Region Archives: Canada East

HALIFAX – The general manager of the recently shuttered Northern Pulp mill in Pictou County says the mill’s parent company plans to reopen it in the future. Bruce Chapman made the comments at Forestry Nova Scotia’s annual general meeting at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel in Halifax Wednesday. He said a lot would still need to happen before the mill can start running again – including an environmental assessment – but that management remains “committed to Nova Scotia,” and is working with the provincial government to get everything in order. “We need to receive the terms of reference first,” Chapman told Huddle. “But our plan right now is to work through the environmental assessment … and reopen the mill in the future. Terri Fraser explained that the company is waiting for the provincial government to say exactly what needs.

KINGSEY FALLS, QC – Cascades Inc., a leader in eco-friendly recovery, packaging and hygiene solutions, applauds the government’s commitment to work to improve Québec’s recovery chain, notably by establishing quality criteria for materials coming out of the province’s sorting centres. A pioneer of the circular economy, Cascades uses 83% recycled materials in manufacturing all of its products. This makes it the largest collector of paper fibres in Canada. In Québec, the company works with a number of successful sorting centres to ensure the supply of quality fibre. An overall increase in the quality of materials will provide new local opportunities to businesses that recycle. …The company is offering its help and expertise to work with the government and all stakeholders in the industry to find a sustainable solution to the recovery and recycling issues.

Nova Scotia Power is scheduled to appear before government regulators Tuesday morning seeking approval for a unique discount rate for its largest customer. Under the four-year plan, Nova Scotia Power would control the supply of electricity to Port Hawkesbury Paper, with the right to direct the company to increase or reduce daily consumption throughout the year. The rate proposal is supported by the mill, which says it needs to lower its power bill to keep its operation viable. …The mill accounts for 10 per cent of the provincial electricity load, producing glossy paper used in magazines and catalogs. …Port Hawkesbury Paper said ceding the control of its electrical supply to Nova Scotia Power was “not an easy decision” to make, but the company is confident the arrangement will work.

What a difference a year makes. One year ago, Andrew West and other members of the province’s forestry industry gathered for the Forest Nova Scotia AGM hoping for the continued and long-term presence of Northern Pulp. Less than two weeks after the Pictou County mill shut down, West, a forest engineer with H. C. Haynes, said uncertainty now pervades the industry. …Robin Wilber, president of Elmsdale Lumber Company, said there was a thought that at the end of January if Northern Pulp shut down, so would all the sawmills. Although that isn’t what happened. …”This is a slow death,” he said. …Although much of the focus since the mill’s shutdown has been on job losses… Wilber said the biggest story is the potential damage to the forests.

John Hamm & Ray Ivany

ABERCROMBIE, N.S. — Former Nova Scotia Premier Dr. John Hamm is quick to admit he’s taken a lot of heat for his involvement with Northern Pulp, particularly in recent years.  But he remains ardent in his past support of the Pictou County based mill and believes it was for the greater good.  “It was something that I knew was controversial, but I felt, on balance, supporting the mill was the right thing to do – right thing for our county, right thing for rural Nova Scotia,” he said in a phone interview from his New Glasgow home.  Hamm tendered his resignation as a director and chair of the board of directors to Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation and as a director of its subsidiaries on Jan. 8, 2020.  … Hamm said his reason for stepping down when he did was because of a health related issue which he declined to elaborate on.

Domtar is hoping to remove barriers to create a sustainable future for the forestry sector, and are lobbying the province for help. onny Skene with Domtar is urging the province to include alternative access to un-utilized fibre from saw mills in the region in Ontario’s upcoming forestry strategy, to help create more pulp and paper products.  “Cost-effective, accessible, sustainable fibre is the bread and butter of pulp and paper mills. We’re always looking for ways to do that competitively so that we can have a sustainable future.”  Wood pulp can be created through either a chemical or a mechanical process, which transforms wood chips into pulp fibres. These fibres are the basis for an extensive range of paper products. The plan to create a provincial strategy for the forest sector was announced in September 2018.

