OFIA calls for federal relief measures to be put in place as soon as possible

As the community of Ear Falls, Ont., reels from the shutdown of its sawmill, industry leaders are calling on the federal government to intervene.

Mayor Kevin Kahoot announced the news on Friday, saying he's already connected with the province "to identify all available supports and explore every possible path forward."

The sawmill, owned by Interfor, is the largest employer in the northwestern Ontario township, which fewer than 1,000 people call home.

U.S. tariffs, combined with a flat market, have been attributed as the reasons behind the indefinite shutdown, which Kahoot estimates could result in 150 jobs lost. With an additional 10 per cent tariff put in place last week, total duties and tariffs for softwood lumber are now at nearly 45 per cent, according to the Ontario Forest Industries Association (OFIA).

"We're seeing continual evolution and consolidation of the pulp and paper sector in Ontario, which acts as a very important market for the sawmilling industry -- so unfortunately, this is something that I think we were all bracing for, but it doesn't make the news any easier," OFIA's president and CEO, Ian Dunn, said of the shutdown in Ear Falls.

OFIA represents more than 50 companies in the province, including Interfor. While the association is working with provincial partners to expand the domestic market, with 97 per cent of Ontario's forest product exports going to the U.S. -- totalling nearly $8 billion -- "we're never going to completely replace that market," Dunn said.

In August, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a significant stabilization package for the sector, which included a market diversification program and up to $700 million in loan guarantees through the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) "to address the immediate pressures facing the softwood lumber sector."

According to Dunn, companies can't afford to wait for those measures to be put in place.

"It's been announced that it's ready to be rolled out, but we need it to be rolled out and we need it to be accessible to all lumber producers in the province," Dunn said.

"From my public perspective, we are not seeing the level of urgency applied to this file that we need."

Meanwhile in the northeast, provincial and federal funding has allowed the Kapuskasing paper mill to resume operations. The news comes after Kap Paper announced at the end of September that it would begin idling the mill due to a lack of funds.

Rick Dumas, president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) and mayor of the town of Marathon, welcomed the government support in Kapuskasing. However, he said the challenges at hand signal the need for companies to diversify their products.

"When you have a shutdown or a loss of an industry within those single-industry towns, that has a devastating blow on the opportunity for that municipality to move forward with their operating budgets, the taxation that provides, the jobs -- the direct and indirect jobs -- that provides," Dumas said.

"I know governments are not there to bail out every company in every industry along the way, but [they should be] working with industry and specifically northwestern Ontario forestry to see how do we diversify our products?"

Simultaneously, in a region with an abundance of raw materials, Dumas said he struggles to understand the disconnect between the lumber and housing markets.

"If you have both levels of government talking about building homes faster, [how] more homes are needed in Canada, in Ontario, why are we losing sawmills?" Dumas asked.

For the province's part, OFIA has applauded the Ontario government's advanced wood construction plan as one promising strategy.

"We're doing a lot of work with the province to look at expanding the domestic market, home building, affordable housing, modular homes, mass timber. These are all areas where the province of Ontario is committed to expanding," Dunn said.

This also requires a push for more skilled labourers, said Dumas -- but if the region's mills are left idling, there won't be anywhere for youth to get hands-on training at home.

"The companies have to also diversify and get a better business model and make sure their products are put to market at a reasonable cost and be competitive," Dumas said. "At the same time, we need to have youth understand there's great opportunities in the forestry and mining sectors in our part of the world."