SCOTSBURN – The ripple effect of a Port Hawkesbury paper plant closure has hit Pictou County. Ligni Bel has laid off 40 of its 80 employees.
An announcement was made yesterday, that due to the closure of NewPage Port Hawkesbury, the Scotsburn sawmill would only be running one shift. Last month NewPage announced it would be closing and was granted creditor protection.
NewPage was responsible for bringing Ligni Bel’s wood supply to the mill in Scotsburn.
Scotsburn residents, business owners and employees of surrounding businesses had mixed reactions to the news
“Certainly it will affect Scotsburn and Deb’s business, the hardware store,” said Jason Robinson, at Deb’s Hidden Café over lunch. Robinson, who owns Scotsburn Mechanical, said the layoffs would also affect the rest of Pictou County.
“Forty bodies is 40 bodies,” said Robinson.
Monica Beaudin, who moved to Scotsburn six years ago, wasn’t shocked when she heard the news about the layoffs because of the current economy.
Cameron MacEachen, from Colchester County, has been working at Scotsburn Co-Operative Services Ltd for two years and just heard the news yesterday morning.
“It can’t be good for Scotsburn,” said MacEachen. “Pictou County as a whole, it is not good.”
Joyce MacLeod, who lives outside of Scotsburn, heard of the employees being laid off from their jobs and said she knows local truckers in the area who haul lumber and might be affected by the downturn in work at the mill.
“Hopefully it’s temporary thing,” said MacLeod. “There are more up and downs with this company compared to the previous owners.”
Scotsburn mill manager Gilbert Carre declined comment to The News and directed questions to Bruno Lebel.
At press time Lebel, president of Lebcorp Ltd., Ligni Bel’s parent company, had not returned several phone calls requesting an interview with The News.
The mill produces construction lumber mainly used for the eastern U.S. market.
