The summer of the pandemic when wood was selling at an exorbitant price is long gone. The value of the board subsequently fell even more dramatically and, this summer, the closures of Quebec sawmills began to multiply. And in the regions, this new forestry crisis is now pushing mayors to consider closing their villages.
The memory of the 2005 forestry crisis is still vivid for Herman Martel. More than 21,000 jobs were lost and factories closed their doors for good in every corner of Quebec, recalls the president of the Syndicat des employées de la scierie Rivière-aux-Rats in Mauricie. “I feel like I’m back in 2005,” laments the unionist with 30 years of experience. “I hope I’m wrong. But in 2005, we were starting to encounter the same problems.”
Twenty years later, most Quebec sawmills are going through the same rough patch, but for slightly different reasons. American taxes on Canadian lumber, the federal decree protecting the woodland caribou, catastrophic forest fires: there is no shortage of reasons to slow down production. “We are in a perfect storm,” says Herman Martel. “We are all on high alert.”
Eager to see this industry start growing again, federal elected officials and prefects from Lac-Saint-Jean launched a united cry from the heart on Thursday, after the announcement of the closure of the Petit Paris sawmill in Saint-Ludger-de-Milot. About 100 workers will be on the straw starting October 18. “On our territory [de la MRC de Lac-Saint-Jean-Est]we have 34 municipalities out of 60 that are directly linked to forestry. These are 34 communities, most of which are single-industry. There is a very high risk of closing the villages,” summarizes the Duty Louis Ouellet, mayor of Ascension-de-Notre-Seigneur, the municipality that hosted the conference.
This fear is echoed in several regions. For example, the mayor of Sacré-Coeur, in Haute-Côte-Nord, was desperate this week to see the village of 1,600 inhabitants “in peril.” The town could become a “ghost village” if Ottawa goes ahead with its decree to protect the woodland caribou, she argued in parliamentary committee.
“Painful” but “temporary”?
The situation in Quebec’s forests is “painful,” acknowledges Jean-François Samray, president and CEO of the Quebec Forest Industry Council (CIFQ). However, the problems are “temporary,” he qualifies in an interview. The closures are the result of “cyclical” trends and no longer “structural” ones, as they were two decades ago. “In other crises, Quebec was the first to close [ses usines]. In this crisis, Quebec is among the last to suffer closures. This means that the industry has modernized and we are more efficient.
Newsprint mills have recycled themselves into cardboard or tissue paper. Panel mills are making do with everything and are including demolition wood in their mixes. However, this diversification has not solved all the pitfalls in this market, which is among the most competitive in the world.
Quebecers’ main customers, the Americans, have sunk even deeper into protectionism: customs duties exploded this summer — they went from 8.05% to 14.54% — depriving local mills of billions of dollars. Worse, Europe and South America have recently become fierce competitors for Quebec paper mills, which were only small players before the pandemic. They now monopolize 10% of the North American market, according to CIFQ figures, going from 30 to 40 million board feet per month before the pandemic to 300 to 400 million board feet per month today.
“The market is no longer North American, it has become global,” observes Jean-François Samray.
Elected officials, unions and industrialists agree on one thing: the management of Quebec’s forests must change. “We often say ‘Quebec’s forest’ as a singular word,” illustrates Mr. Samray. “But spring does not arrive at the same times everywhere in Quebec, the trees that grow there are different: there are a plurality of forests in Quebec. The current system is very rigid because it is the same for everyone.”
Guidelines should be announced this fall, indicates the office of Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina, without giving a specific timeline. The new law will “give more predictability to the forestry sector” and “give oxygen to businesses,” the elected official said in writing. For thousands of Quebec forestry workers, this change of regime cannot wait.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.