VICTORIA, B.C.: “The closure of the Crofton Pulp Mill is a clear sign that B.C.’s coastal forest sector is collapsing right before our eyes. This closure leaves 350 workers and their families, without paychecks heading into the holiday season and follows years of NDP-managed decline driven by regulatory uncertainty, delayed permitting, and policy failures that are pushing investment and jobs out of British Columbia.

“This is devastating news for Crofton and for every family that relies on this mill. Three hundred and fifty workers earning an average of about one hundred thousand dollars a year are now facing the holiday season without work. The Minister has been moving imaginary armies around the board while real people are paying the price.

We’ve been clear about what needs to happen: speed up permits, scrap the broken stumpage model, move to a fibre-based AAC, rebuild the workforce through skills training and emergency support, ban glyphosate aerial spraying, restore proper wildfire management, and take a real stand on internal trade barriers and foreign tariffs. The Mayor of Campbell River warned on September 22 that ‘We are one pulp mill closure away from the total collapse of coastal forestry.’ That collapse has started today.

Ravi Parmer, the Minister of Forests, has failed in his duty to protect forestry jobs and grow the sector, and we are calling on him to take responsibility and resign.”

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Media Contact:
Ryan Painter
Communications
Ryan.Painter@leg.bc.ca