NOVA SCOTIA — Claudia Chender has a point when she suggests the province’s forest transition team is unbalanced. …Her point was sharpened this week when the transition team’s leaders – three provincial deputy ministers – appeared before a committee of the legislature and admitted the extent of the economic pain is a mystery to them. They know that Northern Pulp laid off its mill workers. That’s around 350 people. But beyond that, the team seems pretty much in the dark about the scale of the problem. …Northern Pulp had estimated at least 2,000 forest jobs were dependent on its mill. But, judging by the range of businesses that have said they’re in trouble since the mill closed, the ripples are more like tidal waves spreading across large parts of rural Nova Scotia. [to access the full story a Chronicle Herald subscription may be required]

Stephen McNeil

HALIFAX — Talks are ongoing regarding the repayment of millions of dollars in outstanding loans owed to the province by the mothballed Northern Pulp mill, Nova Scotia’s premier said Thursday. Stephen McNeil told reporters following a cabinet meeting that the current discussions concern things such as a repayment schedule, interest, and how the loans will be repaid. …”That’s what the conversation has been about — it’s never been about not repaying them.” McNeil also said there are currently no talks around the province’s potential liability related to the closure of the mill’s Boat Harbour effluent treatment facility, which comes a little more than 10 years ahead of the scheduled end for the lease on the property. …However, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston said he believes there is still a big risk to taxpayers.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — It’s time to include community voices on the Forestry Transition Team and make the chair independent of government, says NDP rural and regional development critic Claudia Chender. Chender voiced her opinion face-to-face with three members of the team — including chairwoman Kelliann Dean — who appeared before the natural resources and economic development committee on Wednesday. The senior bureaucrats charged with forging a new path… was unable to provide a solid picture of the economic impact resulting from the mill’s shutdown. …That was a point of concern for Chender that demonstrates why the nine-member committee, which includes four deputy ministers presiding over a $50-million transition fund, needs to include a local community member that’s given decision-making power.

Kelliann Dean

Key government members of the team created to try to cushion the blow of the Northern Pulp shutdown have told a legislature committee they are committed to their work and care about the families affected by the loss of the Pictou County pulp mill.  But the team’s leader also admitted Wednesday the Nova Scotia government doesn’t have a firm number on how many people the province may be called on to help.  Following almost two hours of questioning by the committee, Kelliann Dean, chair of the Forestry Transition Team, told reporters it doesn’t have a figure on the number of people who may lose their jobs now that Northern Pulp is no longer operating”

Richard Spinks

NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — As he listened to Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil share his controversial resolve to uphold the Boat Harbour Act, business consultant Richard Spinks recognized an opportunity. …Spinks was watching live online from Ukraine.  …The pulp mill would close. … Spinks said he knew the premier was making a tough decision – both brave and one that could devastate the province’s fragile economy. He listened intently when McNeil spoke about the need to find new markets.  That’s when he got excited.  “…Next week, Spinks, a British-born entrepreneur, will share an investment proposal during the Forest Nova Scotia annual general meeting (Feb. 10 and Feb. 11) that he believes could solve many of the problems that Northern Pulp’s void in the province creates, and usher in an era of cleaner energy.

HALIFAX — Officials with the transition team tasked with helping forestry sector workers in Nova Scotia displaced by the closure of the Northern Pulp Mill say they don’t have an accurate picture yet of how many people need help. The deputy minister of the province’s Lands and Forestry Department says the number is “a moving target” because many of those who did contract work for Northern Pulp have been picked up by other mills. Julie Towers says the only solid number is the just over 300 Northern Pulp employees who have been laid off, along with about two dozen woodlands staff who work in forests managed by the company. Three members of the province’s forestry transition team, including its chairwoman Kelliann Dean, appeared before the legislature’s natural resources and economic development committee on Wednesday.

NOVA SCOTIA — The province has divvied up $7 million of the $50-million investment promised last month to keep rural Nova Scotians working in the forestry sector in the wake of the closure of the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou County. The government is now encouraging forestry contractors and woodlot owners to apply for additional silviculture and roadwork starting Feb. 14. …Another $2.5 million will be earmarked for Crown land silviculture and roadwork, including $1 million for silviculture practices that produce wood, like commercial thinning or partial harvesting… and $1.5 million for Crown road maintenance and upgrades. The funding also provides $1 million through Forest Nova Scotia to deliver the private roads program. [May require a subscription to access full story]

SPENCER’S ISLAND, N.S. – While the provincially-set deadline of Jan. 31 for Northern Pulp’s Pictou County mill has come and gone, longtime forester Peter Spicer said much of its impacts were felt more than a month earlier when Premier Stephen McNeil refused to extend the Boat Harbour Act. Spicer operates a 650-hectare woodlot in Spencer’s Island …“It has happened from before that date (the deadline). The price of logs has dropped $10 a tonne and the price of stud wood has dropped $15 a tonne as of this Monday,” Spicer told the Amherst News last week. “This has been very tough on producers big and small everywhere.” Spicer, who is sitting on the Cumberland County forestry committee that’s looking for ways to survive the crisis in forestry brought about by the closure of Northern Pulp, said the industry is down, but not out.

