I'd also like to thank the natural resources committee for the invitation. We made the same presentation to the finance committee yesterday.
I'd just like people to know that we recognize in the forestry industry the need to work to create a future and to sustain the jobs in Canada. But I want to speak a little bit in regard to the workers and some of the effects and impacts on them, and some of the solutions to help them get through this crisis. So I'll be directing my comments to the forestry industry in northern Ontario, which has been hit hard.
As Bob said, we're the United Steelworkers, representing about 280,000 members across Canada, 50,000 of whom work in the forestry industry. Our local represents approximately 3,700 members in the forest sector, in a number of communities across northern Ontario. These members work in woodlands operations, sawmills, plywood plants, wafer plants, remanufacturing plants, trucking, lumberyards, chipping operations, and equipment repair and sales—or at least they used to.
As we speak, we do not even have 700 members working. These workers and their families reside in communities that have been hit hard by the downturn, such as Hudson, Atikokan, Ignace, Thunder Bay, Greenstone, Nipigon, White River, and Dubreuilville, to name a few. We are talking about 3,000 people who are unemployed, people who have families, many of whom have lived most, if not all, of their lives in these communties.
The majority of these communities are one-industry towns. A good example is White River. In July of last year, Domtar curtailed its woodlands and sawmill operations, putting 240 people out of work. We are talking about 240 people who live in a community of 1,000 people, or 24% of the total population. Just imagine if Ottawa announced today that 24% of the people who live in this city are going to lose their jobs. There'd be mass hysteria and immediate help from the provincial and federal governments. But in northern Ontario, it's just a news story for a day or two.
One of the largest one-industry towns in Ontario is Dubreuilville, with a population of 900. Dubreuil Forest Products employs 340 workers, and announced last week that it would call back the employees who have been laid off since last November. It should be good news, but it's not. They're only going to be called back for about a month; the company wants to clean out the inventory and close the doors, with no indication if and when the mill may reopen.
The people of White River and Dubreuilville, and other communities who are affected by the same fate, deserve more. These are real people, real families, and real communities. In many of these small communities there are no other jobs. How can these small northern Ontario towns continue to afford to provide public services if no one can pay their taxes? How can these people and families continue to live there? They can't—their EI will run out and they'll have no other means of income. The bank will foreclose on their homes and they'll have to use all of their savings.
Perhaps it could be said that before that happens, they should look for work elsewhere. Maybe they can go out west. Well, many have left, but they also face problems. The equity they've built up in their homes is gone; their homes are worthless. The hard part is trying to find somebody to even buy it.
Another problem is when only one family member goes out west to work, who will deal with the social impact and the loneliness of raising your kids as a single parent?
Let us not forget the high cost of living out west, which is a huge challenge for someone who has had their credit rating affected because they could not pay their bills, taxes, loans, or mortgage. Right or wrong, many workers believed they could wait out the storm. They believed the operations might reopen. They believed the provincial and federal governments would not just sit back and watch all of these people, their families and their communities, be destroyed. They know now they were wrong.
Many have taken their severance pay in the hope of catching up on outstanding bills, or to use it to start a new life; but reality sets in very quickly when they find out that the government wants it. They can't pay anything off. They have to use the money to feed their families, because their own means of income, EI, is cut off until their severance is used up. How can we as a society take money away from those who need it the most, money they've worked for and are relying on—especially when there's a surplus in our EI fund?
Our workers are told they can be retrained. Many are upgrading their skills, but they continue to ask, once they receive the training, where are the jobs? Who is going to hire them? In the end, if they want to work, they'll still have to move.
These are a couple of stories from northern Ontario about job losses. These two communities lost about 600 direct forestry jobs. We are just a small local in northern Ontario. There are other steelworker locals, other unions, community leaders, and industry who can tell you the same story. There have been thousands of people who have lost their jobs in northern Ontario, tens of thousands across Canada.
Today is a start, but we need to ask, where have you been for the last two to three years? The devastation that has taken place in the forestry industry is not new. Government will hear from us today, but where were the public hearings that allowed workers and communities to give their input on the softwood lumber deal? Maybe if this had been done, the government could have negotiated a good deal for Canadians and kept working families first.
We ask the natural resources committee to ensure that the federal government pays attention to these people, their families, and communities, to union leaders, the forestry industry, and provincial governments. We need to work together. We need to listen. We need to move fast so that people can get back to work, instead of out-migrating, or being retrained in limited programs where there are no jobs and before any more lives or communities are destroyed.
As for a plan for the future, employment insurance needs to be extended and changed to ensure that severance pay does not take away or defer EI benefits. Taxation and regulatory policy need to be changed to encourage firms to develop new processes, find new markets, and create new products. Training facilities should be located in forestry-based communities. Companies should have to discuss alternatives to shutdowns, and we need the appointment of a jobs commissioner. Furthermore, we need a jointly sponsored provincial and federal fund to support forestry workers. Governments need to target job creation, and governments need to ensure that wages and pensions are protected from companies that declare bankruptcy.
Bob.