Region Archives: Canada East

Greg Rickford

Northern Development Minister Greg Rickford says he remains engaged, when comes to the sale of Kenora Forest Products. “It goes without saying that Kenora right now we’re facing some new challenges in the face of Kenora Forest Products recent announcement and the challenges of the forest sector in the United States and Canada are facing in global markets. So, we want to support local industry,” said the minister last week. The owners of the sawmill filed for bankruptcy last month, which includes putting the company up for sale. “We have to work with that family and the business, and we’ll continue to see what prospects are there. We understand there are some interested parties, but I can’t comment on that right now,” the minister added.  The deadline for bids on the sawmill is mid-February.

Jamie Lim

Following news of the bankruptcy at Kenora Forest Products, the Ontario Forest Industry Association is calling for more help from provincial and federal governments. “In Kenora, you have a mill that had been doing really, really well. They’d been adding shifts. They were full production and had fallen into harm’s way, because of American tariffs on softwood lumber,” said Jamie Lim, CEO and president of the association. She says $245 million dollars from Ontario producers is stuck at the border, waiting for a new softwood lumber agreement. Members of the association would like to see loan guarantees, in order to help companies ride out the latest dispute with Americans over softwood lumber. “That money would go towards keeping their mills open, paying their employees. That’s our money and we need access to it,” she said.

Since 1967, a kraft pulp mill has been an economic driver for Pictou County.  … In 2011, Paper Excellence was proud to carry on this tradition when we purchased Northern Pulp Nova Scotia. We operate pulp mills throughout Canada and globally, and recognized that the core fundamentals of a successful kraft mill were in place.  We also recognized that investments would be needed to bring the mill to the environmental standards expected today. …We have always said that Boat Harbour needs to close, and we continue to believe this. In June 2014, a faulty pipe resulted in an effluent leak at our facility. We took full responsibility for this very unfortunate incident and undertook immediate actions to fix it.  What is often forgotten is that our initial response efforts were delayed due to a protester blockade. [A subscription to the Chronicle Herald may be required to access full story]

By early next week, only the wood waste boiler will continue to operate at the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou County. In a news release Sunday, Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corp. said it has begun to wind down operations at the Abercrombie Point mill to meet the impending Jan. 31 provincial deadline imposed by the Boat Harbour Act. The boiler will remain active – at least for now – to provide heat for the facility to protect against freezing and enable cleanup of the processing equipment, the company said. “Over the coming weeks, Northern Pulp will focus on the diligent removal of chemicals, pulp, and wood fibre from mill storage tanks, piping, and wood yards to meticulously prepare the facility for its indefinite closure,” the release states. 

Douglas Judson

Last month, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a 1985 indemnity… would not get Resolute Forest Products off the hook for a mercury waste site near Dryden. Just 200 kilometers away in Fort Frances, the judgment was hailed as comeuppance – a glimmer of the justice that evaded their own 2019 battle with Resolute. …With the deadline for the community to find a new operator for its mill, Fort Frances looks to an uncertain future. Locals question the true legacy of the sweetheart deals granted to local mill owners. The same arrangements which once marshaled their woodlands for local economic benefit now appear to constrict local economic destiny. …People in Fort Frances pin their current circumstances on deliberate corporate actions and influence which were designed to strip it of its key economic asset, deflect new opportunities that might compete with established interests, and to cast a veil over the local public’s rights to benefit from its own forest resources.

The four Atlantic Canadian premiers are set to meet in St. John’s, N.L. today, with another Eastern Canadian premier and a prominent federal cabinet minister scheduled to join discussions. The premiers will be joined by Quebec Premier Francois Legualt to discuss clean energy and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is scheduled to meet with the premiers in the afternoon. Legault met with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball on Sunday afternoon ahead of Monday’s gathering with premiers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. …New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said last week he wants to talk with Freeland about Canada’s softwood lumber deal with the United States. Higgs is pushing to have New Brunswick exempted from tariffs imposed on softwood lumber exported to the U.S.

