Canfor is shutting down mills in Chetwynd, Houston, and Prince George
Canfor will soon stop running its mills in Prince George, Chetwynd, and Houston, which will put hundreds of people out of work in northern B.C.
The company told employees about the closings in January, and since then, they have been winding down operations and getting ready for what comes next.
The Prince George Pulp and Paper Mill’s pulp line, which had been running since the 1960s, stopped making paper on April 3. The paper line, Canfor’s two other pulp mills, and other facilities in the city will all keep running.
In Houston, 300 kilometres west of Prince George, the sawmill stopped operating on March 31. The kilns and planer facility will keep running until the middle of April. After that, the mill will close, and Canfor will start a multi-year process to turn the site into a manufacturing plant.
And in Chetwynd, where the sawmill is closing for good, work should stop by the end of April.
A spokesperson for Canfor, Michelle Ward, said in a statement that the changes will affect about 640 people in the three communities.
Ward said that out of the 440 workers who will be affected by the closings in Chetwynd and Houston, 80 have taken other jobs with the same company and 70 are retiring or applying for a program to help them transition to retirement.
In Prince George, 200 full-time jobs will be lost, but Ward said in an email that about half of those jobs have been saved through “internal transfers, early retirements, and voluntary departures.”
“Both Canfor and Canfor Pulp will keep working closely with the unions, the B.C. government, and municipal and other community programs during this transition period in the hopes of keeping more employees and giving them more help.”
‘A profound effect
City Coun. Brian Skakun, who has worked for the company since 1988, is one of the people leaving early.
He said that he made the decision because he thought, “I can go, I can get a little bit of financial help, and then one less person will lose their job and possibly have to move out of the community.”
But Skakun was worried about how the losses would hurt Prince George’s economy and how much worse it would be for Chetwynd and Houston, which have much smaller populations and less diverse economies.
“When you lose one job, it affects all the others in such a big way,” he said.
The CEO of an economic development group, Northern Development Trust, Joel McKay, said that his group expects three spin-off jobs to be lost for every mill job that goes away. These jobs will be in areas like trucking, retail, and restaurants.
“It is significant,” he said.
Premier David Eby of B.C. has said before that the forestry industry in the province has “never been under more stress” because of decades of change and decline.
In response, the province announced a number of measures to help the industry, such as a $90 million manufacturing jobs fund, $50 million to help get to hard-to-reach fiber in fire-damaged areas, and a $4.5 million investment to help reopen a pulp and paper mill on Vancouver Island.