Alberta pulp mill workers face layoffs due to problems caused by British Columbia flooding: company | The Canadian News

A major Canadian forestry company says this fall’s floods and landslides in British Columbia have affected its operations and are causing layoffs at an Alberta pulp mill.

“As a result of the major flooding in southern British Columbia, the province now faces serious transportation and logistics problems affecting the roads, railways and our ports,” Joyce Wagenaar, West Fraser corporate spokesperson, told Global News at an email on Wednesday.

“These issues are now affecting West Fraser’s pulp operations as we are unable to ship product and we have run out of accessible storage.”

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According to Wagenaar, the company began temporarily reducing production at its pulp operations in Slave Lake, Alta., And Quesnel, BC, on Tuesday.

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“We are working to minimize the impact on employees and some activities will continue on a reduced basis,” he said.

The company said Slave Lake Pulp is cutting production for two weeks. It did not confirm how long the 40 employees will be laid off.

“At Quesnel River Pulp, we will operate the mill at one-third of our usual capacity for the next two weeks,” said Wagenaar. “This will affect approximately 60 employees.

“At Cariboo Pulp and Paper, we are temporarily closing our plant for production for the next 16 days, which will affect approximately 160 employees. Some functions will continue, such as the operation of the cogeneration facility ”.

Wagenaar said West Fraser is monitoring the “transportation situation” on an ongoing basis and will update its plans as the situation develops.

“Our hope is that our employees get back to work as soon as possible,” he said.

© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.



Reference-globalnews.ca

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