“Absolutely devastating for the City of Prince George.”
Those words come from Mayor Simon Yu, following the announcement from Canfor yesterday (Tuesday) the Northwood Pulp Mill will be closing by the end of this year, with around 300 employees to be impacted by the closure.
Yu said the news of the closure is especially awful for the families of the workers affected.
“Even though this is devastating, bad news for Prince George, I do believe the resiliency and the heroism of the people of this area, working together, we’ll get through this together,” Yu said. “We will get through this together as one people and one community.”
Yu said he believes Prince George will always be a base for the forest industry in Northern and Central B.C.
“We, as a country, we really need a Minister of Forests at the federal level, as well as the provincial level, to coordinate the long-term forestry industry, and to make sure we will get the proper research and innovation into this industry to make us more competitive in the world market,” he said.
In the meantime, Yu said the City is actively assessing the impact, and is laying out multiple pathways to see if there is further opportunity with the Northwood Pulp Mill site for other possibilities in major industrial activities.
Additionally, there are major projects coming online in North Central B.C., which Yu says he hopes some workers will be able to transition into new careers.
“A lot of workers affected by this layoff will find jobs, but it takes time to transition from one type of job to another” Yu said.
“We’ll do our best to matching their skills with other industries, the City will play some role in terms of to analyze the impact and talk to other industries that they are hiring, and to make sure there is some program for them to transition to,” Yu continued.
Yu also shared the following statement on his Facebook page yesterday.
City Councillor Brian Skakun said his biggest concern is for the 300 people set to be out of work, as well as their families.
“It’s devastating news because a lot of people that work in those mills have been there a long time,” Skakun said. “You just can’t replace those jobs.”
He added it’s not just the 300 jobs at Canfor which will be impacted.
“For every one pulp mill job, there’s about four secondary jobs, you know, chip truck drivers, suppliers, it’s a huge blow,” Skakun said.
Skakun is a former Canfor employee as well, and he’s hopeful another agreement can come with the province and Canfor on severance packages.
“That’s what got me out of the pulp industry when I was 60, and someone else kept a job,” he explained. “I really think that the provincial government and Canfor need to get together and talk about what kind of severance packages they might come up with.”
Skakun said while the involuntary care facility and the hospital tower expansion will bring more jobs eventually, the closure will be a pretty big blow for the City’s tax revenue as well.
“I think with Northwood closing down, that could be, and I don’t know yet, three to four million dollars in tax revenue that the City’s going to lose a year,” he added. “It’s big, that’s going to be close to 2.5 per cent of the taxes right now are paid by that mill roughly, I’m sure our Finance and Audit [committee] is going to have to look at it, we’re going to have to make adjustments.”
Councillor Garth Frizzell said the first he heard of it was a friend who had got the news earlier in the day.
“Just having until November, that’s not much of a runway to get prepared,” Frizzell said. “This is brutal, 300 people, and all the families attached to that, plus all the attached jobs, this is a really hard blow for the whole community, but really thinking about the people who’s jobs are directly affected by this.”
Frizzell said people are hurting, and he’s hopeful Prince George residents are aware of that.
He added the City will do what it can to support those workers.
“We’ve already started putting together contingency, but really, right now let’s just focus on the people who got terrible news,” Frizzell said.
Councillor Ron Polillo echoed that it’s a devastating blow for the people who will be losing their jobs, as well as the community as a whole.
“As a human being, trying to navigate that and what’s next and the uncertainty, my heart just goes out to them, because they’re in a very difficult position,” Polillo said. “Along with that, the secondary businesses that dealt with Northwood as well too will be affected. It’s 300 direct jobs, but indirectly, even more than that. It’s a very tough, tough loss for the Community of Prince George.”
Polillo said forestry has always been the backbone of this community.
“It’s just so tragic to see this transition happening,” he added. “Myself and my Council colleagues will do everything that we can to support the families through this transition, whether it’s retraining or whatever we can do to get them to whatever’s next for those workers and those families.”
Polillo added there will be plenty of hope opportunity in Prince George in the future.
“The Acute Care Tower project, that’s $1.6 billion, the long-term care beds they’re building, the announcement with the secure care facility, those are all jobs, those are all positive steps forward,” Polillo said. “What’s happening in the mining industry, as much as the forest industry is struggling, the mining and rare earth minerals, that is exploding. That’s great signs.”
–With files from Brendan Pawliw, My Prince George Now
