By KELLY LOUISEIZE
For a Sault Ste. Marie company, wood allocation appears to be the deciding factor in setting up a $2.5 million value-added facility in Coleman Township.
Quality Wood Exports (QWE) has constructed a business proposal meeting the Aboriginal guidelines set out in the Crown Sustainability Act. CEO Gerry Boucher hopes the initiative will be seen as a way to diversify the northeastern region and encourage First Nations economic growth.
The plan requests access to 100,000 cubic metres of Eastern White Cedar. They are awaiting word from the Ministry of Natural Resources, which asked the company to partner with the local Sustainable Forest License (SFL) holder. Boucher does not know when a reply will come.
“We thought we would have heard by now,” Boucher says.
“We are looking for an answer and it’s not coming.”
The ministry does not have a great deal of data on underutilized tree species. It was not traditionally the forestry sector’s bread and butter. Therefore, the government has to assess and quantify the supply before giving consent, Boucher says.
But a study done by his own company reveals 35 per cent of harvested Crown White Cedar is going to Quebec and other provinces for processing.
“We want the cedar to stay in Ontario,” Boucher says.
“We should have our resources and our people working here instead of sending it some place else.”
The $2.5 million plant is expected to produce an estimated five million board feet a year employing approximately 40 full-time people most of whom would of First Nation origin.
The idea is to begin construction 2006 to be operational by 2007, but Boucher needs to know before Christmas whether the project has been approved, so he can meet equipment-ordering deadlines.
More than five value-added products could come from the facility should the approval take place. From there, new growth in agricultural sector throughout the northeast region is also expected to take off. In an area where there is little economic activity company administrators say they have found a perfect location on Highway 11 close to the raw material.
Quality Wood Exports was ready to tenure some of the construction projects in the spring of this year.
Wood waste products will be utilized to trim energy costs or make value added products with partnering companies such as Tembec Inc. and Grant Forest Products Inc.
“We have a business-to-business relationship with these people,” Boucher says.
They have an agreement to exchange chips and various supplies.
In fact, Boucher says, the project has been supported by organizations as far as the Quebec border to White River and Manitoulin Island.