The Nova Scotia forestry transition team met Thursday for the first time and moved quickly to announce a $7-million investment into the silviculture work, to directly support the hundreds of workers in the forests. Progressive Conservative Public Accounts Committee member Tim Halman calls the move a positive step, but as the closure of Northern Pulp looms closer, the effects on the forestry sector will be more widespread and so he’s calling on the Liberal government to act quicker and more transparently. …On Thursday, Halman requested that forestry transition team chair Kelliann Dean, the deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs and trade appear, before the public accounts committee. Liberal MLA and public accounts vice-chair Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, however, vetoed that. …The challenge facing woodlot owners and sawmill operators now is finding a new market for their lower-end products.

Greg Rickford

FORT FRANCES – Greg Rickford, Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, announced Ontario is investing $83,000 through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation in two community development projects in the Fort Frances-Rainy River region. Investments include:

• $65,000 for the Town of Fort Frances to create redevelopment plans for two properties that were formerly part of Resolute Forest Products’ pulp and paper mill operations.
• $18,000 for the Rainy River Future Development Corporation to study the feasibility of developing a modular house manufacturing facility in the region.

Premier Stephen McNeil officially met the Nova Scotia Forestry Transition Panel Thursday. The eight-member task force includes industry experts and politicians who’ll now be tasked with helping the forestry sector through the challenging times ahead. [This is a video story, click the Read More to see the video]

Stephen McNeil & Kelliann Dean

Nova Scotia’s forestry transition team will spend $7 million on silviculture work and forest road building, a move Premier Stephen McNeil says should keep up to 300 people working in the woods as usual for the next year. The money will be for programs on Crown and private land in central and western Nova Scotia and is on top of what the province already spends. “We want to make sure that all of those lands continue to be maintained and supported,” McNeil told reporters. “Whether [Northern Pulp] reopens or not, we need the expertise of those who have been working on the ground and private woodlot owners.” …The [transition] team will meet every Tuesday for the foreseeable future and McNeil said all suggestions would be evaluated to ensure they don’t risk violating the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber agreement.

After weeks of warning of the pending end of its mill operations in Nova Scotia’s Pictou County, Northern Pulp now says it is committed to remaining in the province for the long term. In a statement Thursday, the mill’s parent company, Paper Excellence Canada, said it intends to complete an environmental assessment required by the provincial government. …The company pointed out that since purchasing the mill in 2011 it had invested more than $70 million in “people, technology, and processes to improve our production and reduce our environmental impact.” The statement came shortly before Premier Stephen McNeil announced $7 million to assist silviculture and forest road building operations… The team will advise the government on how to spend a $50-million assistance program for the forestry industry. …In the meantime, McNeil said the province …is in discussions with the Pictou Landing First Nation about allowing remaining effluent from the plant to be dumped as the province cleans the pipe out and caps it.

The province is pumping $7-million into the silviculture sector that is expected to keep up to 300 forestry workers employed when Northern Pulp closes at the end of the month. Premier Stephen McNeil made the announcement Thursday, saying the funding would target both private and Crown lands in central and western Nova Scotia. The money comes from the $50-million transition fund the premier announced last month after the mill failed to meet the province’s deadline for environmental approval for its proposed effluent treatment plant. The mill is slated to close Jan. 31, the legislated date ordering the mill to stop pumping effluent into Boat Harbour. The premier said the transition fund would provide financial support to affected mill and forestry workers but also to develop alternative markets for Nova Scotia wood products.

PICTOU, Nova Scotia — County council will send a letter to Premier Stephen McNeil asking for financial support to contractors hit by the pending closure of Northern Pulp. …David Parker, who said the intention is to ask the province to allocate some of the so-called transition funds to contractors who face high payments on expensive forestry equipment, which can cost millions of dollars to purchase. The motion was passed by near-unanimous consent. That way, council says, they would have financial assistance to physically transport their machines to other parts of the country, should they need to sell their equipment, some of which can cost tens of thousands of dollars to transport. Parker said the market is soft here in this region, but not elsewhere in Canada. “There’s 50 million dollars out there.

