Mackenzie Determined to Pull Through

Friday, November 30, 2007 11:31 AM

Mackenzie Mayor Stephanie Killam says the news of the Abitibi-Bowater mill shutdown in her community “Caught everyone off guard and the community is still in shock” Killam says the community is determined to survive. The decision by Abitibi-Bowater will mean the loss of 700 jobs.

“Our Council met last night and has agreed to do all it can to help those impacted by the closures.”

The news of the mill shutdowns and the job cuts by Canfor mean Mackenzie has lost about ½ of its workforce. While there is no indication of if or when Abitibi-Bowater will bring the mills back on stream, there is a real danger the skilled work force won’t be around to bring those mills back to life.

Killam says the community will work harder to develop its diversification plan to move the region into tourism, complete the Mackenzie Green Energy Plant and work with Terrane Metals to see that the Mount Milligan mine proceeds.

Killam says unlike the situation in May when Canfor had announced it was going to shut down it’s mill, the community did not have an opportunity to try and develop a survival strategy. Killam says the community will continue to work with the provincial and federal government reps to see what if anything can be done.

“We need to hunker down to ensure the community says stable , forestry is still a part of this community, and will always be part of this community… 2008 may be a rough ride for us, but we have to plan for the short term and the long term.”

Does Mayor Killam fear Mackenzie will become a ghost town? “There is no opportunity for Mackenzie to go that way, there are a lot of people who have been here for a long time and will continue to be here for a long time.”

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Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 11:31 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: route5ca on November 30 2007 12:17 PM

It is "greedy banks" that have caused this closure by handing out sub-prime mortgages that are affecting all economic sectors.
You cant blame a business like Abitibi for closing so that the product supply is reduced.It unfortunately has a ripple effect, with 700 fewer consumers in Mackenzie it causes other local business to close their doors.
I offer one small solution.Please demand paper bags in your shopping cart.They are biodegradable and recyclable.Lobby governments to enforce this idea just as many California cities have done.It will keep some mills running.

Posted by: socredible on November 30 2007 12:58 PM

Yes, they handed out 'sub-prime' mortgages, but many of those receiving them were just as 'greedy' as the bankers. They hoped to cash in on an inflation in real estate prices, and live in digs that were a little, or a lot, 'higher on the hog' than they could've othersise afforded while waiting for the prices to escalate. And they got caught when they didn't.

Ask yourself, though, what would've happened to the lumber markets if those mortgages HADN'T been written?

The housing boom that absorbed a great deal of BC's production, most of it from this region, wouldn't have occurred. And we'd have been stuck with trying to find a home for a lot more 'beetle-wood' than we were able to.

The big problem will continue to persist so long as we depend on an 'inflation' of prices to produce what we mistakenly believe is 'prosperity'. It's really no such thing ~ it's just pure inflation, and in the end, everyone loses from that.

Posted by: route5ca on November 30 2007 1:30 PM

I have worked in 5 sawmills over 33 years of my life.The first 4 are permanently closed.

Boom and bust in this industry is a normal cycle.
Each time there is a prime factor that causes the downturn.

The last notable time for my mill was in 98-99' when the scandals happened in Japan and that market collapsed.

If the sub-primes had not been written, the prime rate would not fluctuate wildly and markets would remain confident, resulting in steady growth and employment.

Posted by: lmorg on November 30 2007 2:28 PM

Check for spring of 2008. That is when the majority of the US sub prime mortgages will become due. People are reluctant to buy in the US now and are waiting until homes are virtually like they were in PG in 2002 until they buy. Best bang for their dollars. I don't know if it will ripple effect the lumber industry in BC though since it doesn't mean new housing will be manufactured...after all the dollar is still almost at par with the US so its still more feasible for the US to use their own wood.

Posted by: socredible on November 30 2007 8:03 PM

If the sub-primes had not been written there would've been insufficient demand from US conventional mortgage lending to absorb any more than a fraction of current BC lumber exports. We have fewer mills, but look at the production increases overall. What does Canfor Houston bump out in a year? 600 million BF from ONE mill. And that's only one example of the shape of things to come.

