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Corporate shell game

Northern Pulp seeks protection from creditors in a BC court — and its largest creditor is its owner, Paper Excellence

July 19, 2020 By Joan Baxter 10 Comments

Northern Pulp — the mill in Pictou County — has gone into hibernation. And Northern Pulp — the company — is “insolvent.” It is one of seven related companies petitioning for creditor protection in the British Columbia Supreme Court, while it seeks “a plan of compromise or arrangement.” The petitioners seeking relief from debt payments, […]

Filed Under: Featured, Investigation, News Tagged With: 1057863 B.C. Limited, Asia Pulp and Paper, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Bruce Chapman, Canso Chemicals, Catalyst Paper Corporation, Chetwynd Mechanical Pulp Inc., Chronicle Herald, corporate tax haven index, corporate welfare, deforestation, Ed Roste, Eduardo Bolsonaro, Eka Tjipta Widjaja, Euromomey, Euromoney, Forbes, former Premier John Hamm, Globe and Mail, Greenpeace, Hardi Wardhana, Hervey Investment B.V., Howe Sound Pulp and paper, Indonesia, Inter-corporate Ownership index, Jackson Widjaja, Jan Willem van Gelder, MacKenzie Pulp Inc., Mattell, Meadow Lake Mechanical Pulp, Mongabay, Netherlands, Northern Pulp, Northern pulp creditor protection, Northern Pulp loans, Northern Pulp Mill, Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation, Northern Timber, Paper Excellence, Paper Excellence B.V., Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation, Pedro Chang, Petra Spaargaren, Prince Albert Pulp Inc., Reuters, Sinar Mas Group, Singapore, Skoomkumchuck Pulp Inc., Sugiarto Kardiman, Supreme Court of British Columbia, tax havens, Tax Justice Network, Tejuh Widjaja, Unifor

The Canso Chemicals mystery: With the chemical plant long gone, why is the company still alive? And what about all that mercury pollution?

March 7, 2019 By Joan Baxter 6 Comments

Canso Chemicals hasn’t produced any chemicals for 29 years, but — contrary to what I wrote in the Halifax Examiner in “Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions” — the company lives on. Sort of. For two decades Canso Chemicals produced chlorine for the pulping process […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Investigation, Province House Tagged With: Abercrombie Point, Canadian Industries Limited (CIL), Canso Chemicals, Choong Wei Tan, Curtis Richards, Dillon Consulting, Ferguson MacKay, Fisheries Minister Jack Davis, Friends of the Northumberland Strait (FONS), ICI Canada, Jack Pink, Jill Graham Scanlan, John M. Olin Foundation, mercury, Minimata disease, Northern Pulp, Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation, Nova Scotia Pulp Ltd., Olin Corporation, Pictou Harbour, Pierre Ducharme, Pioneer Chemicals Limited, Pioneer Companies LLC, Scott Maritimes, Seymore Thomas Dewtie, Sinar Mas Group, Widjaja family

Battle for the Mill

The plan to pipe effluent from the Northern Pulp Mill into the Northumberland Strait is dividing the community of Pictou, pitting neighbour against neighbour and fishermen against mill workers.

March 20, 2018 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

This is a follow-up to Linda Pannozzo’s investigative articles in The Halifax Examiner detailing the issues around Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment and disposal system: Dirty Dealing Part 1: Northern Pulp mill and the province are set to roll the dice with Boat Harbour’s replacement, but a cleaner alternative exists; Dirty Dealing Part 2: Wading through the quagmire […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Andrea Paul, Asia Pulp and Paper, Boat Harbour, Bruce Chapman, Bruce I. Fleming, Central Nova MP Sean Fraser, Cory Rankin, Deputy Environment Minister Frances Martin, Friends of the Northumberland Strait, Government House leader Alan McIsaac, Joan Baxter, Kathy Cloutier, MLA Colin LaVie, MLA Darlene Compton, MLA Karla MacFarlane, MLA Lenore Zann, MLA Peter Bevan-Baker, MLA Tim Houston, Nicole MacKenzie, Northern Pulp emissions, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Landing First Nation, Premier Wade MacLauchlan, Ron Heighton, Ryan Fleury, Sinar Mas Group, Terri Fraser

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Brian Borcherdt. Photo: Anna Edwards-Borcherdt

Brian Borcherdt came of age in Yarmouth in the 1990s. When he arrived in Halifax, the city’s famous music scene was already waning, and worse, the music he made was rejected by the cool kids anyway. After decades away from Nova Scotia, he and his young family have settled in the Annapolis Valley, where he’ll zoom in to chat with Tara about his band Holy Fuck’s endlessly delayed tour, creating the Dependent Music collective, and the freedom and excitement of the improvised music he’s making now. Plus: Bringing events back in 2021.

The Tideline is advertising-free and subscriber-supported. It’s also a very good deal at just $5 a month. Click here to support 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.

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