Region Archives: Canada East

The Northern Pulp mill in Boat Harbour is scheduled to shut down at the end of the month amid concerns about pollution and environmental racism after decades of effluent treatment. But before 1960, Boat Harbour was an unpolluted tidal estuary on the Northumberland Strait in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. The estuary covered about 142 hectares and was used by the local Pictou Landing First Nation community for fishing, food and recreational purposes. Now, it is used as a waste treatment lagoon for a pulp mill. This began in the 1960s and has provided thousands of jobs. Now that the mill is close to shutting down, here’s the series of events that led to this point…

Tony Hurst

BOUCHERVILLE, Quebec — Lowe’s Companies announced that Tony Hurst has been appointed president, Lowe’s Canada, pending work authorization which is expected in February. He will report to President & CEO Marvin Ellison and will be based in Boucherville, Quebec. Hurst most recently served as Lowe’s senior vice president of enterprise and strategy transformation. …Based in Boucherville, Quebec, Lowe’s Canadian business, together with its wholly owned subsidiary, RONA inc., operates or services close to 600 corporate and independent affiliate dealer stores. These include Lowe’s, RONA, Réno-Dépôt, Ace and Dick’s Lumber.

Forestry contractors who need money to try to weather losses from the Northern Pulp shutdown are being offered up to $180,000 in short-term loans. It is an effort to tide them over while they search for new buyers for their wood. Jeff Bishop, executive director of Forest Nova Scotia, helped create the new program. He said much of the money would go to forest workers dealing with payments for equipment. By freeing up loan payments, Bishop said there might be money to pay workers or to cover other business expenses. But Bishop said it would not help everyone in the industry who is struggling with big bills. …The Nova Scotia government is guaranteeing the loans, meaning taxpayers will be on the hook if any of that money cannot be repaid. The province is setting aside roughly $5 million for the program.

In his Jan. 11 column, Jim Vibert opined that the transition fund established by the province to help affected sectors of our economy cope with the closure of Northern Pulp is not sufficient. Let me crunch some approximate numbers. The day after our premier made the announcement that will most likely close the Pictou mill, the price of timber paid to woodlot owners in Nova Scotia dropped $30 per cord. There are over 30,000 small woodlot owners in the province. I estimate that, on average, they have an inventory of around 75 acres of marketable wood containing about 30 cords per acre. The loss: over $2 billion. $2 billion! The premier announced, a few days ago, that $11 million will be taken out of the $50-million transition fund to help the forestry sector. It is not clear to me if any of that will actually go to the woodlot owners to compensate for the drastic reduction (30-50 per cent) in stumpage rates.

ABERCROMBIE, Nova Scotia — Pink slips are out and the job search is on for many employees of Northern Pulp. The company said it has begun handing out layoff notices to its employees. The action comes a little over a month after Premier Stephen MacNeil publicly announced on Dec. 20 that the Province of Nova Scotia will not extend the deadline for the closure of Boat Harbour. …The company states the majority of Northern Pulp’s 90 salaried employees will be laid off over the next few months with the earliest being effective Jan. 31, 2020. Northern Pulp has already issued layoff notice to Unifor, the union representing hourly employees at the facility. …The company expects that only 20 per cent of its workforce will report for work as of Feb. 1, 2020, to continue the hibernation of the facility.

HALIFAX – Unifor has joined with Northern Pulp and nine individuals representing the broader forestry industry in a request for judicial review filed today in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. The application seeks a review of Nova Scotia Environment’s December 17, 2019 decision regarding Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment facility project. “Unifor… has always believed the mill can coexist in Pictou County, knowing this company is willing and wanting to invest in environmental upgrades and forge a new path forward with Pictou Landing First Nation,” said Linda MacNeil, Unifor Atlantic Regional Director. “A judicial review of the decisions made by Nova Scotia Environment is necessary to ensure the process has been, and will continue to be, fair, reasonable and transparent, and making sure that the concerns of mill employees are included.”