Home ownership levels in the US are at unprecedented levels as a percentage of their overall population. And the ability to introduce the necessary level of 'new credit' into their economy via the new home mortgage, which has been the traditional method of doing that since the end of WW II, is being quickly pinched off. With nothing remotely viable in sight, (to those who persist in retaining the present flawed 'financial' system), short of having a large scale war, to replace it.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on November 30 2007 9:35 PM

Shhhh...don't even mention the term "large scale war" anywhere in north america socredible!!!
The U.S.might be listening, and you know how they love wars!!!
:-)

Posted by: socredible on December 1 2007 8:33 AM

Well, Andy, that's exactly what we're all heading for continuing down the path we're currently going. In fact, we're in it right now, (and I don't mean Afghanistan), Rather it's a 'trade war' to 'capture' foreign markets. Not (yet, to any degree) one where we 'export' munitions to kill off our unwilling 'customers' by dropping bombs on them or firing bullets and artillery shells at them. That first type of war has always led to the second, and it probably always will.

Posted by: route5ca on December 1 2007 11:30 AM

Posted by: socredible on December 1 2007 2:56 PM

How could there be steady growth and employment when the profitability of most mills today is in constant decline as a percentage of their sales volume?

They are 'commodity speculators', route5ca, as admitted by Peter Pope himself, the former CEO of now bankrupt Pope and Talbot. They hope to cash in on the boom, and cash out when it goes bust.

That's why there's so much corporate concentration continually happening in the industry. It's self-defeating, because eventually there'll only be 'one' player left, it still won't be profitable in terms of actually producing lumber, and then the government will end up buying it out to 'save jobs'. However many are left by then. Which won't solve the 'problem' either.

Posted by: owl on December 1 2007 4:14 PM

"Please demand paper bags in your shopping cart"

???????? When I grew up, my grandmother had cloth shopping bags she brought with her when she went shopping. The lasted morethan one shopping trip, more like a few years, and did not produce anywhere near the garbage that paper bags would.

Someone has re-invented them and coloured them all sorts of intersting colours.

Creating products we throw away or recyle in very short cycles like a grocery bag which gets used for probably an hour on average just so that we can create jobs is a very ineffective and wasteful way of feeding money to people.

Posted by: owl on December 1 2007 4:17 PM

BTW.... newspapers are even more wasteful of our natural resources .... we have new ways of delivering information to people these days. It is taking an awful long time for people to change over. One of these days they will start taxing the hell out of that the same as cigarettes. One is not good for personal health, the other is not good for environmental health.

Posted by: socredible on December 1 2007 7:58 PM

Owl wrote ~ "Creating products we throw away or recyle in very short cycles like a grocery bag which gets used for probably an hour on average just so that we can create jobs is a very ineffective and wasteful way of feeding money to people."

I'd say that's perfectly true, Owl. Most of what we do today often seems more geared towards 'creating jobs' rather than towards making products that are really needed, and functional, and last.

We've been conditioned to think we need to have a 'moral' reason to distribute an income to anyone ~ that any one who doesn't first 'work' shouldn't be entitled to eat. That might've been true once, in the days when all power was muscle power, and everyone's 'muscles' were needed.

But it's certainly not true today. We could easily produce all we could ever consume working a fraction of the time we presently do if all the 'waste' and 'inefficiency' of trying to 'make work' where none really need be done were removed from the system.

Really, when you think about it, 'work' is no more than a 'function' of man. Like 'sleep'. It's a means to an end. But we've elevated it into being an end unto itself. What's really needed is not the 'job' and 'more production'. That latter we already have in plenty. It's an unconditional 'income', to allow us all to access what we've already created, that's what's really needed.

If our additional production cannot be of any real benefit to us and our fellow man, how can our accessing what already exists be of any real detriment to us and our fellow man?