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Brett Bundale
Telegraph-Journal

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EDMUNDSTON - As hundreds of workers clock out of the Fraser Papers mill, the spectre of job losses hangs heavy in the spring air.

About half the employees will not return to work once the routine maintenance shutdown of the mill is completed this week. Unless the forestry firm can reduce its electricity, wood and labour costs, the sulphite mill will be shuttered and 200 of the 450 workers will be laid off.

"The morale is very low among the workers right now," said Doris Lavoie, president of the Edmundston workers' union. "They're asking a lot from us and we're just trying to minimize the impact on workers, but the incertitude is taking a toll."

Fraser Papers is asking for concessions from workers that would include a decrease in the number of employees in Edmundston and a reduction in pension benefits. It is also asking the province for a greater allocation of Crown wood supply, more competitive electricity rates and better compensation for power from its biomass cogeneration facility.

Jean-Pierre Benoît, general manager of the East Papers division of Fraser Papers, said the company has been pummelled by weak demand for paper products, a high Canadian dollar and a "black liquor" subsidy to pulp producers in the United States.

"If our pulp mill was three miles south in Maine, we would be receiving $3 million (U.S.) a month," Benoît said, referring to a U.S. tax credit that is funnelling an estimated US$8 billion into pulp and paper companies south of the border.

Mark Arsenault, president of the New Brunswick Forest Products Association, said the subsidy allows U.S. forestry companies to shave C$125 to $200 off the price of a tonne of pulp.

"The situation is pretty egregious," he said. "The province has lost half its pulp mills in the last four years and we stand to lose more if something isn't done to level the playing field."

Madawaska-Restigouche MP Jean-Claude D'Amours said, given that the federal government has helped Ontario's manufacturing heartland with aid for the auto sector, it should be prepared to help the Canada-wide - predominantly rural - forestry industry.

"When Bowater shut down there was a negative economic impact throughout the region," he said. "The shutdown of the sulphite mill is going to have a boomerang effect throughout the economy that will extend far beyond the 200 jobs lost in Edmundston."

In Dalhousie, the Abitibi-Bowater mill shut its doors almost two years ago and left more than 500 people out of work in a town of about 4,000.

Although 200 jobs in Edmundston - a town of just over 15,000 people - may not seem as significant, the loss of economic spinoffs from the sulphite mill could be devastating.

"This could turn into a thousand job losses overnight," said Madeleine Dubé, MLA for Edmundston-Saint-Basile. "The number of local suppliers, transportation companies and even downtown services like restaurants and stores that rely on this mill - either directly or indirectly - is huge."

Inside a local Tim Hortons, a group of men sit huddled at a table with their hands wrapped around coffee mugs.

Gerald Pelletier worked at the Fraser Paper mill across the river in Madawaska, Maine, for 38 years.

"These are good paying jobs," he said. "This is the city's main industry and the loss of these jobs is going to hurt the entire community."