Waswanipi’s Nabakatuk sawmill will temporarily lay off its 15-employee night shift starting August 3 in an effort to cut mounting financial losses.
And sawmill president Peter Gull says the employees’ return to work may be delayed because of the Cree forestry lawsuit filed at Quebec Superior Court July 15.
The bad news caps a tough first year for the Waswanipi-Domtar joint venture. It lost $2 million in its first 10 months of operations.
The sawmill’s future now rests on a $2-million expansion that Peter Gull said would make it profitable. The Quebec government had already promised to come up with the money, but Gull says the forestry court action may change everything.
“I’m not sure for how long (the layoffs will continue). It all depends on how successful we are in obtaining the money ”
Gull hoped the layoffs won’t last more than three or four months.
The problem is Quebec is one of the defendants in the lawsuit, as is the forestry company Domtar, which Quebec owns a large part of. “I don’t know how they’ll react,” he said.
Gull said he is concerned that the court action could have other impacts on Crees It may make it harder for trappers to get compensation deals from companies for logging, he said.
It could also hurt hiring of Crees for treeplanting and slashing work, he said. And the sawmill still has to sell its wood, said Gull.
“We’re saying we re going to take you to court, but then we turn around and say, can you buy our wood?”
Gull said he’s put years of his life into the sawmill and fervently hopes it will succeed.“We need that sawmill. If we find ways of keeping it going, that will be terrific.”Within 10 years, he predicted, “we are going to have to create another industry.Why not a detention centre for Native people? People from Waswanipi could be thejanitors, guards, kitchen staff. We would just take it in the bush…”
