Region Archives: Canada

…The McCreas go back almost two centuries in New Brunswick, and over the years since the first tree was cut, their property in Shannon has grown to more than 2,400 hectares of farm and forest land. Every year, thousands of cords of softwood would be hauled out of the McCrea woods near the Washademoak Lake, enough to employ four men operating a pair of skidders and two logging trucks. But no longer. Forestry giant J.D. Irving Ltd. has changed its way of doing business, bringing logging at McCrea Farms to a complete stop. Under a new “model” reminiscent of bygone times, JDI now buys its logs the way it wants from whom it wants — mostly turning its back on the forest marketing boards created to make the system fair. “I’m not anti-Irving,” said McCrea, who considers JDI co-CEO Jim Irving, and his father, J.K. Irving, friends of the family.

Derek Nighbor

Derek Nighbor, president of the Forest Product Association of Canada, had some encouraging words for the region’s forestry industry. Nighbor was the keynote speaker during the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce Leaders Luncheon during a visit to the city, Wednesday. The markets for softwood lumber are strong in the U.S., believes Nighbor, which spell good news for Canadian producers who are concerned over trade disputes with the United States. Nighbor is hopeful for a good deal for Canada with the U.S. and said there should be no impacts on the local mills in the near term. However, he noted those trade deals are critical for jobs in Canada. Innovation is another positive for Northwestern Ontario. There is a huge opportunity because of the move away from the fossil fuel based economy and more environmentally friendly products.

Nova Scotia author and journalist Joan Baxter has worked in African countries run by brutal dictators, where journalists often fear for their lives. The last place she believed she would feel oppressed as a writer would be in her home province. But that’s what Baxter believes happened last week when a New Glasgow bookstore cancelled an event scheduled for Dec. 2 featuring her latest book, The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest. Coles, owned by Indigo Canada, told Baxter on Nov. 27 it couldn’t go ahead with the event. Supporters of Northern Pulp, the current owners of the mill featured in Baxter’s book, opposed her appearance, Baxter said Monday. There was a concern that both the Coles store and the Highland Square Mall, where it is located, might be targets of unspecified protests.

Joan Baxter

Northern Pulp wants author Joan Baxter and her latest book placed squarely on the Christmas naughty list. Baxter was looking forward to signing copies …on Saturday afternoon. But the event was cancelled after an apparent attempt by the company that runs the Abercrombie Point Mill in Pictou County to scuttle the book-signing. …“I was very upset, I won’t hide that,” Baxter said of the cancellation. “This is Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2017. …they said they were worried about my safety. . . . They said the bookstore staff were really uncomfortable with it.” Baxter said the explanations for the …cancellation were vague. “Disruptions, protests, ‘somebody might destroy the book.’ I wanted to know what had led to the cancellation. I said if there had been threats serious enough to warrant the cancellation of the book-signing, then I felt they should have been given to the police.”

Roger Melanson

The New Brunswick minister responsible for trade policy is defending the Gallant government’s decision to use taxpayer money to hire another expert to look at the forestry market in its ongoing fight against U.S. duties on softwood lumber exports. Although the industry had called for such a review to refute the “inaccurate and unfounded conclusions” of the auditor general’s 2015 report, which the U.S. Commerce Department used to argue the province was providing unfair subsidies to local companies, Roger Melanson denies the review is itself a form of subsidy. “We have 22,000 jobs in New Brunswick depending on this industry. It’s a major, very important sector,” particularly in rural areas, he said. “So there’s a lot at stake here.” The review has to be independent and objective, not paid for by industry, he said.

I am writing because I think it is time that my voice as a concerned citizen of this county should also be heard. I became an employee of Northern Pulp in the spring of 2004. I am one of the fortunate people of Pictou County able to secure a permanent job here…. I feel my livelihood in this county is being attacked by individuals because they feel the pulp mill is going to poison our environment with the installation of the proposed new effluent-treatment plant. …Do not get me wrong. I feel everyone’s frustration over this contentious issue. …If for one second I thought the owners of the mill were deliberately doing something to jeopardize my or my family’s health, I would be the first to knock on my general manager’s door and ask some serious questions.

Northern Pulp is trying to calm the fears of fishers along the Northumberland Strait by meeting with them behind closed doors about its proposed pipeline. Northern Pulp has proposed a plan to pump effluent, or mill wastewater, into the Northumberland Strait by using a 10.5-kilometre pipe, which has fishers in the area concerned. The province ordered the current treatment facility to close by January 2020. That was a promise made to the Pictou Landing First Nation, which sits next to the facility. Northern Pulp started consultations Monday and is promising a transparent process. …But before Monday night’s stakeholder meeting even got underway, a protest formed outside. “It’s a huge concern to all our fishermen. There’s 1,288 fishermen on P.E.I. and we’re all concerned about this,” says lobster fisherman Charlie McGeoghegan.

…What happened in Hamilton, the Star has found, is business-as-usual across Canada: Big companies with poor environmental records are getting rich public payouts. A Star investigation found that since 2010 more than $2.6 billion in public money has flowed to dozens of companies that had repeated or significant violations of environmental rules designed to keep the public safe. …Pulp and paper company Domtar, which had 1,800 pollution violations in Ontario from 2011 to the end of 2014, challenged tax assessments, arguing its mills in Dryden and Espanola were valued too high….Since 2010, Domtar has received more than $200 million in federal green subsidies, provincial electricity rebates and to build and maintain public forest roads, while its regulatory fines totaled a comparatively paltry $96,000.