Bob Simpson says work is underway behind the scenes to try to save the specialty mill and the logging operation that it runs.
But now that the company has declared bankruptcy, Simpson says there is a time crunch…
“It’s been explained to me that we have about four weeks, 6 weeks at the absolute maximum, for the trustees, so PricewaterhouseCoopers, on behalf of everybody who is owned money by the parent company Calidus, to be able to pay them out.”
Simpson says there are really only two possible outcomes…
“One, an appropriate buyer and price is established and the mill is taken over by some entity and goes back into operation again.  There is also need to get that done quickly because the kinds of purchases that they feed the product into won’t have a whole lot of patience for any supply interruption.  So that’s one scenario, the best scenario for our community.  And then the worse case scenario for us is the mill is permanently shuttered and cannibalized and we lose all of those jobs in our community.”
Simpson says the City is now working with the Provincial Government, the local forestry office, the Southern Dakelh Nation Alliance, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to try and figure out whether there are some options available for a different ownership structure for the mill, to get it back up and running again.
Failing that, Simpson says they are having some discussions with the province about potential community ownership…
“I’m sure lots of people have heard about the Harmac Pulp Mill that made the news during the pandemic, and that was a pulp mill that its’ original owner wanted to shutter but the employees ended up taking that mill over and its been a very successful venture since then.  And I’ve also looked at my own history looked at many situations where communities or unions and employees have taken mills over, so whether we have that opportunity for C&C remains to be seen.”
Simpson says he is disappointed that it has come to the bankruptcy stage…
“It’s definitely bad.  It’s bad for the community, it’s bad for that mill.  We’ve been working on this in advance of the bankruptcy filings for the last four weeks or more trying to avoid this very circumstance. C&C Wood Products is a viable operation.  We’ve worked hard over the years to make sure it has the fibre supply that it needs to operate, and it has a market that it can feed.  In fact, it has an order book and that order book could have grown during this pandemic because they feed the home reno market for the large box stores.”
Simpson says it’s an ownership issue and it’s the financing of the owner that is the problem, not the mill.
He says they will continue to work hard to try and save the mill and all of the jobs that go with it.