Liberal government decided last year the work will soon be turned over to the private sector.
Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry says as far as it's concerned the plant is still scheduled to close in September.
