Tyler Moffitt
Dear Mike:
Jim Cumming’s column last week, “No rock should be left unturned” (Publisher’s Pen), was an excellent view and picture on the current situation, with an important message with regards to the future, as well as opportunities for our area.
I have worked at our local pulp and paper mill since the 1980s and, like many, have witnessed the global demand for paper decrease, obviously due to many factors.
During the recent Christmas holidays, I had a quick look at a popular plastic electronic reader that someone received as a present. Wow!
Like or not (and many may not), the growth and popularity of theses electronic readers will only increase, as well as their acceptance.
Some people, namely the aging population, may not embrace these plastic electronic readers like younger consumers. Others may not embrace them for reasons such as being plastic!
Plastic can be viewed as drastic (given it is a toxic substance), as well as being harmful to the environment and not a natural renewable resource like forest products.
Meanwhile, one forest products industry that continues to grow is the tissue industry. The tissue market is one of the strongest-growing segments in the forest products industry.
You cannot produce tissue products electronically, and the products produced on tissue machines are products we use every day. Products such as facial tissue, toilet paper, napkins, and paper towels, to name a few, will continue to be in demand.
Last year, I had the opportunity to have speak with individuals who actually work for companies that engineer and build tissue machines. Currently, there is talk of building more tissue machines in Canada as the demand for tissue increases.
Tissue machines do not take up a lot of real estate. And when you build them, it is recommended to build two of them as the second one is roughly half the price.
You only pay for engineering for one machine. Perhaps more than one company—in the form of a partnership—owns the other machine.
Fort Frances, and Northwestern Ontario, has a huge wood basket and kraft mills, which are needed for tissue machines.
If you look at the tissue products in stores in Northwestern Ontario, as well as in Manitoba, they come from a great distance.
The closest Canadian tissue machines in proximity to Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba are in the greater Toronto area. However, a lot of tissue products come from Atlantic Canada, as well as the west coast and the United States.
There also is a tissue converting facility in Calgary.
The localized market population in Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba combined is more than 1.3 million people.
Buying products locally is smarter, as well as a best practice (to reduce the impact on the environment). But people in Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba cannot buy locally-produced tissue products due to the current location of tissue machines.
There are some big players in the tissue industry that may be looking in the near future for a place to put their new facility.
Perhaps planting the idea or seed is the first step. But to make an idea grow and become a reality will take the local people, politicians at all levels of government, as well as all stakeholders in Fort Frances and surrounding area.
Lobbying tissue products companies to come to the Fort Frances area also is in our best interest to set our area’s economy on a strong footing, as well as for the future economic development.
(Signed),
Tyler Moffitt
Fort Frances, Ont.