HALIFAX — Northern Pulp says it has started giving layoff notices to management employees at its Nova Scotia mill. The company has moved to mothball the mill after its plan for a new treatment system that would see it pump treated effluent into the Northumberland Strait was rejected by the province. …The announcement came as the firm announced Thursday it will go to court to seek a judicial review of the province’s requirement it file an environmental assessment. The company says in a release it wants to bring the matter before the court so it can get “clarity about the process and elements required in order to be successful in the environment assessment process we’ll be embarking upon later this year.”

Stephen McNeil

Premier Stephen McNeil has dismissed a call by the Official Opposition to create an all-party committee of the Nova Scotia Legislature to tour the province so that elected officials could hear directly from those who will be most affected by the impending shutdown of Northern Pulp. “The last thing we need is to politicize this issue,” McNeil told reporters in North Sydney, N.S., on Thursday following a government announcement. McNeil said he specifically chose not to put politicians on the forestry transition team, which is made up of senior bureaucrats and industry representatives. They’ve been tasked with finding ways to cushion the blow for those who work at the mill or rely on the forest sector for all of part of their livelihood. McNeil said government officials have been working diligently with the transition team, investments have been announced and there will be more to come.

Tina Hicks has worked at Northern Pulp for 18 years as a process operator at the bleach plant. But with the looming closure of the mill, Hicks is now contemplating a move across the country for work in the industry. …Northern Pulp will shut officially shut the paper mill down on Jan. 31 as part of the Boat Harbour Act, a government agreement with the mill’s parent company Paper Excellence. …Hicks like many of her colleagues at Northern Pulp are highly skilled with technical training and bring in good money for their work, but with no paper mill, she says there are few jobs available that could meet her current salary. …Mayor Nancy Dicks says more than 75 mill workers call New Glasgow home and the potential loss of workers and taxpayers like Hicks is a major concern.

The effluent flowing into Boat Harbour on Wednesday wasn’t entirely clear, but it didn’t smell and foam wasn’t building up in the section known as the activated sludge basin. And the mood was much more conciliatory than it had been on Tuesday when the Pictou Landing First Nation issued a news release about its frustration that effluent would continue flowing into the facility past the Jan. 31 deadline outlined in the Boat Harbour Act. …“It’s better for everybody that Northern Pulp is allowed to do an orderly shutdown,” said Brian Hebert, lawyer for the First Nation on Wednesday. While he maintained that technically the province is in violation of the Boat Harbour Act as leachate from the mill site and waste water from the power boiler does qualify as effluent, the community is willing to be patient.

KINGSEY FALLS, QC – Toronto-based Corporate Knights, renowned for its contribution to promoting clean capitalism, has just released its annual list of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, following an in-depth analysis of over 7,000 international organizations with revenues exceeding $1 billion. In keeping with tradition, the announcement was made on the sidelines of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. Cascades is pleased to announce that it has ranked 49th among this select group of companies that are committed to best practices in the environmental, social and governance arenas. Adding to this recognition is the fact that Cascades is the only Containers and Packaging company on the list and is one of 12 Canadian businesses.

Stephen NcNeiil

Pictou Landing First Nation Chief Andrea Paul is expressing concern that although Boat Harbour will stop receiving effluent from Northern Pulp at the end of January, it will still be several months before the former tidal estuary is completely closed to all materials from the mill. Paul… takes particular issue with the company’s plan to run its power boiler to provide heat at the site while winterizing the mill, a move that would mean water would flow through the system and into Boat Harbour as late as April. …Northern Pulp could have started draining the pipes weeks ago in order to complete the work before Jan. 31 and avoid the need to heat the mill after that. …On Tuesday, McNeil said… “There will be no new effluent going into Boat Harbour as of the 31st of January.

