Communities look at future as more mills look at cutbacks

With the Canadian dollar staying strong, many families in communities where paper mills have already shut down in New Brunswick are questioning what the future may hold.

The owners of the AbitibiBowater mill in northeastern community of Dalhousie are currently reviewing their properties to determine how to cut $1 billion from their books over the next three years.

Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Bowater Inc. merged in January and announced thatat least 50 jobs would be lost at the Dalhousie mill.

More than 300 people work at the mill and they are already bracing for layoffs, union president Denis Fournier said.

"They're really concerned and nervous," Fournier said. "The atmosphere in the mill is really, really negative, so it's affecting people morally and financially both."

The mill is the town's largest employer and news of the restructuring is not what the town needs, Mayor Clem Tremblay said.

"I'm very optimistic that once this transition is over, then they can turn the page and look for a better future for the mill in Dalhousie," Tremblay said.

The mill hasn't been upgraded since 1930.

The provincial government is offering to invest what it takes to keep the mill profitable and running.

Mills throughout the province have been shutting down in recent months with most citing a decline in demand for their product and the soaring loonie.

According to the New Brunswick Forest Products Association, 24 sawmills are now shut down, 18 are operating on reduced hours, and 25 are considering reduced hours or shutdowns over the next four to eight weeks.

The Fraser Papers sawmill in Juniper, N.B., closed in October for nine to 11 months.

Nobody wants a ghost town

There are still about 50 workers planing lumber and preparing it for shipping, but some of the 150 former workers say they are worried about the impact of the closure on their community.

"People say this town is going to go into a ghost town," said John Savoie, who has worked at the mill. "We ain't got too much to go by. There's different towns that don't have anything at all and they survived. So, hopefully we will."

The shutdowns are tearing families apart, said Bonnie Wright, a member of the Juniper Committee to Stop the Transfer of Crown Allocations.

"There have been a number of the men who have left the community, gone west or to Nova Scotia to work, leaving their wives and children back in the community to cope as best they can," she said.

Small businesses can provide jobs and help the economy in the province better than the larger corporations at this point, Wright said.