Al Simard, president of Saving the Region of Ontario North Group (STRONG) is planning to visit three northwestern B.C. communities to help them cope with mill closures, develop sustainable communities and gain more control over infrastructure and value-added manufacturing of wood products.
"I think we have a lot to gain and a lot to learn from each other," says Simard. "In the end, I'm hoping that we can set up some sort of a communications network to address these issues on the federal level between all the Canadian provinces, because we're all facing, basically, the same thing."
Low U.S. lumber demand, a high Canadian dollar, a five- to15-per-cent export tax under the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber deal and a trend toward large supermills are being blamed for sawmill and pulp-and-paper mill closures and curtailments across the country.
Around the time Simard was talking to Business Edge about the meetings, Canfor announced plans to switch six mills in northwestern B.C. and Grande Prairie, Alta., to four-day work weeks.
Weyerhaeuser, Domtar, Tembec, Timberwest and Catalyst Paper, among others, have also announced temporary and indefinite shutdowns and work-week reductions in recent weeks in B.C., Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
According to some reports, approximately 35 mills in B.C. alone have shut down temporarily or permanently in the past year, costing 10,000 jobs.
"We want to send a message that fighting for your rights really does make a difference when people come together and support each other on these issues," says Simard.
Peter Ewart, spokesman for the Prince George-based Stand up for the North Committee, which is hosting the events, says Northern B.C. and Northern Ontario have many things in common when it comes to preserving the forest industry.
"There's a regional issue in Ontario as there is in B.C. in terms of their Interior and the North," he says, adding many small northern communities feel isolated from large southern cities where political power is based.
Both groups, the B.C. Federation of Labour and other organizations are all calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to revise the controversial softwood lumber agreement, contending Canada was better off before it was signed because it had won many World Trade Organization panel decisions.
They're also calling on provinces to tie timber-harvest licences more tightly to communities to preserve jobs.
Kapuskasing-based STRONG has 6,000 members in about 12 Northern Ontario communities. Ewart says the main goal of the sessions, sponsored by labour and community groups, is to ensure that communities continue to flourish in the current economic climate.
"Communities in our region have to work together," says Ewart.
"We think that's where strength is. In Northern British Columbia, just like in Northern Ontario, there's a whole number of communities. By themselves, they don't have the strength that communities do in different sectors of the industry."
He calls for the B.C. government to develop a plan for the industry's future and revise timber licensing so that all branches of the forest industry can grow.
But Parker Hogan, a spokesman for the Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA), rejects the idea that licences should be more widely distributed, or tied to local communities as they were in the past.
"The forest industry is a global industry," says Hogan. "It's no longer a regional industry."
Forestry is a business - not a social-engineering exercise, he says bluntly.
"In a global environment, you've got to be big enough to have those cost efficiencies when you're producing," he says.
Only companies that can produce a high-quality product at the lowest-possible unit cost will survive, he adds.
Companies have cited market conditions, including the exchange rate and availability of cheaper wood and labour in southern-hemisphere countries, as key reasons for the closures.
Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) president and CEO Avrim Lazar has predicted the Canadian industry, which has already undergone a major consolidation through acquisitions and mergers, will consist of fewer firms that are primarily large and mid-sized.
An FPAC report last May called on provinces to make timber-harvesting rights more flexible and eliminate rules that tie timber to a particular mill.
But B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair says provincial timber-licensing rule changes already mean B.C. trees are no longer tied to communities.
"There was leverage," Sinclair says. "Well, we took all those rules out, so there's no leverage now. You can flip the licences (between companies) four times and shut down three mills. It doesn't matter."
Earlier this month, Weyerhaeuser Co. announced the permanent closure of its Kamloops sawmill and sold the area's harvesting licence to West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., which then transferred part of it to International Forest Product Ltd., more commonly known as Interfor.
Some critics and analysts have attributed mill closures to the opening of supermills.
"I don't think the argument is that supermills are necessarily bad," Sinclair says. "The argument is that, in many parts of the province, nobody is making any mills."
He chastises the B.C. government for allowing raw logs to be exported duty-free, while lumber faces a 15-per-cent export tax.
The Alberta government faces the same export tax, but does not allow raw logs to be moved out of the province, while Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba opted for a five-per-cent lumber export tax and a quota system under the softwood deal.
Sinclair adds it's time to rewrite the softwood deal.
But AFPA's Hogan says the pact signed in 2006 should remain in effect.
"This is probably the worst time to be negotiating (a) softwood lumber (deal) or anything else," says Hogan. "Whether it's a good deal or a bad deal or an in-between deal, at least it's a deal."
(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)
