A rally is being held at the Ear Falls Municipal Office to support workers impacted by the shutdown at the Ear Falls Sawmill.
The event is running from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, and will be attended by NDP Deputy Leader Sol Mamakwa, members of Unifor’s provincial and local leadership, and members of the municipality.
The sawmill announced its plans for an indefinite closure on October 16.
Since the announcement, the NDP has collected hundreds of signatures through a petition from northern Ontario residents calling for action amid the closure.
Sol Mamakwa and the MPP for Mushkegowuk and James Bay, Guy Bourgouin have sent the petition and a letter to Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Tim Hodgson and Ontario’s Associate Minister of Forestry and Forest Products, Kevin Holland, calling for action.
“Forestry is not just an industry in Northern Ontario; it is a way of life,” read the letter. “It sustains families, supports local economies, and provides the wood products essential to building Canadian homes.”
“The indefinite closure of the sawmills threatens not only the livelihoods of the people who worked there but the future of sustainable forestry in the region.”
The letter concluded by urging the province and federal government to take immediate action to reopen the Gogama and Ear Falls sawmills.
As of Friday, there is no new news on a potential reopening at the mill, and Unifor Local 324 is taking the situation week by week.
“We can just work with what we have today, but as far as progress with supporting the workers, both in the sawmill and the woodlands,” explained Unifor Local 324 President Katrina Peterson.
“We have been working closely with HR on site in Ear Falls, and we are putting things in place for EI support and other supports as well for the workers, so we have made progress there, and we’ve been pretty quick with getting in touch with the right people and getting those supports in place for our workers.”
“The goal of the rally is to raise awareness on the attack on Canadians Sawmills our worker, and quite frankly, the Canadian economy as a whole, so this is an avenue for us to call on all levels of government to step up and defend our forestry industry and our workers affected primarily by the Trump administration with the current economic and tariff war that we’re facing.”
