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 […]
Proposed Wentworth Valley wind farm gets blowback
While local group fears negative effects, Northern Pulp stands to profit from the giant wind project because it’s on Northern Pulp land purchased with a loan from Nova Scotians.
Let’s start with a quick Nova Scotia quiz. Question #1: What do the following three things have in common? (1) A large new wind farm proposed for Wentworth Valley, (2) an open pit gold mine at Moose River in Halifax Regional Municipality that is owned by Australia’s St Barbara Ltd and operated by its subsidiary […]
Expansion of gold mining on the Eastern Shore meeting with stiff resistance
The public and Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia have until December 16 to comment on this latest round, but in a letter from June, Millbrook First Nation said they "do not support" the mine on the Eastern Shore.
Atlantic Mining Nova Scotia (AMNS) looks bound and determined to mine paradise, blast a giant hole deep into the earth at Beaver Dam in a rural part of the Halifax Regional Municipality just over an hour’s drive from downtown Dartmouth, and extract 56 million tonnes of material from the bowels of this small province between 2023 […]
Northern Pulp is demanding it be given “more than $100 million” from the province
Northern Pulp — a Paper Excellence company that belongs ultimately to the billionaire corporate empire of the Widjaja family of Indonesia — is giving the Nova Scotia government two months notice that it intends to start legal proceedings to get “more than $100 million” from the province, which it claims represents the losses it has […]
What are Paper Excellence’s real plans for Northern Pulp?
This week two men presented the company’s plans for a “complete transformation” of the the mill at a special Pictou Town Council meeting. They faced persistent questions and made some telling comments that do not bode well for Nova Scotia.
Paper Excellence is on a desperate charm offensive in Nova Scotia, trying to build “trust,” get support to refit and re-open its Pictou County Northern Pulp mill, make people believe that the company has somehow transformed itself overnight, and convince us all to forget its many egregious environmental, social, and political transgressions and bullying tactics. […]
Paper Excellence holds a media show and piles on the PR
Northern Pulp’s owner is working on a $350 million “complete transformation” for the mill in Pictou County, but doesn’t say whether any of that money will be public, or why Nova Scotians should trust them.
On the morning of July 15, Iris Communications’ Sean Lewis sent out a press release on behalf of Paper Excellence. It was chockablock with carefully calibrated and curated PR, informing us that Northern Pulp’s 54-year-old pulp mill in Pictou County was set to become “a “best-in-class operation” and “one of the world’s cleanest, most environmentally […]
Who benefits from Atlantic Gold’s Nova Scotia operations?
Firm with gold mines on the Eastern Shore pays no taxes and low wages to its employees while it gets large government subsidies and maximizes profits. Oh, and it will leave toxic mine tailings that will be with us forever.
In mid-May, Laird Brownlie, head of external affairs for Australia’s St Barbara Ltd that acquired Atlantic Gold and its mining operations in Nova Scotia in 2019 for $722 million, sent out an email — a “special bulletin” — about the company’s proposed modifications at its Touquoy open pit gold mine in Moose River. Brownlie’s message […]
Public engagement, future of the forestry, and the Harvest Plans Map Viewer
Activists says the online tool where Nova Scotians can submit feedback on what happens to the forests on public lands is inaccessible and lacks historical data.
In December 2020, Mike Lancaster was invited to attend an online meeting of the Western Region Stakeholder Interaction Committee, which he describes as a venue for those holding forestry licences on Crown land and “other key stakeholders to engage with the Department of Lands and Forestry on forestry and planning issues for the western region […]
How the Biodiversity Act was killed
Forest Nova Scotia, which represents the biggest forestry players, gets an awful lot of public money — including millions of dollars to administer a forest roads program panned by the auditor general. It also has a paid lobbyist swaying the policies of the very government that funds it, and who started working on its behalf just as the Biodiversity Act was gutted.
Last month Forest Nova Scotia, an industry group representing the most powerful shapers of forestry policy in this province, spearheaded a propaganda campaign against the Biodiversity Act, which the Liberal government of Iain Rankin had introduced on March 11, calling it legislation that would “preserve and protect Nova Scotia’s unique ecosystems, wild animals, plants, lakes […]
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
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 […]