The Township of Ear Falls is the latest Northwestern Ontario community that will face the temporary closure of a mill.
The town learned on Thursday that the Ear Falls Sawmill would close, and leave more than 160 workers without jobs.
Interfor, which owns and operates the sawmill, announced temporary adjustments to its lumber production plans for the fourth quarter of 2025 in response to ongoing market challenges, which include the Ear Falls Sawmill.
“These curtailments are market related and intended to responsibly align production with current demand conditions,” said Svetlana Kayumova, Interfor’s vice-president of corporate communications.
“Duties and tariffs are one of several factors influencing current market conditions.”
She said approximately 590 employees are impacted across its operations in both Canada and the United States.
Kayumova added that the curtailment at Ear Falls is temporary and will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis.
“We are not able to provide a specific timeline for resumption, as it will depend on market recovery,” she said, adding that Interfor will continue to monitor conditions closely and will adjust operations as needed.
Ear Falls Mayor Kevin Kahoot called the situation heartbreaking and told the workers that the uncertainty they are facing is felt by the whole community.
“The market has been flat lately and compound that with the cost of putting lumber into the U.S., which is where the majority of our lumber went, it just started to be too expensive to produce,” Kahoot said. “Combine those two, and I think that created a perfect storm where the company just didn’t see it viable to continue operations at this time in this market and in this kind of political landscape that we’re in.”
During meetings with Interfor, Kahoot says the announcement referred to the closure as indefinite.
“To me, that leaves it open-ended,” he said. “If the business case shows that money can be made, I think you’d see the mill either change hands or Interfor will fire it back up. But saying that, a couple of things will have to change for them to do that.”
Kahoot added that they are still in the preliminary stages and don’t have all the information.
Unifor Local 324 represents 160 members at the Ear Falls sawmill and says it has repeatedly called for coordinated discussions with all levels of government to develop an industrial strategy for the forestry and other tariff-exposed sectors.
Lana Payne, Unifor national president, told the Chronicle-Journal that the forestry sector is well beyond warning signs and is now seeing widespread job loss in response to the economic warfare waged by the United States. Earlier this week, the U.S. government imposed an additional 10 per cent tariff on the Canadian Softwood Lumber Industry, which equates to a current 45 per cent tax on Canadian softwood entering the States.
“We are calling on municipal, provincial and federal governments to sit down with us immediately to develop a plan forward for our forestry workers, their families and the many communities that can only thrive if the forestry sector survives,” Payne said in the release.
The Ear Falls Sawmill was built in 1997 by Avenor. In 2022, Interfor took over the sawmill from Eacom Timber Division.
