Editorial: How we learned of the Cedar Valley closure and how we responded
By Spencer Hall
The Goat first learned of the impending closure of Cedar Valley Holdings on Monday morning after receiving a letter from Christine Pelletier — an employee of the company who is about to lose the job she’s worked for nearly seven years.
While Monday is typically the day we prepare the paper to go to press, I knew it was important to have a story on this situation in this week’s issue, so it became the focus of The Goat’s civic reporter Abigail Popple.
Popple got in touch with both the owner of Cedar Valley Holding’s owner Jason Alexander and representatives from the Valemount Community Forest, who stands accused of not supplying the mill with enough cedar to keep his business going.
In an emailed statement, VCF said it had previously entered into a timber supply agreement with Cedar Valley and is of the opinion that it is in compliance with that agreement.
Alexander told The Goat he had never accused VCF of violating the agreement, but says he takes issue with the community forest sending cedar his company could be using to Prince George to be processed there instead of locally. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, The Goat was unable to verify this by presstime, but will be looking into the claim — and other tips we have received since Pelletier’s letter was posted to social media — further in the coming days.
At the end of the day, 14 people are about to lose their jobs and that is devastating. It is my hope that VCF and Cedar Valley are able to come to an agreement to avoid this outcome, which may mean a revision to their current timber supply agreements.
