Natural Resources Committee on May 30th, 2023

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Well, thank you so much.

Where is Mr. Wijaya now?

[John Williams]

At this moment I don't know.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

Does he still maintain his office at the White Magnolia Plaza in Shanghai?

[John Williams]

I also don't know the answer to that question.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You don't know that.

Would you know if the White Magnolia Plaza is the headquarters of the Asia Pulp & Paper China company, in a building that's known as the Sinar Mas Plaza? Would you know if he has an office in that building?

[John Williams]

I wouldn't know either way.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Why are you able to answer about his ownership if you can't answer those questions?

[John Williams]

I think those are geographical questions.

I guess the way I would see it, Mr. Chairman, if I may, is it's very clear there is no cross shareholding whatsoever between Asia Pulp & Paper and Paper Excellence. Paper Excellence is completely and solely owned by Jackson Wijaya. He is the sole shareholder.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

He may have an office in the China office of APP in the building that's known as Sinar Mas, but you can't answer that.

I'll go on, because Mac Anderson, who worked for Paper Excellence through MacKenzie Fibre, testified at the B.C. legislative committee and stated on the record that “Paper Excellence is owned by a company called Sinar Mas.” He also said, “Guys at Shanghai were reviewing what I was doing”.

Who are these guys in Shanghai who were reviewing his work for MacKenzie Fibre?

[John Williams]

Again, I have obviously been in this business since November 2021. I have never had any interaction with anyone from Asia Pulp & Paper, nor have any of the people who work for me. In fact, I have competed and continue to compete pretty aggressively with Asia Pulp & Paper in the North American paper market, so the idea that they would be the puppet masters, I have to say, seems inconceivable.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes, I found it surprising, too.

The issue is that, if you give testimony at committee, like you do here, it's like testifying in court. If Mac Anderson lied, that would be serious.

What we found was that documents received by the media said that the “real nerve centre wasn't Richmond, B.C.”, but at the APP office in Shanghai. This source stated that those teams, APP Shanghai, handled the legal, accounting, finance and market analysis. There were “no boundaries between staff working for one company or the other”.

Why would someone who works for APP go to the media and say there's no difference between what is happening with the APP staff and the PE staff?

[Jean-François Guillot]

I'd like to remind committee members that we don't deny the fact that, in its early days, Paper Excellence received help from APP Sinar Mas. However, I would reiterate that this support has been terminated. The last form of support, which was from the Bank of China, was terminated in 2020. The facts being recounted here go back to the early days of Paper Excellence and are not recent.

Again, we are looking to the future, which we perceive as favourable, and not at the past, which we cannot change.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's very helpful. You will admit that Asia Pulp & Paper was handling market analysis and legal at least up to 2020.

We were just told that there is no connection whatsoever, but obviously there was a connection. Each of these are part of a family. These aren't corporations. These are individual families.

Statistics Canada, on their inter-corporate ownership database, states that Sinar Mas controls 64 companies in Canada, including Paper Excellence.

Is Statistics Canada wrong?

[Jean-François Guillot]

I would remind you of one fact. The support I mentioned previously, which was the final tranche from the Bank of China, was received at different times in 2000, 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2023.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm sorry. I have to end here, but why does Statistics Canada have you listed as being under Sinar Mas? You can say it ended, but their database says that you are part of Sinar Mas.

Are you denying now what Statistics Canada said as a fact?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'll give you the opportunity to answer briefly, please.

[Jean-François Guillot]

I'd just like to say that we've been trying to correct this error at Statistics Canada for the past 10 years, without much success.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

We're going into a shorter round next, starting with five minutes for Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I just want to clarify. There's Paper Excellence of 2010 and Paper Excellence of today. Can you verify the differences in the companies from then to today?

[John Williams]

Do you mean in terms of acquisitions since then and how we've grown?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Exactly.

[John Williams]

We purchased Catalyst Paper, of course, in that gap. We purchased Domtar in November, 2021, and Resolute most recently.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Have you had any issues with any regulatory body in those purchases or any issues in regard to competition?

[John Williams]

In order to do the two acquisitions, in both cases we were asked to divest mills.

To do the Domtar acquisition, we divested the Kamloops mill in British Columbia, which I was regretful to do. I thought it was a great mill, but that's the way the world goes. That's the way things happen in this life.

As part the Resolute transaction, we have to divest the Dryden mill, which was another Domtar mill. As you'll see today, we announced that we have an agreement to divest the Thunder Bay mill.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's normal. I used to work at Flexi-Coil or Case New Holland. When they acquired a company, they might have to divest different assets to have competition in place.