HALIFAX — Discharge from the Northern Pulp mill will continue to flow into a treatment lagoon in Boat Harbour past the legislated Jan. 31 deadline for the treatment facility’s closure, says Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil. McNeil said Tuesday there will be an orderly shutdown as the mill is winterized, but it will take time to clean out what’s left in the boiler and the pipe leading to the current effluent treatment facility in Boat Harbour. …He told reporters the process wouldn’t breach the Boat Harbour Act because “no new effluent” will be flowing into the current treatment facility… “We will meet the terms of not only of the Boat Harbour Act, but we will meet the terms associated with the federal regulations,” McNeil said. …Northern Pulp has moved to mothball the mill after its plan for a new treatment system …was rejected by the province last month.

Susan Irving

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — Nancy Marcus to retire as CMO effective March 1, 2020. …Nancy joined Kruger Products in 2001 as VP of Marketing and became a key member of the Executive Team where she has been focused on building the Company’s brand portfolio and marketing capabilities. …Susan Irving formerly of PepsiCo to become new CMO for Kruger Products. Susan is a senior marketing executive with over two decades of experience leading many successful and well-known brands at Warner Lambert, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. …Susan joined Kruger Products in early January 2020.

Brian Baarda & Linda MacNeil

UNIFOR’S Atlantic Regional Director says they are trying to work with the government, and Northern Pulp to find a clear path forward that will protect workers, and keep the forestry industry alive in Nova Scotia. Linda MacNeil says… it’s not an ideal situation by a long shot to have a transition team discussing ways to help people in the entire forestry sector including Northern Pulp employees when UNIFOR representatives are not even allowed at the table to add their input. …”The company has given their commitment they will follow the provisions of the collective agreement up to and including still maintaining their pension payments,” explains MacNeil. …MacNeil says… about half their members are young, and can’t afford to wait years on a chance the mill reopens down the line.

The former mayor of a Nova Scotia municipality that lost its major employer in 2012 has some words of wisdom for Pictou County, N.S., which is facing the closure of Northern Pulp. Christopher Clarke was elected mayor of the Region of Queens Municipality just months after the former Bowater paper mill in Brooklyn closed in June 2012. He said the closure was felt immediately. …The closure threw 320 people out of work at Bowater and then the Oakhill Sawmill closed, which led to a ripple effect in Nova Scotia’s forestry sector. …Clarke said the Region of Queens began working closely with neighbouring municipalities to try to diversify the local economy. …He said the provincial and federal governments also… provided economic development officers, and established the Port Mersey Commercial Park at the former mill site.

NOVA SCOTIA — It has not been a good month to work in Cumberland County’s forests. It was at about this time last month when Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil stepped up to the mike at Province House and announced his government would not support extending the 2015 Boat Harbour Act. …It seems with one announcement the premier has thrown the province’s forest industry into disarray and told those who have invested millions of dollars into growing their companies that it was all for naught. …It would be easy for foresters and those employed by the industry in any way to simply throw their hands up in surrender, but there is an effort gathering steam across the county to look for ways to take a stand as an industry. Led by the Athol Forestry Co-operative and the region’s two MLAs.

MONTREAL – Resolute Forest Products Inc. says it will spend $27 million to add a plant to produce cellulose filaments at its Kenogami paper mill in Quebec. It says it will also spend $11 million to modernize equipment to produce high-grade SCA+ supercalendered paper (used in newspaper flyers), allowing the mill to access more favourable markets, for a total cost of $38 million. CEO Yves Laflamme says the investments will create synergies in its network of operations in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. …The filaments extraction technology was developed by research and development centre FPInnovations Inc. The project will be funded in part by $2.5 million from Quebec’s Department of Forests, Wildlife and Parks, $4.2 million from Investissement Quebec and $4.9 million from Natural Resources Canada.

MONTREAL — FPInnovations is pleased to announce that its cellulose filament production technology will once again be brought to a commercial scale following Resolute Forest Products’ announcement of a $27.7 million investment in its Kénogami plant in Quebec. This confirms FPInnovations’ ability to provide tangible support to companies that innovate with wood, which ultimately allows the forest sector to diversify its traditional and non-traditional products and markets. FPInnovations will partner with Resolute Forest Products to transfer knowledge of the technology, which was developed with contributions from industrial members, provincial governments and Canadian government funding from the Canadian Forest Service’s Transformative Technologies Program.