PICTOU, N.S. — …On Dec. 20 Premier Stephen McNeil had triggered what the industry expects to be one of the most widespread layoffs in this province in recent decades when he refused to extend the deadline for Northern Pulp’s operation of the Boat Harbour Effluent Treatment Facility. …The forestry stakeholders came to meeting last Thursday to hear what the province had been planning for that transition. …Stephen Cole, a wood buyer with HC Haynes…said, it quickly became apparent [government] hadn’t done anything to prepare for this.” …Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston is accusing the provincial government of not having planned for the varied outcomes of its own decision. …Two days after McNeil’s announcement harvester Kelly Tattrie sold a porter he’d paid $28,000 for used a few years ago for $11,000 just to continue making payments on his remaining land and equipment. “You can’t give forestry equipment away right now,” said Tattrie. [A subscription to the Chronicle Herald may be required to access the full story]

C & D Bond Forestry Ltd. had to stop short of completion on a job recently, due to the imminent closure of Northern Pulp and the McNeil government’s decision not to extend the life of Boat Harbour. …poplar, for the most part, is pulpwood and goes to Northern Pulp. …Spruce is studwood or logs, not a Northern Pulp-bound product. But on the top of every spruce is a stick or two of pulpwood …So why in the world are we losing Northern Pulp? That mill consumed all the lower-grade wood from sites all over Nova Scotia! …So, Stephen McNeil, you had five years to put a plan in place… in the wake of Northern Pulp’s shutdown? Well, what is it? I have to know where to tell the trucks to take the pulpwood. I keep being told, “Someone will call you back in a week or two” from Lands and Forestry. What the hell, you didn’t plan anything.

Nova Scotia’s Environment Department says Northern Pulp intends to move ahead with the environmental assessment process for a proposed effluent treatment facility, even though the mill is scheduled to shut down at the end of the month. The company has said it would wrap up operations at the Pictou County mill after the province rejected its most recent attempt to get approval for a plan that would involve pumping treated waste water into the Northumberland Strait. …In a news release late Wednesday, Wilson said the province is legally required to continue with the assessment process, but he reiterated that the province would enforce the Boat Harbour Act deadline of Jan 31. for the closure of the mill’s current effluent facility in Boat Harbour, N.S., located near the Pictou Landing First Nation. [to access the full story a subscription is required]

The Nova Scotia government has fired one of the members of its forestry transition team, the group being set up to guide the industry through the fallout from the imminent shutdown of Northern Pulp. Robin Wilber is president of the Elmsdale Lumber Co. and was a voice for private industry on the team. In recent days, he spoke to multiple media outlets about the possibility of the Pictou County plant going into a state of “hot idle”. “Robin Wilber is focused on options for Northern Pulp. That is not part of the transition team’s mandate therefore he is no longer part of the transition team,” Kelliann Dean, the deputy minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and transition team leader, said. …Meanwhile, the union leader for Northern Pulp workers thinks Wilber should be reinstated. …Don MacKenzie, president of Unifor Local 440.

HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government, facing massive job losses in the province’s forestry sector, has set up a confidential, toll-free line to offer emotional support to those affected by the pending closure of the Northern Pulp mill near Pictou. Premier Stephen McNeil said Tuesday the government will offer the round-the-clock service with the help of the human resources firm Morneau Shepell. “The impact of this situation reaches beyond those directly employed in the forestry sector, and it’s vitally important that support is available to all those who need it,” McNeil said in a written statement. However, the province’s latest bid to deal with the fallout from the closure was partly overshadowed by news that a member of an industry-government transition team, Robin Wilber, had been removed for talking about saving the Northern Pulp mill rather than the fate of forestry workers.

A confidential, toll-free line is now open to help anyone in need of emotional support as a result of the pending closure of the Northern Pulp mill. The Nova Scotia government is partnering with Morneau Shepell to deliver the service. People can call the free support line at 1-866-885-6540. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “The impact of this situation reaches beyond those directly employed in the forestry sector and it’s vitally important that support is available to all those who need it,” said Premier Stephen McNeil. “This dedicated line is one place people can turn to for support.” The province says that those who call the line will receive professional counselling support and/or a referral to resources in their community.

