• City Hall
  • Province House
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Investigation
  • Journalism
  • Commentary
  • @Tim_Bousquet
  • Log In

Halifax Examiner

An independent, adversarial news site in Halifax, NS

  • Home
  • About
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Commenting policy
  • Archives
  • Contact us
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
  • Manage your account
  • Swag
You are here: Home / Commentary / Northern Pulp: planning the future five years too late

Northern Pulp: planning the future five years too late

I don’t want to criticize Stephen McNeil’s announcement Friday. It was hard to watch without feeling just how emotionally wrenching and personally difficult it had been for him. He was genuinely caught between the rock of an important and necessary promise he had made to the Pictou Landing First Nation and the hard place of knowing keeping his promise would mean the end of vital jobs for workers at Northern Pulp and beyond in the province’s forest industry. But the thing is… Should it really have come to this?

December 21, 2019 By Stephen Kimber 1 Comment

Northern Pulp Mill at night. Photo courtesy of Tony DeCoste Photo-Video

When it comes to identifying all its political, social and economic consequences and parsing the larger meaning of Friday’s history-making, future-shaking decision by Premier Stephen McNeil to order Northern Pulp to finally “stop pumping effluent in Boat Harbour,” I am grateful to defer to my smarters.

Joan Baxter, Linda Pannozzo, Jennifer Henderson and Tim Bousquet have all done years’ worth of excellent, in-depth, investigative heavy-lifting on this file — more than reason enough for you to subscribe to the Examiner if you haven’t already.

If you need a quick primer on what happened Friday, start with this after-the-moment report by Tim, Joan and Jennifer. And then consider Linda’s excellent background piece on the larger, far less often discussed ideological economic resources battle that often “pits big business and profits against small communities.” While Linda turned out — happily — to be wrong about McNeil’s ultimate decision on Northern Pulp, her broader analysis is spot-on and worth considering.

So I won’t try to reinvent their wheels today. That said, there is one aspect of the story I think does need more comment — and that has to do with a larger lack of political leadership in Nova Scotia.

A photo of Stephen McNeil

Premier Stephen McNeil. Photo: Jennifer Henderson

I don’t want to criticize Stephen McNeil’s decision Friday.

It was hard to watch — even on my computer— without feeling just how emotionally wrenching and personally difficult this decision had been for him. He was genuinely caught between the rock of an important and necessary promise he had made to the Pictou Landing First Nation and the hard place of knowing keeping his promise would mean the end of vital jobs for workers at Northern Pulp and beyond in the province’s forest industry.

He made the right choice. And all credit to him for doing that.

He also correctly blamed the company for putting “us all in a very difficult position… They’ve had five years to do the right thing and I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this and I’m disappointed, to say the least.”

And he coupled his announcement with news of a $50-million transition fund to refocus the forest industry and “support displaced workers, small contractors and all those whose livelihoods will be affected.”

Whether that will be enough — union leaders were dismissive — remains to be seen, but it was, at least for now, the right starting place for the premier’s own re-focus.

All good. But the thing is…

Should it really have come to this?

You don’t need to be an expert on the history of industrial development in Nova Scotia to understand where this was headed, even back in 2015 when the government passed the Boat Harbour Act, giving Northern Pulp “five years to get an environmental assessment and to start constructing a new, cleaner operation.”

Governments long before Stephen McNeil’s had signed sweetheart deals with various companies that came before Paper Excellence, Northern Pulp’s latest owners. Paper Excellence? “Paper Excellence is wholly owned by Jackson Widjaja, the 39-year-old son of Teguh Widjaja, who is chairman of Asia Pulp and Paper, which is owned by the Sinar Mas Group…” and blah blah blah. We know what that means.

The government is now on the hook for cleaning up the $200-million mess that is Boat Harbour. And perhaps for the costs of canceling Northern Pulp’s lease on the Boat Harbour treatment plant a decade earlier than originally planned. Plus, there’s that $6 million we handed the company to design a new effluent treatment facility that couldn’t even pass environmental muster. Gone. Not to forget the $85 million in outstanding loans Northern Pulp still owes us.

