Skeena - Bulkley Valley NDP MP Taylor Bachrach wants the federal government to loosen its employment income (EI) requirements so that millworkers and others in Houston and in Chetwynd facing unemployment from Canfor’s mill closures decisions can qualify.
In Houston, Canfor is closing its mill as of April but won’t make a decision on replacing it until June, a situation that could bring in the matter of severance for affected workers. In Chetwynd, Canfor is closing its sawmill and next-door pellet plant permanently.
Bachrach said any severance paid to workers in either community should not be treated as income, something that would delay the start of EI payments.
“In some collective agreements, workers have negotiated severance packages in return for less compensation,” he said.
Bachrach also wants the number of hours needed to qualify reduced from the current 420 hours and the application process simplified.
All those provisions were put into place early in the pandemic but lifted last fall, he said.
“These are two communities that will be hit hard because of the closures,” said Bachrach. “Bringing back those provisions is a matter of fairness.”
He said there’s widespread acknowledgment that the EI system is in need of reform regardless of the local situation in Houston and in Chetwynd.
As for the closure decisions themselves, Bachrach said they were made in boardrooms far away from the communities being affected.
“My message to the company is to be as up front as possible and to give the communities the straight goods,” he said.
In the meantime, the president of the union representing the millworkers says it is in talks with Canfor about the planned closures and the implications surrounding severance.
Any comment would be premature given those talks are ongoing, said Brian O’Rourke the president of the United Steelworkers Local 1-2017.
“If Canfor decides to permanently close [its Houston mill] and not rebuild then the collective agreement wording on severance would be applicable,” he said.
O’Rourke is originally from Houston, having started work in 1983 at Houston Forest Products.
That mill was closed in 2014 by West Fraser as part of a wood swap with Canfor. West Fraser’s Houston area wood went to Canfor in return for Canfor closing its Quesnel mill that its wood could feed West Fraser’s mill there.