26 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

‘It’s going to be devastating’: Crofton mill closure threatens many more companies

 

Paul Beltgens is one of hundreds in the Cowichan Valley, left scrambling by Domtar’s sudden announcement Tuesday that it is closing the massive Crofton mill.

The owner of independent sawmill Paulcan Enterprises in Chemainus, told CHEK News Thursday, that the forest industry depends on knowing what’s coming down the pipe, so the fall out of this closure has shaken many companies.

“I’ve never seen it so tough. I’ve gone through the ups and downs of this industry many times. This is by far the most serious and could be the most serious that we’ve ever seen,” said Beltgens, who has been in B.C.’s forest industry for 56 years.

https://cheknews.ca/...panies-1293057/

 

 

Beltgens’ sawmill on Smiley Road in Chemainus is one of the last running in Cowichan. It employs 50 people who he said are all worried now, because their mill sells six tonnes of alder woodchips each day to Crofton.

So Beltgens is now trying desperately to find a new customer, since neither Nanaimo’s Harmac pulp and paper mill, nor Port Alberni’s Domtar paper mill can use that type of wood chip for its machinery.  

 

 

 

 

 

AI says this guy (Beltgens) is 69 years old.   If that guy is 69, I'd like to know how he looks so young.    

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 December 2025 - 02:16 AM.

[Mike K.]

I wouldn’t have assumed alder chips were being used at the Crofton mill. Those trees are like weeds around here.

[Victoria Watcher]

This is quite well-written:

 

 

 

 

 

The closure of the Crofton pulp mill didn’t come out of nowhere. It arrived exactly the way many mayors across resource communities feared and had communicated this fear to government time after time: quietly, predictably, and after years of well-intended but poorly considered provincial policy that has boxed in an industry already on its heels.

 

Here’s the blunt truth: 30 per cent of the fibre feeding Crofton was coming from the United States. Even with that desperate backfill, it still wasn’t enough to keep the mill alive. When a British Columbia mill adjacent to one of the most productive forest baskets on the planet yet survives only by importing American fibre, something has gone very wrong in our own house. That’s not bad luck. That’s bad policy.

 

Crofton now joins the list of casualties across both the province and the coast. And if provincial leaders don’t correct course, mills in Ladysmith, North Cowichan, and Nanaimo are next. This, in turn, hits harvesting in Campbell River and other northern coastal communities. It’s all connected. The math is right there in the open.

 

 

https://cheknews.ca/...ignore-1293097/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 December 2025 - 10:31 PM.

[Mike K.]

Crofton was the North Cowichan mill, no?

[dasmo]

The truth is probably more that making paper in China is way more profitable.

Somehow that mill should be bought to make bespoke paper using alder chips. Like those people that bought the remaining denim factories in the US. Get the government to stop spraying the working forests with roundup and instead make it the first crop.

[Matt R.]

Doesn’t harmac make some sort of specialty pulp, medical grade? That’s probably the answer to crofton but who wants to spend the money these days, especially on the forest industry in BC.

Maybe the workers union should contact the firm that bought out Red Barn, or ask Phillips what his model was.

[mbjj]

I grew up with the smell of the Crofton mill blowing into the Cowichan Valley. Quite distinct! 

[Sparky]

Part of me thinks that pulp mills are past their best before date.

Where there is a smell, there is a particle in the air that is responsible for making that smell. The particles coming out of those chimneys and going up your nose and into your lungs can’t be good for your health.

Imagine breathing that crap year after year.

[Sparky]

I just asked an AI search engine about living near a pulp mill. After listing a whole wack of chemicals that they spout into the atmosphere….it basically said…don’t do it.

[dasmo]

That’s why all that stuff moves to China.

[Mike K.]

They used to say that’s the smell of money!

But this is the reason why Victoria real estate has commanded such high prices relative to other parts of the Island. Nanaimo still smells awful from time to time, when Harmac gets going with that extra special spice.

[max.bravo]

Crofton smells like a literal armpit most of the time. If the mill stays closed it will be a great place to live.

[Matt R.]

These million dollars views in Vesuvius and up Channel Ridge just turned into two million dollar views.

[Mike K.]

I was watching a BC-based logging channel the other day, and during the most recent episode they observed a truck hauling Alberta-processed lumber (the manufacturer of the lumber product no longer has mills in BC, so it was easy to note the origin) back into BC as seen in central BC, so not like it was a border town. They quipped that BC’s logging industry is in shambles, essentially.

[Mike K.]

Also, with the closure of the crofton mill, what does this mean for the forestry operation at Jordan River? Maybe nothing? I guess they can tug it out of there and take it wherever? I’m not at all familiar with how that operation transports its lumber and where it ends up.

[Victoria Watcher]

USA:    Canada subsidizes their softwood lumber industry!

Canada:   No we don't!

BC:

 

To address the effects of punishing tariffs on wood exports, the province is handing nearly $8 million to two Vancouver Island forest companies to allow them to adapt their products for new markets.

 

Western Forest Products’ value-added plant in Chemainus will get up to $7.5 million, and Island TimberFrame in Cumberland will receive as much as $325,000, as the province aims to help the industry innovate and increase the number of value-added jobs.

 

https://www.timescol...uction-11644533

 

The money comes from the province’s Manufacturing Jobs Fund, which was created to help manufacturing businesses grow operations to produce and sell more made-in-B.C. products, create good jobs and strengthen the economy.

 

Since 2023, the program has committed nearly $91 million in support of 75 forest product manufacturers. It has created or protected more than 3,500 jobs, many in regional, remote and Indigenous communities, the province says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada:   Whay are you increasing tariffs on our lumber?

USA:  Because you subsidize your softwood lumber industry.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 18 December 2025 - 04:04 PM.

[Matt R.]

Has anyone told him about the journalism subsidy yet?

[Mike K.]

They’ll love it. It’s being paid for by tariffs on US social media platforms, and soon, US streaming platforms.

[Victoria Watcher]

The union representing 350 Crofton mill workers facing layoffs next month wants federal money earmarked for softwood lumber workers to pay for early retirement for some of its members.

Geoff Dawe, president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada, said he’s not sure why it’s taken so long for the provincial government to negotiate its share of a $50-million federal fund aimed at supporting softwood lumber workers.

The fund, announced last August, is for income support and costs of re-training an estimated 6,000 forestry workers across the country who have been affected by an ongoing trade war with the United States.

Dawe wants some of that $50 million to go toward an early-retirement fund for members who will be out of work when forestry company Domtar starts laying off its Crofton workers on Feb. 3.


https://www.timescol...upport-11709965

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 January 2026 - 09:20 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Early retirement fund.