More layoffs hit B.C. forest industry

VICTORIA – The deepening slump in the B.C. forest industry has prompted new calls for provincial government intervention, but Forests Minister Rich Coleman says it wouldn’t be appropriate to interfere with companies managing in the worst lumber market conditions in recent history.

The latest blow was the announcement that Western Forest Products is suspending logging operations on Vancouver Island for up to seven weeks, idling an estimated 800 contract workers. That followed the company’s decision to close its Ladysmith sawmill indefinitely as of April 25, mainly due to a drastic drop in U.S. housing construction and the recent surge in the value of the Canadian dollar.

Dave Lewis, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association, said the impact on the region’s economy is significant.

“When a company like WFP, who controls 43 per cent of coastal Crown forests, runs into trouble and is forced to curtail operations to this degree, the number of people who are affected is astounding,” Lewis said.

NDP forest critic Bob Simpson asked Coleman why pulp operators are also shutting down, in “the hottest pulp market we’ve ever seen.”

Claire Trevena, NDP MLA for North Island, blamed government policy for the decision by Catalyst Paper to extend the shutdown of one of its paper machines at Campbell River, down since last September along with 145 jobs. Catalyst also announced the elimination of 82 jobs at its Crofton operation in North Cowichan, citing the pending closure of TimberWest’s nearby sawmill and other mills that provide its pulp and paper operations with chips.

Coleman said in an interview the high price of pulp doesn’t overcome the loss of sawmill waste to pulp operations. Companies can’t make a profit trucking and chipping their own whole logs, even at the nominal stumpage paid for low-grade wood, he said.

Simpson said the government should throw a lifeline to forest workers, using the $129 million from a new federal aid program for resource communities to top up wages. Instead of laying workers off and losing them to other industries, wage support would allow them to work a three-day week.

Coleman said the workers and unions have identified early retirement and retraining as their priorities for the federal aid, and unemployment benefits are already available for short-term layoffs such as those announced by Western Forest Products.

Pope & Talbot’s Harmac pulp mill at Nanaimo continues to operate, but the company’s pulp mill in Mackenzie is down along with local sawmills. Oregon-based Pope & Talbot is in bankruptcy proceedings, and has completed a deal to sell its Castlegar and Grand Forks mills and associated Kootenay logging operations to Vancouver-based Interfor.

Negotiations continue to sell Pope & Talbot’s Mackenzie and Nanaimo pulp mills and its idled Fort St. James sawmill to Asia Pulp & Paper, based in Indonesia.