Wood supplied

Thunder Bay’s AbitibiBowater sawmill will see 50 new jobs created from an $8 million investment from the company’s board of directors.

The sawmill recently was awarded 220,000 cubic metres of wood through the province’s wood supply competition and Thursday it celebrated reaching 500,000 hours without a recordable injury.

"The facility has done well in its safety and performance and got the confidence of the board for this investment of $8 million to utilize the additional fibre we received from the wood supply competitive process," said Luke Drapeau, general manager of wood products for Northwestern Ontario and Maritimes.

In addition to the 50 new jobs at the facility, the investment will see another 100 direct jobs in the woodlands operations and another 150 indirect jobs within the community.
It will also improve the mill’s production capacity form 265 million board feet of stud dimension lumber per year to 300 million board feet.

The sawmill will also see equipment upgrades throughout the next two years.

"Throughout the facility it’s de-bottlenecking the process and improving product flow and production," Drapeau said, adding the $8 million helps the mill continue to be a top performer.

"What this does it is shores up our ability for continuous improvement and re-investment to stay on top of the pack and be successful when the markets are low like they are today," he said. "It’s great news for all the employees here in terms of competitive position."

This is also the second time the sawmill has been recognized for 500,000 hours without a recordable injury and they received $10,000 to donate to a charity of their choice. The employees chose the Northern Cancer Fund as the recipient.

"Everyone has been impacted by cancer," said Drapeau. "I lost my father to cancer; I lost a sister to cancer. The Northern Cancer Fund is doing stuff right in our own backyard and making wise investments for equipment that will be utilized by the community and our neighbouring communities."

The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation major gifts officer Dan Bissonnette said the regional cancer centre is getting ready to update their facility through initiatives like digital mammography, the cyclotron project and refurbishing their CT scanners.

He said Thunder Bay has one of the top cancer centres in Ontario.

"To continue to be in that no.1, no. 2 position, we need now to advance in our equipment and (AbitibiBowater’s) contribution today, (their) health and safety work (they) do each and every day is going to go a long way to help us achieve our goals," Bissonnette said.