Waswanipi’s sawmill is a step closer to getting underway.
A protocol agreement has been signed between the forestry company Domtar Inc. and the Waswanipi Mishtuk Corporation for a joint sawmill venture. The agreement is still being fine-tuned and will be signed by December.
Chief John Kitchen told The Nation the sawmill will cost $5.2 million and create 60 jobs. Forty five to 50 of those jobs will go to Crees.
Mishtuk, a forestry company owned by the Waswanipi First Nation, and Domtar are each putting in $1 million. Mishtuk will also secure a $1-million grant from the National Aboriginal Development Program, get a $1 2-million bank loan and a guarantee from the James Bay Eeyou Corporation for the remaining million.
Domtar is putting up almost 20 percent of the money and will own 40 per cent of the sawmill. Mishtuk is putting up 80 per cent of the money and will own 60 percent of the sawmill.
“There’s a big economic spin-off for the community,” said Chief Kitchen. “If you look at Waswanipi and the other communities, what you need is employment. Some of the social problems in the communities are because people don’t work. If you don’t have anything there for employment, the town will die.”
An opinion poll was held for residents on the sawmill at a special band meeting on Aug. 31. Of 215 people present,
78 per cent favoured the saw-mill. No referendum is planned at the moment.
Chief Kitchen said the sawmill will lose money in the first two years, then turn a profit in the third.
If the sawmill is to make money, Mishtuk must start cutting nearly three times as many trees as it’s cutting now.
But this prospect is raising concerns among some Waswanipi trappers and youth. They see the need for jobs, but point to the fact that loggers have al ready clearcut half of the Waswanipi territory.
Chief Kitchen has done his best to allay fears about the sawmill. He has brought trappers into meetings with Domtar and got Domtarto agree to consult with Waswanipi residents about its own forestry operations.
In the agreement, Domtar also agrees to look into hiring and training Crees both at the sawmill site and in its own operations, and giving Waswanipi Crees tree-planting work at Domtar sites.
Paul Dixon, the Local CTA Fur Officer and a Waswanipi Band Councillor, is consulting with trappers a bout their position on the sawmill plan.
Paul speaks of being “caught between two worlds” when he looks at the project—between the world where Crees need jobs and the world of hunting and trapping. (Look fora response from the trappers in an upcoming issue of The Nation.)
In another development, Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come has called fora regional forum on forestry and mining to hammer out a united Cree strategy on development projects on Cree lands (see Forestry, page 23).
