LONGLAC (Greenstone), Ont. — The mayor of Greenstone hopes the province will intervene somehow to get the sawmill in Longlac restarted.
Renald Beaulieu says Longlac Lumber's mill recently stopped operations because it wasn't getting wood deliveries.
"This is very sad news. The main reason the workers have been given is that there is no wood available to them... Apparently the pulp mill in Terrace Bay is requiring all the wood," Beaulieu said.
There has been no statement as yet either from management of the Longlac mill or from AV Terrace Bay Inc.
Beaulieu said the wood supply issue needs to be addressed.
"How can we be living in an area where logs can be cut from this region, and be sent to create jobs somewhere else? Right in our back yard, our people are not working," he said.
Describing the situation as "not right," Beaulieu said government officials "are looking into this."
Workers were notified of the shutdown a few weeks ago, but employees assigned to the mill's planer stayed on the job until last week.
The mayor said a sawmill in Nakina, which is also in the Municipality of Greenstone, continues to operate.
Both are Buchanan Forest Products' operations.
Beaulieu's concern about locally-cut logs being trucked to a distant mill echoes the situation in Fort Frances.
Officials in the border town are upset that wood from the area's Crossroute Forest currently is not available to any prospective new operator of the town's former Resolute paper mill.
