Good morning, Mr. Chairman and honourable members. My name is Len Compton. I am mayor of Kenora, Ontario.
Kenora is Ontario's most westerly municipality, located on the Lake of the Woods and on the Trans-Canada Highway, just 50 kilometres from the Manitoba border. Kenora has a population of 15,177 people, with a service area of over 20,000 people. In the summer, Kenora and Lake of the Woods are home to cottagers from Manitoba and mid-west U.S., which doubles our population.
I see Mr. Comuzzi here today, and Mr. Boshcoff. They know our area intimately, and it's good to see them here this morning.
Let me start by providing you with a brief overview of the current state of the forest products industry in Kenora.
Since 2005, we have suffered from the closure of Abitibi Consolidated's pulp and paper mill, losing 361 workers; Devlin Timber's sawmill, 50 workers; and layoffs at iLevel Weyerhaeuser, 40 workers. Most recently we have the curtailment of operations at Kenora Forest Products, cutting 105 workers. That's a total of over 550 workers.
If we look across northwestern Ontario, the pattern is similar. Shutdowns, layoffs, and curtailments in the forest products industry have affected Sioux Lookout, Dryden, Atikokan, Thunder Bay, Red Rock, Nipigon, Greenstone, Wawa, and many northeastern Ontario communities. The current downturn in the U.S. housing market, the high Canadian dollar, and high energy and road-building costs in northwestern Ontario have combined to create the perfect storm for this industry.
Kenora has adopted an economic development plan, a recovery strategy for the area, which is being aggressively pursued. Our plan builds on the resource-based assets of our community in the forest products industry and on our natural attractions to turn Kenora into a destination community for new full-time and seasonal residents and visitors alike.
We are moving to diversify, but we must protect the foundation of our economic well-being too. Losing the forest sector altogether is just not manageable. In other times and in other jurisdictions, the federal government would have intervened early with various forms of assistance, but this has not occurred.
The January announcement by the Harper government of $1 billion in community development trust money is much appreciated, but needs to be made available at the community level as quickly as possible. In many ways, we feel it's almost too late.
In order to prepare for this briefing, we met with our local forest products companies and liaised with several regional and national organizations. We feel that this is a story that must be told by industry. Therefore, I am pleased to introduce Bill Candline, manager of Kenora Timberstrand, iLevel Weyerhaeuser.