More than 700 workers have returned to their jobs at 10 sawmills and one pulp mill in northern B.C. in the past year as plants restarted or resumed shifts, part of a slow restart trend in the province, shows information complied by the B.C. Ministry of Forests.
The forest sector is by no means at full capacity, and will likely not regain the level of employment prior to a prolonged forestry downturn that started four years ago, but B.C. Forests Minister Pat Bell said the re-openings are a sign of recovery.
Restarts in northern B.C. include Conifex's Fort St. James sawmill; Hampton's Decker Lake sawmill in Burns Lake; and Canfor's sawmills in Mackenzie, Chetwynd and Quesnel.
Canfor also added a third shift at its Polar mill in Bear Lake, just north of Prince George.
Other mills re-opening include Kyahowood Forest Products just west of Smithers, and a pair of small mills in McBride.
Asian-giant Sinarmas also recently re-opened the Mackenzie pulp mill.
However, thousands of workers remain of the job, some of them permanently, in northern B.C.
They include West Fraser's shut down of its Eurocan paper mill in Kitimat, which, alone, resulted in the loss of 535 jobs.
Other permanent closures include West Fraser's Northstar sawmill in Quesnel, Stuart Lake Lumber, and the recently-announced shut down of Canfor's Clear Lake mill. Canfor also decided not to rebuild its North Central Plywoods plant which burned down in 2008.
Canfor's Rustad Bros. sawmill and Winton Global's sawmill are shuttered indefinitely.
The total loss of these permanent and indefinite shut downs is more than 1,600.
A bright spot for the forest sector - and the B.C. Liberal government - has been its success in ramping up shipments to China. The Asian giant, with a population of 1.3 billion, has a growing appetite for lumber.
Bell is heading a 10-day trade mission to China beginning Friday.
While previous missions have been focused on developing government relationships, this visit is targeted at making inroads with large Chinese builders, said Bell, the MLA for Prince George Mackenzie.
The trade-mission delegation will include the CEOs of Canfor, West Fraser, Conifex and Interfor, as well as United Steelworkers local 1-424 president Frank Everitt who represents workers in B.C.'s Northern Interior.
