Chuck LeBlanc

Last week’s announcement of Canfor’s plan to indefinitely curtail production of one of its two pulp lines at Prince George’s Northwood Pulp & Timber hit like a bad case in indigestion for Chuck LeBlanc, president of Public Private Workers of Canada Local 9, the union that represents mill workers at Prince George Pulp and Paper. Sixteen months ago, Canfor swung the axe that chopped about 130 unionized workers and 50 or 60 management staff out of the payroll at PG Pulp when the company permanently close the pulp line due to a lack of the raw material… The mill that opened in 1966 was shut down for the final time in April 2023. …LeBlanc says forest companies have cut the stands that are easily accessible and are now crying foul because those trees are not so close anymore when, he says, they should have been taking from near and far sources all those years to allow the industry to sustain itself.