Northwood Pulp Mill Picks Up 100.2 M for Equipment Upgrades

Thursday, January 06, 2011 03:27 PM

l-r M.P Dick Harris, Canfor's Northwood GM Robert Dufresne, Canfor Pulp V.P Operations Brett Robinson and Minister of State for Sport, Gary Lunn

Prince George, BC - Canfor Pulp's Northwood Mill has received $100.2 million dollars to upgrade it's recovery boiler.

The upgrade will result in a 70% reduction in sulfur emissions as well as reductions in particulates.

The funding comes from the the federal government's green transformation fund. The Green Transofrmation Fund was established to improve the environmental performance of the pulp and paper industry in Canada

Minister of State for Sport Gary Lunn and MP Dick Harris made the announcement this afternoon.

This is third of four projects Canfor pulp has planned. Canfor Pulp qualified for $122 million dollars under the green transformation fund. So far, Canfor pulp has received just over $115 million dollars. An application for the fourth project will be submitted soon.

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Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2011 03:27 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: bozo the clown on January 6 2011 4:13 PM

nice little handout eh?,,,, i cant even be bothered to leave a comment !

Posted by: He spoke on January 6 2011 5:06 PM

Oh great, now what are we going to do with the unemployed air fairies.

Posted by: NMG on January 6 2011 7:10 PM

What are the odds that the Northwood Mill would have even received this money had it not been for the "air fairies" who made air quality an issue that people wanted addressed?

Perhaps Canfor should thank the air fairies for their efforts in them getting a 100M dollar gift. If it were up to me, I would have told them to pay for it out of their own pocket or cease operating.

Posted by: gimmeabreak on January 6 2011 7:50 PM

Oh brilliant NMG...."or cease operating"...
shut down and put about 2000 workers out on the street....

If you had even one single understanding of this story...you could do the math and see the benefits....but maybe I give you too much credit....sorry

Bozo the clown....read your non comment...now I know why you use "Bozo the clown" as your user name...it works

Posted by: NMG on January 6 2011 8:03 PM

Actually I understand the story quite well. It basically tells the story of a very large company that is relying on government funding (or "taxpayer dollars" as it is so commonly referred to around here) to make improvements to its mills, improvements that it should and could have funded on its own.

I looked at the Canfor website and here are some of the nice blurbs:

- At Canfor, "Our Roots are in This Community" is not just a corporate slogan but also a reflection of our commitment to the people and to the communities in which we operate.
- Our growth to become British Columbia’s largest forest products company has always included a firm belief in responsible environmental stewardship.

Based on those, one would think that improvements like these would gladly be funded from their own operating budgets long before the heat was turned up in regards to improving air quality, LOL :)

Posted by: NMG on January 6 2011 8:05 PM

For the record, I don't think this is necessarily a bad use of money. I just happen to think that perhaps 100M could have been better used to fund health care and public infrastructure as opposed to capital expenditures for a publically traded company that most certainly has the resources (and corporate responsibility) to do it on their own.

Posted by: ChuckWalls on January 6 2011 8:23 PM

For the record. Canfor and Canfor Pulp are not the same company. Canfor spun out the pulpmills several years ago. Also, the industry - not just Canfor Pulp - specifically asked the Governemnt NOT to give handouts but only asked to get the US to stop giving handouts. Once it became clear that wasn't going to happen, the industry worked with the governemnt to do something different. $120 million is a lot of money but it is being spent to help the community as well as the business. By the way, the taxpayer is also spending $500 million on a stadium roof in Vancouver.

Posted by: RUEZ on January 6 2011 8:26 PM

Maybe we could pay less tax in this country if private enterprise stopped getting government handouts.

Posted by: Jim13135 on January 6 2011 9:37 PM

It sure would be nice if some of this money that "is being spent to help the community" would also extend to some of Canfor Pulps current employees....like perhaps let the junior unionized employees work on the stat holidays? Or perhaps they could consider dropping the ploy to change the work week from 40 hours to 42??? Or maybe let your union janitors do they work they have done for years instead of flogging thier jobs off on others????

BTW, that stadium roof is a waste of money that could be better spent on our health or infrastructure systems. IMO

Posted by: bozo the clown on January 7 2011 5:44 AM

gimmeabreak yea yea !! take your calculator and well ...

Posted by: fair comment on January 7 2011 8:30 AM

This handout pales when compared to: The billions spent on fake immigrants; the billions granted to companies such as Bombardier and Air Canada; the billions (and misery)the drug dealers and criminals costs this country, while the politicians and judges look the other way.

Posted by: Harbinger on January 7 2011 2:47 PM

Bill Gates and I have the same amount of zeros in both our bank accounts. The only difference is that Bill has a number in front of his zeros and I just have a happy face in front of mine.

Posted by: gamblor on January 7 2011 8:03 PM

Maybe we could pay less tax if all the NDP'ers/hippes/washouts got a mill job instead of living on welfare/EI. That's a personal handout quickly squandered on weed, booze and casinos as opposed to a corporate handout spent on staying competitive, keeping people employed and cutting emissions.

Posted by: Taxed Out! on January 7 2011 10:24 PM

or gamblor profits paid out to shareholders in the form of dividends who live out of province and out of country....that is corporate welfare quickly sqaundered out of the country....