ARMSTRONG – Four value-added wood manufacturing operations with First Nations ties is in line for funding made available through the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund.
As much as $1.34 million will go towards Armstrong’s Woodtone Specialties’ capital expansion at Woodtone Specialties in Armstrong, that is aimed at increasing efficiency, improving fibre recovery and adding a new product line that will create 50 jobs at the company.
The new product line will see Woodtone producing smooth-face engineered cedar siding and fascia from second-growth knotty wood, which has high demand in a market that traditionally relied on old-growth trees.
Woodtone operates its facility using renewable, second-growth fibre and uses material that is traditionally considered waste wood to create sought-after custom lengths and sizes of value-added wood products.
Woodtone has a memorandum of understanding with the Adams Lake Band, which previously received $1 million from the province’s Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program (REDIP) to create an Indigenous forestry supply chain value-added joint venture alongside both Woodtone and Gilbert Smith Forest Products.
The REDIP project will support job growth by providing training and new employment to Adams Lake Band members while providing a new revenue stream.
The BCMJF is also supporting three Indigenous-led planning projects from Ulkatcho First Nation-owned West Chilcotin Forest Products Ltd. in Anahim Lake (up to $11,950), Stuwix Resources Ltd. in Merritt (up to $50,000), and Lil’wat Forestry Ventures Ltd. in Mount Currie (up to $30,000). The funding received for planning projects will help determine operational needs, undertake market assessments and complete full business cases for capital projects that diversify product offerings in the value-added forestry sector, lead to economic diversification and have high potential to create more good-paying jobs within these communities.
“Value-add represents the future of a responsible, resilient and sustainable forest industry in British Columbia,” says Hal Hanlon, the president, of the Armstrong Division of Woodtone Specialties. “This funding will facilitate our continued growth and innovation, creating additional employment opportunities in our community as well as furthering improved utilization of our natural resource.”
By Mark MacDonald