Kap Paper has received a $10-million investment from the federal government through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (Fednor).
The crucial funding supports the continued and future operations of Kap Paper, helping the company maintain operations, explore new production opportunities, and proceed with business planning, engineering, and development work in the months ahead. The $10 million is conditionally-repayable FedNor funds aimed at supporting the continued operations of Kap Paper.
In September, the mill was idled, impacting more than 2,500 employees directly and indirectly. Hundreds of people from the towns of Kapuskasing, Hearst, Cochrane, and Chapleau came together for a rally in October, urging the two levels of government to work together for a solution to keep the plant open and secure the jobs in the region.
By mid-October, intensive collaboration between the Ontario and federal governments resulted in an agreement to provide operational support to Kap Paper, as the mill worked towards a long-term modernization plan.
Kapuskasing Mayor Dave Plourde says this week, the mill is fully operational with everyone back at work and they “rolled off’ their first roll of paper two days ago. He said they are now able to continue to work towards a long-term plan, as they had always indicated. That plan must involve the mill being self-sustainable while producing a product that can benefit Canadian clients.
“What we’re attempting to do is it’s very fast. A lot of the work required is due in a very short period of time,” Plourde said.
“Then we have to set up meetings with federal and provincial officials again to make sure that this is where they want us to be, where we should be, and to work towards those goals.”
One of the “many” ideas for the modernization of the mill is a cogeneration system that converts waste into both energy and eventually steam for mill operations and other revenue-generating projects. A greenhouse system is on top of the list for discussions.
“Cogeneration is essential to a facility like this,” he said. “They use all the best parts of the chips that are produced from the sawing of the logs to make some form of paper. Then they take whatever’s left after that and burn it to make energy, which produces the byproduct of steam. There are several different things you can do with steam, and one of them is to heat greenhouses.”
Plourde says this is a logical thing to look at with the facility, and there’s enough land there to accommodate it.
“If we wanted to heat homes with that, or heat other buildings, we could also do that. But the construction of greenhouses would be something that would provide food security for Ontario and Canada,” he said.
“We’d be able to feed ourselves rather than import from the U.S.”
Plourde added that there is currently a memorandum of understanding with Kap Paper to investigate the greenhouse idea that could employ an additional 500 people.
Kap Paper will continue to work closely with both governments, First Nations, union partners, and municipal leaders to finalize details of the modernization plan. Plourde says they need to secure the mill’s long-term competitiveness and reinforce an integrated forestry supply chain that supports Canada’s housing and economic goals. He says they have to make sure that whatever they produce has longevity to it, and not something that goes away in the next 20 years.
