A shortage of skilled tradespeople could put a damper on the upswing in the forest sector, according to Unifor. The union says steady jobs, with pay up to $42 per hour at some northwestern Ontario mills, are hard to fill because there are few qualified candidates. Mills in the region are now competing for employees, a situation…
Forester Milton Davies spent an exasperating summer watching road contractors slice the roots of American elms on the boulevards throughout his neighbourhood of Queen Alexandra. Buttress roots holding up 15-metre-tall, 10-tonne trees have been cut and left bare, delicate feeder roots that sent water and nutrients up the trunk have been torn out, all to…
It was scorched and blackened by fire, but thanks in part to the quick action of B.C. fire crews, one of Canada’s oldest living things will live to see another day. The Elaho Giant, estimated to be the third thickest Douglas fir on record, was caught in the middle of a 700-hectare fire that swept…
BC Hydro executive vice-president Susan Yurkovich will become the new president and chief executive officer of the Council of Forest Industries on Sept. 14, COFI announced today. Yurkovich will replace James Gorman, who has accepted a new position as vice-president of Vancouver-based wood products company West Fraser. Gorman joined COFI in September 2013 after previously…
The Possibilities Are Wide Open NICOLE LEIBEL “The better I do my job, the better everything else runs for everybody else.” Nicole Leibel moved from British Columbia to the Manitoba Winnipeg town of Swan River in 1987. Starting as a laborer at the Louisiana Pacific Canada mill, she worked her way up to a quality…
The Board of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) is launching an executive search for a new President and CEO. The current office-holder, David Lindsay, has announced his intention to move on by the end of 2015 to return to the Toronto area to be closer to his family. Lindsay has led FPAC since…
There was free fried chicken deep in the woods on McLellans Mountain on Monday. The chicken came free with the brand new $450,000 forwarder delivered to Next Generation Forest Management Ltd. The eight-wheel-drive machine, which picks up logs cut by a harvester and delivers them to tractor-trailer trucks waiting at roadside, is the third new…
An aggressive attack on a large forest fire near Kenora, Ont. was effective, but crews will still be working on it for a while. The fire grew under high winds on Saturday, but according to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, it is not a threat to any community. Ten fire ranger crews are…
Northwestern Ontario’s recovering forestry sector continues to be reflected in solid contracts for mill and logging workers, even though it sometimes involves tough negotiations. About 550 plant and woodlands employees who work at Dryden’s Domtar pulp mill voted in favour of a new four-year collective agreement this week that provides decent wage increases and $1,000…
Canada’s biggest railway reached a last-minute tentative agreement with one of its unions on Monday, averting a lockout that threatened to delay imports from Asia and compound a U.S. West Coast port logjam. Canadian National Railway Co and Unifor, the union representing its 4,800 mechanical, clerical and trucking workers, struck a deal just before the…