• Black Nova Scotia
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Health
    • COVID
  • Investigation
  • Journalism
  • Labour
  • Policing
  • Politics
    • City Hall
    • Elections
    • Province House
  • Profiles
  • Transit
  • Women
  • Morning File
  • Commentary
  • PRICED OUT
  • @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
    • Gift Subscriptions
  • Donate
  • Swag
  • Receipts
  • Manage your account: update card / change level / cancel

Northern Pulp and its wealthy owners seem intent on taking Nova Scotians to the cleaners

But the Pictou pulp mill has had plenty of Nova Scotian accomplices helping them fleece the province.

April 4, 2022 By Joan Baxter 3 Comments

On April 1, in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick issued an order that forces Nova Scotia into a “mediation” process in the BC court, where Northern Pulp and six related companies have been enjoying creditor protection since June 2020. The process will be handled by a “court appointed” monitor that Northern Pulp […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Tagged With: Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), BC Premier John Horgan, Bernie Miller, Biodiversity Act, Boat Harbour Act, Brazil, British Columbia Supreme Court, Bruce Chapman, Catalyst Paper, Companies" Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), Competition Bureau of Canada, creditor protection, Darrell Dexter, default, deforestation, Domtar, Eldorado Brazil Celulose, environmental assessment, environmental assessment report, GI Smith, Hervey Investment B.V., Indemnity Agreement, Jackson Widjaja, John Hamm, John Savage, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick, Kamloops, Kirby McVicar, lawsuit, Maurice Chiasson, mediation process, Netherlands, Northern Pulp, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change (NSECC), Nova Scotia Pension Benefits Act, Nova Scotia Superintendent of Pensions, nova scotia supreme court, Ontario, Paper Excellence, Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation, Paper Excellence Group, Pensions, Pictou County, Public Affairs Atlantic, pulp mill, Quebec, Robert Grant, Robert Stanfield, Rodney MacDonald, Sasha Irving, Sinar Mas Group, statment of claims, Stephen McNeil, tax haven, Unifor, Widjaja family

Northern Pulp mill plans “best in class” or best in BS?

The Paper Excellence company that is part of the global corporate empire of the Widjaja family has submitted plans for the “transformation” of its hibernating pulp mill to the Nova Scotia government for approval, even as it sues the same government for hundreds of millions of dollars.

December 17, 2021 By Joan Baxter 3 Comments

Northern Pulp is claiming that the changes it’s proposing for its 54-year-old pulp mill in Pictou County will make it “best in class.” Even the blurb that appears on the Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change page for the “mill transformation and effluent treatment facility project” includes the phrase “best in class.” And although Northern […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation Tagged With: 1057863 B.C. Ltd., 3243722 Nova Scotia Limited, 3253527 Nova Scotia Limited, A’se’K, Abercrombie Point, AP&P, Asia Pulp & Paper, Boat Harbour, British Columbia Supreme Court, British Virgin Islands, Bruce Chapman, Canso Chemicals, Catalyst Paper, climate change, climate crisis, Companies" Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), Competition Bureau of Canada, Domtar, Eldorado Brasil Celulose pulp mill, Environmental Paper Network, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), France, Friends of the Northumberland Strait, FSC, Golden Agri Resources, Graham Kissack, greenhouse gases, Greenpeace, Hervey Investment BV, Inter-corporate Ownership index, Jill Graham Scanlan, Jim Ryan, Kamloops pulp mill, Karta Halten B.V., MacKenzie pulp mill, Maurice Chiasson, mercury, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp Mill, Northern Pulp Nova Scotia, Northern Pulp Nova Scotia LP, Northern Pulp NS GP ULC, Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation, Northern Timber Nova Scotia Corporation, Northern Timber Nova Scotia LP, Northumberland Strait, Nova Scotia Envrionment and Climate Change, Olin Corporation, Paper Excellence, Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation, Pictou, Pictou Harbour, Pictou Landing First Nation, Powell River pulp mill, pulp mill, Robert Grant, Scott Paper, Sinar Mas, Sinar Mas Group, Singapore, Statistics Canada, tax havens, Tax Justice Network, The Netherlands, Widjaja family

Paper Excellence’s very big deal

Northern Pulp’s parent company is set to acquire the North American pulp and paper giant Domtar. While the acquisition is getting very little media attention in Canada, around the world many people are worried about it — for many good reasons.