Greg Watson

Greg Watson is trying to remain optimistic. These days, the manager of North Nova Forest Owners Co-op in Wentworth, N.S., like many people who work in the woods, is trying to get a sense of how the future looks for Nova Scotia’s forestry industry as its largest player — Northern Pulp — is weeks away from shutting down. …Watson’s group manages about 30,000 hectares of land for 340 landowners. …But with pulpwood prices falling as the mill prepares to close, Watson estimates his current management area has shrunk in half as landowners put off pending harvests and some work simply isn’t economically viable. …Clinging to positivity at what is unquestionably a difficult time stems in part from a “stubborn” desire to find a way to keep working where he loves… said Watson.

On Monday the premier’s office put out a news release announcing information sessions around the province for forestry workers put out of a job by the looming closure of Northern Pulp. …The mill has already stopped taking deliveries of wood chips from sawmills and pulp wood from cutting operations, threatening the viability of many sawmills around the province and independent harvesting contractors. ‘I know this is a time of uncertainty for businesses and workers across the forestry sector,’ Premier Stephen McNeil says in the news release. …Andrew Fife won’t be at any of the public information sessions. …Now stumpage rates have gone down significantly for studwood and there’s no market anymore for pulpwood. “Why would a young person ever get into farming or landowning in this province now,” said Fife.

ABERCROMBIE, Nova Scotia — Paper Excellence is considering the option of keeping Northern Pulp in a hot idle, says Robin Wilber, president of Elmsdale Lumber Company and a member of Nova Scotia’s newly appointed forestry transition team. …But to keep the mill in hot idle would require taking water from the Middle River and running it through the boilers to keep them going. This water (which would not contain chemicals) would then be released into Boat Harbour the same way treated effluent currently is before it flows through the Boat Harbour basin and out to the Northumberland Strait. He said this wouldn’t contravene the Boat Harbour Act because it wouldn’t be effluent, but it would require approval from Pictou Landing First Nation. He said the effects will be catastrophic if it’s not approved.

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil has filled out the transition team intended to help forestry workers affected by the impending closure of the Northern Pulp mill. McNeil announced Friday that eight people will join Kelliann Dean, the deputy minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Trade. The team is part of a $50-million aid package announced by McNeil last month when he decided not to extend the legislated Jan. 31 deadline for the closure of the Pictou County mill’s current effluent treatment facility located near the Pictou Landing First Nation in Boat Harbour. …Deputy ministers from the departments of lands and forestry, energy, and labour have been named to a transition team that also includes Nova Scotia Community College president Don Bureaux, the executive director of Forest Nova Scotia Jeff Bishop and Elmsdale Lumber Company president Robin Wilber among others.

The outlook for Nova Scotia sawmills after the closing of Northern Pulp is one of troubling uncertainty and, so far, few answers from the provincial government on how to replace a key customer, say managers of several companies. Andrew Watters, general manager of the Groupe Savoie mill in Westville, N.S., said in an interview on Monday he has an inventory of hardwood that still has to be milled, but no market yet for wood chip byproducts the mill purchased in the past. The mill manager met with his 45 workers on Friday to tell them the future after the Jan. 31, 2020, closing is unclear, and he wouldn’t criticize them if they sought other work. “I told them we don’t know how this is going to play out. If you’re going to make a plan, I don’t hold that against you. We all have to eat,” Mr. Watters said.

Millenniums ago, as an Ice Age ended and glaciers melted, Mother Earth came to life again in the lands we now call Northern Ontario. The gifts of the creator – fish in the waters, geese in their annual migrations, animals that offered themselves for nourishment and clothing, trees that provided shelter – drew Indigenous people into these territories. In time, Europeans came, too, seeking the animal pelts they could sell in Europe. This push-and-pull over resources – occasionally fruitful, but often fraught – is the story of Thunder Bay’s economy. It is a narrative of partnerships and rivalries that have shaped the tense relationships between Indigenous people and settlers that exist here to this day. At its best, the fur trade was a partnership in which cast-off furs – “greasy beaver” – were exchanged for manufactured items such as clothing, knives and guns.

