NDP forestry critic John Rafferty, MP for Thunder Bay–Rainy River, said the Conservative government’s $1 billion forestry assistance plan is coming too late to reverse the industry’s 55,000 job losses and will not offset the damage done to the Canadian pulp and paper industry at the hands of the US Black Liquor tax credit.
“My issue is not with the environmental and modernization measures the Minister is putting forward, but the most pressing issue today is helping the 50,000 workers that have lost their jobs in the last few years and saving the 100,000 plus jobs that are at risk in our pulp and paper mills and forestry communities in the months ahead,” Rafferty said in a release.
The size of the assistance package also troubles Rafferty.
“The forestry sector is approximately the same size of the auto-sector, so $1 billion doesn’t look like much next to the $6 billion that the government has invested in GM. The government needs to offer loan guarantees to large bankrupt companies like AbitibiBowater, to protect the pensions of retired forestry workers, to help newsprint producers make a transition to more valuable products, and above all to remedy the problems caused by the unfair US Black Liquor subsidy. As it stands, this plan does none of the above.”
According to the Forestry Products Association of Canada (FPAC), the forestry industry in Canada is an $84 billion a year industry that directly or indirectly employs 863,000 people in all provinces of the country. Since 2003, there have been more than 200 mill closures across Canada and 50,000 confirmed layoffs or job losses in the industry according the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union.
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