Will we collect? Brian Baarda, the Paper Excellence CEO: “Our focus today,” he said after announcing the company will shutter its Nova Scotia plant effective almost as soon as he was able catch the next plane out of the province, “is not on those type of aspects.” Translation: Not if the company can help it.

And so it goes. So it has always been.

We know that. Stephen McNeil knew that. The time to start talking transition and diversification and reclaiming our provincial economy was not last week when the multinational horse was already bolting the barn but at least five years before that when Stephen McNeil’s correct and necessary promise made this end inevitable.


The Halifax Examiner is an advertising-free, subscriber-supported news site. Your subscription makes this work possible; please subscribe.

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Northern Pulp decision, Stephen McNeil

Comments

  1. nancyg says

    December 23, 2019 at 4:21 pm

    “$50-million transition fund ”

    Or could we call this a Liberal Party Slush Fund? It is certainly hard to believe that this Loot will be distributed fairly and evenly. One would feel much better about it if there was some rigid oversight on this “fund”.

    And then one might fairly ask: what will be the future of this plant and site? All those trips to China by McNeil, again with little oversight or intensive reporting. Only time will tell if a well-connected Suitor shows up for Boat Harbor and maybe some of those eternal Jobs-jobs-jobs subsidies.

    Or could we call this a Liberal Party Slush Fund? It is certainly hard to believe that this Loot will be distributed fairly and evenly. One would feel much better about it if there was some rigid oversight on this “fund”.

    And then one might fairly ask: what will be the future of this plant and site? All those trips to China by McNeil, again with little oversight or intensive reporting. Only time will tell if a well-connected Suitor shows up for Boat Harbor and maybe some of those eternal Jobs-jobs-jobs subsidies.

    After all, the conservatives and Premier John Hamm squeezed lots of Juice out of this baby:
    “A 1995 indemnity agreement and lease renewed in 2002 by premier John Hamm’s government — Hamm is now chair of Northern Pulp’s board of directors — puts the taxpayer on the hook for cleaning up boat harbor and providing a treatment facility for the mill’s effluent until at least 2030.”
    https://www.friendsofthenorthumberlandstrait.ca/single-post/2018/08/21/NS-pays-millions-for-Northern-Pulp%E2%80%99s-treatment-facility-design

    So, no reason, the Liberals shouldn’t make $$$ Hay out of this ongoing disaster.

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Phyllis Rising — Rebecca Falvey (left) and Meg Hubley. Photo submitted

Episode #19 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne is published.

Meg Hubley and Rebecca Falvey met as theatre kids at Neptune and have been friends ever since. As Phyllis Rising — that’s right, Mary Tyler Moore hive — they’re making films, plays, and are in production on The Crevice, a three-part sitcom streaming live from the Bus Stop in March. They stop by to talk with Tara about its development, their shared love of classic SNL and 90s sitcoms, and the power of close friendship. Plus: A new song from a new band.

This episode is available today only for premium subscribers; to become a premium subscriber, click here, and join the select group of arts and entertainment supporters for just $5/month. Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to listen to it.

Please subscribe to The Tideline.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

Sign up for email notification

Sign up to receive email notification of new posts on the Halifax Examiner. Note: signing up for email notification of new posts is NOT subscribing to the Halifax Examiner. To subscribe, click here.

Recent posts

  • Who’s zooming who? March 2, 2021
  • Nova Scotia’s vaccination registration website overwhelmed, taken off line March 1, 2021
  • 1 new case of COVID-19 announced in Nova Scotia on Monday, March 1 March 1, 2021
  • The casino is failing. Let’s blow it up March 1, 2021
  • Body of work: pandemic coverage February 28, 2021

Commenting policy

All comments on the Halifax Examiner are subject to our commenting policy. You can view our commenting policy here.

Copyright © 2021