Posted: Monday, 1 June 2009

What more can one town lose?

Campbell River is a beautiful city of 36,500 people on the eastern shore of northern Vancouver Island. The community is situated at the entrance to Discovery Passage, the inside channel taken by ships of all kinds up north past the tip of Vancouver Island to the Queen Charlotte strait and beyond.

“This town grew up around that pulp and paper facility. It originally started in 1952.”explains Ian Simpson President of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union that represents workers at the mill.

Natural beauty and natural resources have not insulated the community from the economic crisis. Indeed the crisis in this community was created by design and has been going on for some time.

The unemployment rate in the spring of 2009 in the Employment Insurance region where Campbell River is located was 13.7%, a record level in the past 5 years, and well above the provincial unemployment rate.

“We’ve lost our fishing. We’ve lost our logging. We’ve lost our mill. We’ve lost our mine. What more can one town lose?” asks miner and CAW Local 3019 President Brian Clark.

The logs go from here to the United States

Darryl Wong is the President of a new amalgamated Steelworkers union of forestry workers that stretches from the Washington border to Alaska. Since 2007, 57 mills have been permanently closed in B.C., says Daryl. “We attribute most of that downsizing to government forest policies, to contracting out and basically to the extreme volume of logs that are leaving the province.”

Wong explains further, “What’s happening is you got companies now like Canfor, West Fraser and Interfor – they’re all buying the mills south of the border. In fact most of them used a lot of the money that came out of the softwood lumber (2006 agreement) that they got back. ..So now the logs go from here into the United States and are turned into lumber in the United States. There’s no tariff on it.”

Until 2003, when the B.C. Liberals changed the law, TimberWest was required to provide fibre to Catalyst’s Elk Falls pulp and paper mill in exchange for public timber rights. TimberWest now says that manufacturing is no longer its core business. It has turned into a log export and land development company. TimberWest announced a permanent closure of its sawmill just outside Campbell River in May 2008 and the end of 257 jobs.

I’m a paycheque away from losing everything

Ian Simpson explains what happened in at Elk Falls. “It used to be a fully integrated pulp and paper lumber mill so we would take the raw logs, turn it into lumber on one side, make it into chips and turn into pulp and then into paper and ship it out...Last year they closed the saw mill that we had out there so we no longer had the dimension lumber and then this last February we went into an indefinite closure of the paper mill.”

There were 1,100 unionized employees at the pulp and paper mill not too long ago. All of these workers were laid off in July 2008. The lack of a secure supply of sawdust and wood chips, as well as the high Canadian dollar and U.S. subsidies were cited as the reasons. In February 2009, the mill was shut down indefinitely.

Jason Windsor was an operator on a paper machine at the paper mill. After he was laid off, he was recruited to work in a a coal mine in Elkford B.C., but was laid off 6 days after spending $14,000 to relocate his family to this northern community. The severance from the mill paid for the move to Elkford, and he could not collect EI because of the pay-out. Now he can’t afford the two-week waiting period. “I’m used to making 70-80 thousand dollars a year. I’m lucky if I’ve been working for 10 dollars an hour. I’m a pay cheque away from losing everything. My house, my vehicles, my everything because there’s no work.”

I just haven’t seen any infrastructure money

Since March 2008, 300 CAW members have been on two-month layoff notices from NVI mines. Brian Dalton heard the news that he would be laid off last winter. He sent off 50 resumes right away and another 150 since. He drove to Fort McMurray, and when he got to the outskirts of town, he found a campsite. He found a job driving the biggest truck in the world, but came home after a few months.

He is exhausted and frustrated. “I think that by the time they get around to it, it’s going to be too little, too late, to be honest with you because even we filed for bankruptcy on Friday. So, there’s nothing coming in. My EI pays my mortgage that’s it and leaves a $135 for food. And nothing for the hydro or that. So, it’s got to that point and that’s after 6 months. Everything’s been depleted. And the charge cards were maxed.”

“Maybe the government should look into what you call it, homeless shelters for all of us”, says Brian. “Maybe there’s some infrastructure money. Start building us all homeless shelters.”

Fishing might not be around

Directly east from Cambell River is Cape Mudge on Quadra Island. This area has long been the home of the Coast Salish and subsequently, the Laichkwiltach peoples who have depended upon fishing for generations. Over ten percent of the population of Campbell River is Aboriginal and there are six First Nations in the Campbell River area.

Dennis O’Malley comes from an aboriginal community. He grew up in Black Creek and started fishing with his uncle during the summers at the age of 13. “So it’s just been generations of family fishing”, he says. “I went onto another guy’s boat just to see if there was more money. I refused to go out with him this year. Price dropped again. So they’d be also lower wages...Fishing might not be around in the next five years.”

Holding the town ransom

According to school trustee Joyce McCann, the community is having a hard time adjusting. “The moms who have typically had lesser paying jobs, sometimes part-time work, they’re jobs are chugging along. Dads have, out of necessity, been forced into a parenting role that is somewhat unfamiliar”. Joyce is concerned that as the EI dwindles out more parents will be juggling 2 to 3 low paying jobs to make ends meet. Parents will not have the funds to cover the cost of before and after school programs. The result will be more latch key kids fending at home on their own without adult supervision.

Catalyst has told Campbell River that it will only pay $1.5 million of its $4.6 million annual tax bill, forcing the city into an untenable situation. “They’re holding the town ransom, basically” says Ian Thompson.

The new municipal council agreed to a tax cut of $500,000 for Catalyst. Council re-zoned land TimberWest has slated for real estate development and increased its taxes. Still the impact on public sector workers is significant. Municipal workers will see their hours cut back. There is a hiring freeze, and service cuts will save of $1.4 million. Residential taxes will increase by 9.8%.