The latest in a long line of Canfor curtailments and shutdowns hit Prince George hard yesterday (Thursday).
One of the two pulp lines at Canfor’s Northwood facility in Prince George is being indefinitely curtailed, leaving 220 people out of work.
Kevin Edgson, the President and CEO of Canfor Pulp, spoke with My PG Now about the decision and its impacts.
“It is heart-wrenching,” he said. “220 families in the local area that are affected. We tried our very best to find mitigative solutions but the fact is we are backed into a corner.”
According to Edgson, those 220 employees make up just under half of the Northwood employees and 25-27% of Canfor Pulp’s employment.
Edgson said there is no target date to reopen the line – saying “when you can tell me that policies will provide stability around access to economic fibre I can give you a sense of when we might restart.”
On the other hand, he also said there is no expiration date set, where if the line is not open again that it would be shut down for good.
“The whole idea of taking one line down at Northwood is to maintain the option to restart it if we see a more stable outlook,” Edgson said.
On January 11th, 2023, Canfor announced the permanent shutdown of the pulp line at the Prince George Pulp and Paper Mill, which reduced 280,000 tonnes of market kraft pulp annually. This cost around 90 people their jobs, though the original estimate was as many as 300.
This Northwood curtailment will cut another 300,000 tonnes annually, reducing the annual capacity to 480,000 tonnes.
Edgson said shutting down the Pulp and Paper Mill line was mostly caused by natural disturbances, using pine beetle as an example.
“We set ourselves up with two lines at Northwood and a line at Intercon on the belief that was a sufficient capacity to handle the residual supply of chips,” he said. “In the past year we have seen a real challenge in the availability of fibre. That is impacted by the [provincial] policy we have.”
In a nutshell, Edgson said these policies have made fibre less accessible.
“As availability of trees gets harder, sawmills have to go further and further to source their wood, which drives up cost. The whole underpinning of the cost of fiber – from the forest to chips to the pulp and sawmills – is to the point where BC is no longer a competitive environment,” he explained. “What we need is to see policy stability and access to the forest in a way that allows the industry to continue to be competitive.”
“[The province] is driving an agenda that they believe is the right thing to do,” Edgson continued. “What we need them to do is remember that there are people who dedicate their lives, move and raise their families in the communities that we operate and they need to be considered and consulted in the decisions that are made.”
In the meantime, Canfor says all impacted employees will have access to support.
Edgson said they have set up a transition office and are working with the province to try and “mitigate the impact” financially and emotionally.
When asked if Canfor is looking at more curtailments or closures, Edgson said “good gracious, I hope not. But a year ago when we made the move at PG Pulp, I had hoped that would be all we would have to deal with… It is going to be: does this government see the future of the forests in the communities that exist outside the lower mainland?”
Edgson gave no firm statement on a rumour that Canfor has been looking to sell some of its properties, saying “At this time we are not responding to rumours.”
Looking to the future, he hopes to “not just maintain the operation we are at today, but we can restart this line and go back to the stability we thought we were achieving a year ago.”
Edgson added the pulp market is “actually in an upswing right now, and quite frankly, if we can source the fibre necessary to run the mill we would have no problem generating a profit.”
“In the past, the BC industry used be the source of prime lumber for house building… what has changed is that we are no longer competitive, and that is a function of the cost elevation, not the market.”
Canfor also announced the complete closure of the Polar sawmill in Bear Lake, which impacts an additional 180 employees. Plans to upgrade the curtailed Houston sawmill have also been suspended.
After these announcements were made yesterday, Bruce Ralston, the Minister of Forests, released the following statement:
“We are disappointed by the business decision made by Canfor today and the impacts that will be felt by families and communities in northern British Columbia. We will be there to support the workers’ families and communities impacted by this corporate decision.
“Workers shouldn’t bear the brunt of commodity cycles as they have been forced to for years. That’s why our government has been focused on stabilizing the sector.
“We will continue our work with the sector through initiatives such as the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund, which has led to investments in facilities throughout B.C., and the Forest Enhancement Society of BC supporting the pulp sector by bringing fibre in from the bush.
“The forest sector is a long-standing and foundational part of our province. We will keep working to ensure it supports workers and communities.”
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