July 26, 2021 By Joan Baxter 8 Comments

It is a Very Big Deal. At 10am on Thursday, July 29, at a special virtual meeting, shareholders of Domtar, a giant in the North American pulp and paper industry, will vote on whether to accept the sale of all the corporation’s issued and outstanding shares of common stock to Paper Excellence for US$55.50 per […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Alberta Wilderness Association, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), Bloomberg, Brazil, British Columbia, BusinessWire, Catalyst Paper, CBC, China, CO2 emissions, Competition Bureau of Canada, COVID-19, creditor protection, Crofton, David Suzuki Foundation, default, deforestation, Domtar, Dryden, Eco-Business, Environmental Paper Network, Espanola, eucalyptus, Euromoney, Europe, forest fires, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), France, FSC certification, Global Forest Coalition, greenhouse gas emissions, Halper Sadeh LLP, Indonesia, Joshua Martin, Kalimantan, Kamloops, land grabbing, MacKenzie, Michael Gorman, Montral, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), North America, Northern Pulp, Northern Softwood Bleached Kraft pulp, Northern Timber Nova Scotia Corporation, Ogan Komering Ilir (OKI), OKI pulp mill, Ontario, Paper Excellence, Paper Excellence Brazil, Paper Excellence Canada, Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation, peat fires, Port Alberni, Powell River, pulp and paper industry, pulp and paper mills, Quebec, Restore Our Earth, Reuters, Sara Webb, Saskatchewan, Sierra Club, Sinar Mas, Sinar Mas Group, South America, South Carolina, Stand Earth Canada, state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Sumatra, Supreme Court of British Columbia, Widjaja family, wildlife habitat, Windsor, WWF

The French Connection

People in southern France are battling pollution at a paper mill owned by a corporate behemoth: Paper Excellence Canada, the owner of the Northern Pulp Mill in Nova Scotia

February 24, 2021 By Joan Baxter 1 Comment

They call their association the “Les Flamants Roses du Trébon” or LFRT (Flamingos of Trébon), and it’s a collective of residents in southern France who are fighting to have the six-decades-old Fibre Excellence Tarascon pulp mill in the province of Alpes-Côte d’Azur clean up its environmental act.  French media report that the mill is owned […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured Tagged With: A’se’K, Asia Pulp and Paper, bankruptcy, Boat Harbour, Bouches-du-Rhône, British Columbia, Catalyst Paper, Crofton, Darrell Dexter, Fibre Excellence Tarascon, Flamingos of Trébon, France, French President Emmanuel Macron, Haute-Garonne, insolvency, Jean-Francois Guillot, Les Flamants Roses du Trébon (LFRT), Michel Dufy, Nature Comminges, Northern Pulp, Paper Excellence, Paper Excellence B.V., Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Landing First Nation, pollution, Port Alberni, Powell River, pulp mill, receivership, Saint-Guadens, Seveso, Sinar Mas, Stephen McNeil, Supreme Court of British Columbia, Tarascon, Tax Justice Network, Widjaja family

PRICED OUT

A collage of various housing options in HRM, including co-ops, apartment buildings, shelters, and tents
PRICED OUT is the Examiner’s investigative reporting project focused on the housing crisis.

You can learn about the project, including how we’re asking readers to direct our reporting, our published articles, and what we’re working on, on the PRICED OUT homepage.

2020 mass murders

Nine images illustrating the locations, maps, and memorials of the mass shootings

All of the Halifax Examiner’s reporting on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, and recent articles on the Mass Casualty Commission and newly-released documents.

Updated regularly.

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.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Two young white women, one with dark hair and one blonde, smile at the camera on a sunny spring day.

Episode 79 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne, is published.

Grace McNutt and Linnea Swinimer are the Minute Women, two Haligonians who host a podcast of the same name about Canadian history as seen through a lens of Heritage Minutes (minutewomenpodcast.ca). In a lively celebration of the show’s second birthday, they stop by to reveal how curling brought them together in podcast — and now BFF — form, their favourite Minutes, that time they thought Jean Chretien was dead, and the impact their show has had. Plus music from brand-new ECMA winners Hillsburn and Zamani.

Listen to the episode here.

Check out some of the past episodes here.

Subscribe to the podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your device — there’s a great instructional article here. Email Suzanne for help.

You can reach Tara here.

Sign up for email notification

Sign up to receive email notification when we publish new Morning Files and Weekend Files. Note: signing up for this email is NOT the same as subscribing to the Halifax Examiner. To subscribe, click here.

Recent posts

  • Weekend File May 21, 2022
  • Last week tied the record for weekly COVID deaths in Nova Scotia May 20, 2022
  • National study to assess pandemic’s health impacts, potential long-term effects of COVID-19 May 19, 2022
  • NSTU president concerned about conflict as province announces end to mask mandate in schools May 19, 2022
  • Royal flush: the monarchy’s role in reconciliation and Canada today May 19, 2022

Commenting policy

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

Copyright © 2022