John Yakabuski

QUEENS PARK – The forest sector has been a vital segment of Ontario’s economy for generations. Today, it’s a $16-billion industry that provides 155,000 direct and indirect jobs across the province. …Under the leadership of Premier Doug Ford, our government has a plan to build Ontario together with a better quality of life and a higher standard of living in every region of the province. For Northern and rural communities, that means supporting the forest industry. Forestry is a critical source of employment in these communities, providing well-paying jobs in regions with few other industries. …Earlier this month, I introduced Ontario’s draft Forest Sector Strategy, which aims to stimulate job creation and promote economic growth. …Critically, the strategy’s main pillar is Promoting Stewardship and Sustainability. 

NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — There was despair and elation in northeastern Nova Scotia Saturday as the fallout of a pulp mill’s coming closure is rippling through the homes and lives of families in the region.  Premier Stephen McNeil announced on Friday he would keep a pledge he made five years ago that Northern Pulp wouldn’t be permitted to continue piping its effluent into Boat Harbour, near Pictou Landing First Nation, after Jan. 31.  The company then announced the closure of the pulp mill in Abercrombie, N.S., and predicted the loss of thousands of forestry jobs. In Pictou Landing First Nation, Warren Francis, a lobster fisherman, says he’s saddened by job losses, but excited and pleased his community can expect the flow of effluent will stop after 52 years. However, in nearby New Glasgow, Northern Pulp co-workers Kim MacLaughlin and Wanda Skinner say they are fearful for their families’ well being.

AMHERST, N.S. — Darrin Carter is afraid for the future of his company and those who have come to depend on him. “I don’t know what to think, I’m very scared,” said Carter, moment after Premier Stephen McNeil announced his government would uphold the Boat Harbour Act of 2015 and not provide the owners of the Northern Pulp Mill in Pictou an extension on its plan to treat effluent from the mill. “I have to go back and face 20 employees.” Carter said 100 per cent of the work he does in Cumberland County goes to Northern Pulp and he fears losing the contract with the pulp mill will put him out of business and force him into bankruptcy. His company owns 4,000 acres in the county, the value of which, he said, was just cut in half with the premier’s announcement. 

Stephen McNeil

SYDNEY, N.S. — Brent MacInnis is worried about the future of the forestry industry in Cape Breton and his family business. A second-generation lumber supplier, his father started Hugh MacInnis Lumber Ltd. in the late 1970s. The company supplies Port Hawkesbury Paper, and for at least two decades they’ve been a part-time supplier for Northern Pulp, which makes up more than 20 per cent of their revenues. But with Premier Stephen McNeil’s announcement that Northern Pulp must stop pumping effluent into Boat Harbour by Jan. 31, MacInnis said this probably means no more sales from the Pictou County paper mill. Estimating a revenue loss of about $200,000 per year for his company due to the closing of Northern Pulp, MacInnis also fears the shutdown will give Port Hawkesbury Paper an unfair buyer’s advantage. 

Livio di Matteo

There’s a good argument to be made that Canada would not exist as we understand it today without Thunder Bay. …And the economic infrastructure that was laid in the first third of the 20th century provided opportunities for immigrants in the area’s sawmills, pulp mills, grain elevators and manufacturing plants. …This was the golden age of Thunder Bay’s economic development. …But then the veneer of that golden age began to chip off. …The forest-sector crisis ultimately saw three out of four pulp mills and a major sawmill close. …How Thunder Bay deals with its economic and social challenges should not be viewed as a spectator sport by smug urban elites in central Canada. What is happening here is not comeuppance for bad behaviour. Thunder Bay is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of Canada.

They huddled around a cellphone screen, steeling themselves for the possibility that Premier Stephen McNeil would break his word. …But they watched in disbelief as the premier made good on his commitment, pledging that Northern Pulp would stop pumping effluent into Boat Harbour on Jan. 31. …Brian Hebert, the community’s lawyer who negotiated the act with the province… was also in a state of disbelief over the premier’s announcement. …“When the significance of what had happened started to sink in there was a real sense of validation, that as a people their rights were finally being validated,” said Hebert. The community is finally on track to righting an injustice spanning five decades. An injustice carried out by the federal government and successive provincial governments. Back in 1967, the federal government granted the province the right to… use Boat Harbour as an effluent dumping ground. (a subscription may be required to access the full story)