Timmins Daily Press
Wood battle heats up
Scott Paradis
Friday, December 22, 2006
Area municipal leaders are preparing to fight provincial government policy that allows home-grown wood to be exported to Quebec mills and producers.
Northeastern Ontario mayors, including Timmins mayor Tom Laughren and Kapuskasing mayor Alan Spacek, are speaking out against the practice, saying that it's one of many issues crippling the region's forestry sector.
Laughren and Spacek discussed the issue after receiving a news release from John Kapel of Little John Enterprises Ltd., a local value-added sawmill that specializes in supplying custom wood products to the mining industry, local business and consumers.
The release states, "the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is currently allowing hundreds of thousands of metres of prime Crown- and privately-owned wood and wood fibre to be sold to mills and producers in Quebec."
Statements like that have led Laughren and Spacek to conclude that the issue will be brought to the Northeast Ontario Municipal Association (NEOMA) and they will raise the issue during the organization's January meeting.
Laughren said he hopes to do whatever he can to bring the issue of selling Ontario wood to Quebec, and numerous other forestry-related problems, to the forefront of the provincial government.
"My hope is that the minister would become personally involved in these issues," Laughren said. "We have a Northern minister- he has to get more involved."
Spacek said there's no reason for his town to be passively sit on the side lines.
"Today it's Timmins," Spacek said. "But tomorrow it could be Kapuskasing."
Minister David Ramsay's office calls the selling of wood and wood fibre to Quebec one that makes sense when you look at the entire forestry industry in Ontario.
"Historically, Ontario has sent two per cent of its wood product to Quebec operations," said Anne-Marie Flanagan, Ramsay's press secretary.
Wood from Ontario is always offered to Ontario operators first, and the only reason the wood goes to Quebec at times is because job loss could occur if the wood is left untouched.
"If it can't be used (in Ontario), sometimes it goes to Quebec," she said. "If we let it stay here, our bush workers or drivers could be pushed out of work."
The minister's office does admit that more than the historic two per cent of wood fibres could be going to Quebec now. That is likely because of area mill closures, or labour disputes putting less demand on home-grown products.
More than two per cent of wood and wood fibre going across the Quebec border, however, is not unheard of.
"Sometimes less could be sent, sometimes more," she said.
Despite the position at the minister's office, Kapel in his news release says he isn't alone in criticizing the practice.
"Producers in Northeastern Ontario have been truing to resolve this problem directly with regional MNR officials, but we are getting nowhere."
Kapel also pointed out the wood flow between Ontario and Quebec is a one-way street. Under Quebec regulation, unprocessed wood is not allowed to be shipped to Ontario for processing, Kapel said in the release.
