800 more mill workers out of work in B.C.

Another 800 mill workers in B.C. are about to lose their jobs as two more pulp mills — in Mackenzie in the Central Interior and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island — are shut down.

Mill owners Pope & Talbot Inc.said the closure will be effective immediately after creditors refused to extend financing for the company in bankruptcy court.

The job losses add to the troubles already facing what was once the province's most important industry. 

Industry officials estimate 10,000 B.C. forestry workers have lost their jobs through mill shutdowns, down-time and lay-offs brought on by the downturn in the U.S. housing market over the past year.

Many like Rick Berry, a machine operator in Mackenzie, are not sure what will happen next.  

"Well, after 28 years, I'm unemployed. I'm scared. I'm very confused, and, pardon the excuse, I'm very pissed off," Berry said. "There isn't a mill running in this community anymore. Nothing! I'm scared."

Berry wants the government to help, but Forests Minister Rich Coleman says there's little he can do in the face of an industry-wide downturn.

"What you can't do is turn around and force people to produce a product nobody wants to buy," said Coleman on Tuesday.

"Any subsidy you [give] one company hurts another. You can't go out and subsidize a company because that picks winners and losers and actually starts to affect workers in another community."

About 435 workers at the PolarBoard mill lost their jobs in January when Canfor Corp. shut down two wood-product mills in Fort Nelson, B.C., indefinitely.