PaperWeek Canada 2020 launched today in Montreal, bringing together pulp and paper professionals for three days. …Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec’s minister of economy and innovation, opened the morning by highlighting the role of the forest products sector in the shift to the green economy. …Fitzgibbon cited examples such as “the production of cellulose derivatives and other wood-sourced derivatives, and the development of intelligent paper” as some of the areas where industry and research are innovating. However, the skills gap – is the number one challenge facing the pulp and paper industry according to Pulp & Paper Canada‘s recent survey – remains somewhat of a chasm. …Kevin Edgson, president and CEO of EACOM Timber Corporation… “The fact is that people are everything… Our job is to make sure we find them and we earn the right for them to want to stay.”

For decades, Pictou Landing First Nation has lived uneasily near an industrial plant emitting brown, foul-smelling waste and the effluent treatment facility they say causes respiratory and skin illnesses. Now, the mill is being mothballed. …Last Friday, the big mill …stopped producing wood pulp for the first time since 1967, after missing a five-year deadline from the province to build a new wastewater treatment facility. And although it will take a few more months to fully wind down the mill and years to clean up the contamination, band members are quietly celebrating the end of the flow of brown, foamy, foul-smelling wastewater into the Boat Harbour lagoon. Residents of Pictou Landing have blamed the effluent treatment facility in Boat Harbour for respiratory problems, unusual skin conditions and even elevated rates of cancer. They say they long ago stopped fishing, clam digging and hunting near it because of environmental concerns.

HALIFAX – The majority of the approximately 230 unionized workers at the Northern Pulp mill finished their final shifts on Friday, with 60 employees remaining to put the Nova Scotia factory into “hibernation.” Don MacKenzie, the president of the Unifor local, says many of the approximately 170 laid-off workers were permitted to head home early on their last day. He said some are bitter about the mill shutdown, believing the provincial Liberal government has created an unnecessary economic crisis. …The union leader remains hopeful that the mill will be maintained… followed by a return to operation. …”There’s major dollars being spent in here to protect these assets and that gives us a positive feeling (the owner) wants to go with this and restart this mill,” he said.

The shutdown of the Northern Pulp paper mill in Pictou, N.S., on Friday could mean the painful end of an era for workers at the mill and in the province’s forestry industry. But for the Mi’kmaw community of Pictou Landing First Nation, the mill’s closure marks a new beginning. Boat Harbour, the lagoon where the mill’s chemical-laced wastewater has been dumped for 53 years, is in the community’s backyard. It’s known as A’se’k to the Mi’kmaq. This feature video from CBC Indigenous explores the impact the pollution has had on the community and its elders and how their advocacy for the land and water resulted in change. [VIDEO]

Nova Scotia forestry workers weigh in on the closure of the Pictou County mill and the effluent treatment facility. [VIDEO]

Gordon Wilson

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s environment minister concedes the province is living up to the spirit of the law but not the letter in allowing the Northern Pulp mill to continue to dump effluent past a legislated deadline Friday. Gordon Wilson said he agreed with a reporter’s description of the government’s decision to allow some discharge from the plant past the date when it was supposed to cease all operations at its treatment facility in Boat Harbour, N.S. …Premier Stephen McNeil had previously maintained the Boat Harbour Act would not be breached because no new effluent would be flowing into the treatment lagoons near the Pictou Landing First Nation. Wilson said a ministerial order he issued… allows the mill to continue to release warm boiler water into Boat Harbour… until April 30.

Gerald Battist

Gerald Battist doesn’t work for Northern Pulp, but few people have more to lose from the mill’s closure than the veteran trucker and his 42 employees. “Almost 60 per cent of my business is with the mill,” Battist said in a recent interview at Gerald Battist Trucking. …Battist’s company hauled wood … to the mill and containers to the Port of Halifax… That dried up as production ceased earlier this month. The effects are rippling through the mill’s supply chain. …The mill made up eight per cent of exports out of Halifax. “So that makes an impact,” says Capt. Allan Gray, CEO of the Halifax Port Authority. …Battist says McNeil made the wrong decision. “It just don’t make any sense. You don’t take a company that’s making money, a company that was willing to spend money to put a new treatment plant in, and turn them down for no reason whatsoever.”