SAGUENAY, QC – …The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of National Revenue, on behalf of the Honourable Seamus O’Regan, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, today announced a $4.9-million investment to Resolute Forest Products Canada Inc. for an innovative technology that will accelerate advanced biomaterial production and create over 20 full-time jobs. The funding will allow Resolute to expand its Kenogami facility in Saguenay, Quebec, to manufacture industrial-scale cellulose filaments. Cellulose filaments — a biomaterial extracted from wood pulp — have unique properties that allow them to be used as a reinforcing agent in consumer products such as polymers and cement. The innovation will increase production efficiency and product quality while taking advantage of all-fibre residue. The Government of Quebec also contributed $6.7 million towards the project through their ESSOR Program (French only) and Wood Innovation Program (French only). The project will be carried out in partnership with FPInnovations, which developed the process.

With their mill about to close, Northern Pulp workers are exploring their employment options, and many of those opportunities may be outside Nova Scotia. …Roughly 140 Northern Pulp workers attended a recruitment session by J.D. Irving that was held at the Northern Pulp mill on Tuesday. …J. D. Irving spokesperson Mary Keith… said the company plans to hire 6,800 full-time positions by 2022, with 87 per cent of those jobs located in Atlantic Canada. The provincial government organized an employment information session Tuesday in New Glasgow. …Meanwhile, Paper Excellence, the company that owns Northern Pulp, has offered to help relocate Nova Scotia workers to fill vacancies in B.C. The company has also offered to recognize the union seniority of the Northern Pulp workers under the new contracts.

Nova Scotia’s government will use transition money to create new training paths for workers affected by the pending closure of the Northern Pulp mill who want to stay in Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency and Nova Scotia Community College are working together to enhance programming to connect these workers to opportunities in the skilled trades. The provincial government will use $1.5 million of the $50 million transition fund to support this initiative, which is estimated to support about 200 workers from either the Northern Pulp mill or across the broader forestry sector. …The way the program is designed, some workers could pursue apprenticeship in a skilled trade as a career option while others, with work experience in a trade, could challenge for certification, which would improve re-employment opportunities.

AMHERST, Nova Scotia — While the weather outside was frightful, forest industry and community representatives in Cumberland County are continue to find alternatives following the closure later this month of the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou. The second Future of Forestry meeting was held Jan. 12 and… more than 50 people gathered to take the next step in plotting a future for the industry in the county. …The first steps were also taken to creating a transition and advisory team, while the group also put its emotions about the closure aside. …One of the working groups will be looking at other potential markets for wood products and working within Nova Scotia with other groups to look for ways to protect and grow the industry despite the setbacks.

Robin Wilber

Most of us realize that a healthy economy allows us to continue to improve many things we all care about, such as health care, education, environmental issues — the list is almost endless. During the past year or so, Nova Scotians have been subjected to lots of rhetoric from a few who’d like to see the Northern Pulp plant shut down. …Lots has been written on this issue, but there’s been little to explain to the general public just why it’s so very important to the economy of Nova Scotia. …Our people have come to expect well-paying jobs. Landowners want a reasonable return on their investment. The industry needs to continue good forest practices to ensure a wood supply on a sustainable basis, and the general public demands that we be good stewards of the forests. With no market for low-quality wood, none of this is possible. (a subscription is required to access the full story)

POINT TUPPER, Nova Scotia — The provincial regulator will hold a hearing next month into a proposed new power rate for Port Hawkesbury Paper, the largest employer in the Strait of Canso area. The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board has set Feb. 11 as the opening date for the hearing. …Under the proposed rate, Nova Scotia Power would have more authority to scale back or ramp up the mill’s power usage, with the mill turning over the keys to the utility from an electricity supply perspective depending upon the system load. In essence, it would treat the mill as part of its system — NSP tells its own plants what load to run, and now that would also be extended to Port Hawkesbury Paper. The mill uses approximately 10 per cent of Nova Scotia Power’s system load, annually.