Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the political parties for supporting this process. It's important for the workers.
I would like to come back to a point raised by Mr. Paterson. He referred to newsprint when discussing the Dolbeau-Mistassini plant. If he is not aware of this, I would just like to clarify that the Dolbeau-Mistassini plant has not produced newsprint for the last 10 years.
Our plant was equipped with two paper machines. In 1997, the building and one machine were overhauled, and in 2006, the same was done for the headbox on machine number 2. The headbox is the heart of the machine. The equipment and the plant were performing efficiently. The workers decided to go along with a plan. When machine number 2 was shut down in July of 2007, Mr. Grandmont came to see us to say that cutbacks were absolutely necessary because the plant was losing too much money. We willingly agreed. We felt it would be a way of saving our plant, which was new and cost-effective, and that steps would be taken. The workers did their part.
In February of 2008, machine number 2 was returned to service. It was the first time in North America that a machine that we had been told would be shut down was returned to service. Initially, there were five workers per machine. People familiar with the industry probably know that we were the only ones to operate that way in the industry. Everywhere else, there were more than five workers per machine.
In 2008, in recognition of the exceptional performance of the Dolbeau plant following the return to service of paper machine number 2, for commercial printing paper, Mr. Grandmont presented us with a plaque conveying the management group's congratulations to the entire team.
To thank us for our efforts, these same people shut down the plant in 2009, supposedly on a temporary basis. Three weeks later, they told us that because of Boralex, it would be impossible to reopen it. They then placed themselves under the protection of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and shut down our plant permanently. That is unacceptable, and we have no intention of giving up. Over the last 15 years, almost $400 million was invested by Alliance Forest Products. They, on the other hand, did not invest much when they came into the picture.
In March of 2009, our plant manager met with all of us to tell us that an additional effort was needed. We were told that our plant was generating some $5 million a month and that some way had to be found to generate even more. Additional cutbacks of 20% were needed. Our departmental directors were saying that they didn't know what to do anymore, and that every drop of juice had been squeezed from the lemon. In June, we were told of a temporary closure, as I said earlier. And then the plant shut down permanently.
It's funny. Questions were asked this morning. Knowing that AbitibiBowater's plants were generating $5 million a month, it is difficult to understand why they are being shutdown. We just don't get it.
Personally, I am appearing before this Committee to defend the workers and the community. We made considerable efforts to start up the plant again. Every time we try to propose something, we come up against the non-competition provisions. We are told that some people thought it would be possible to manufacture something in a plant that has been shut down. But it's still the same story. We don't want them to demolish that plant. We are concerned that their plan is demolish it and recover the equipment. Given that all the AbitibiBowater plants are shutting down, we are afraid they will transfer that equipment to the Abitibi-Consolidated plants.