Joan Baxter has reported extensively on Northern Pulp and their owners Paper Excellence. The most recent articles are most likely behind a Halifax Examiner paywall, available only to subscribers of the newspaper. If it is at all possible, please consider suppporting this independant news source and its world-class investivgative journalist.
| December 13, 2023 | Northern Pulp’s $450 million lawsuit looming over Nova Scotia |
| December 12, 2023 | Northern Pulp wants bankruptcy hearing kicked down the road again to june 2024 |
| October 10, 2023 | Absolute disrespect and a slap in the face Paper Excellence owner refuses to speak with Parliamentary Committee |
| July 16, 2023 | Paper Excellence owns the pollution-spewing Northern Pulp mill, has poisoned a First Nation, isnt paying $85 million it owes Nova Scotia and is leaving its pensioners hanging, but its been named one of Canada’s “best 50 corporate citizens” |
| June 7, 2023 | Natural Resources refuses to summon Paper Excellence’s Wijaya |
| June 5, 2023 | Regulators-stonewall-parliamentary-committee-looking-into-ownership-of-Paper-Excellence |
| June 1, 2023 | Internal documents show Nova Scotias Liberal government assumed Northern Pulp links to Asia Pulp & Paper, links Paper Excellence execs deny/ |
| May 31, 2023 | Parliamentary-committee-may-summon-Paper-Excellence-owner-Jackson-Wijaya |
| May 1, 2023 | Northern Pulp granted 4 month creditor protection extension lists big demands for concessions from Nova Scotia |
| April 28, 2023 | Northern Pulp wants to burn biomass and sell the energy |
| April 19, 2023 | Nova Scotia NDP to ask natural resources committee to look into Paper Excellence |
| April 16, 2023 | Dalhousie study finds Northern Pulp mill was by far the biggest polluter near Pictou |
| April 12, 2023 | NDP Natural Resources critic Charlie Angus speaks about Paper Excellence |
| March 31, 2023 | Parliamentary Committee to investigate ownership of Paper Excellence |
| March 22, 2023 | Media investigation into Paper Excellence ignites concerns on Parliament Hill over the company’s mysterious ownership, Chinese ties and rapid expansion in Canada. This is the seventh of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series. |
| March 17, 2023 | Canada is a world laggard in sustainable forestry say critics and Paper Excellences expansion threatens this country’s boreal forests. This is the sixth of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series. |
| March 14, 2023 | Nova Scotia ops for forest certification scheme critics call greenwashing This is the fifth of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series. |
| March 10, 2023 | Paper Excellences rapid expansion in Canada is a fibre grab to feed mills in China say critics. This is the forth of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series. |
| March 9, 2023 | Are Paper Excellence and Asia Pulp and Paper linked companies? They say they arent. Here’s what we’ve learned. This is the third of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series. |
| March 2, 2023 | Paper Excellance and the environmental insult to a First Nation community This is the second of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series |
| March 1, 2023 | How an email from China triggered an international investigative jouralism project. This is the first of a series of articles resulting from a yearlong investigation into Paper Excellence. The project was spearheded by Deforestation Inc. The Examiner partnered with journalists in France (Le Monde, Radio France), Canada (CBC, Glacier Media), and the United States (Inside Climate News) to produce this series. |
| November 7, 2022 | The curious case of ‘Red Roof Events’: A ‘global leading speakers agency’ contacted a Nova Scotia lawyer with strange questions about his work for groups opposed to Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment facility. Then the agency vanished. |
| October 31, 2022 | British Columbia Supreme Court grants Northern Pulp six-month creditor protection extension; Nova Scotia takes no position |
| October 31, 2022 | Northern Pulp wants another six month delay in B.C. court and forced mediation with Nova Scotia |
| October 24, 2022 | Report: Paper Excellence, the owner of Northern Pulp, is part of the corporate group of Asia Pulp & Paper and Sinar Mas. This matters to Nova Scotians. |
| July 25, 2022 | A quietly negotiated trade agreement with Indonesia is a bad deal for Canada. |
| July 6, 2022 | An Indonesian company is increasingly controlling Canada’s pulp industry, but regulators seem unwilling to act. |
| June 11, 2022 | The “weird” legal mechanism being used by Northern Pulp in its $450 million lawsuit against Nova Scotia. Northern Pulp’s biggest debt is a paper debt to its owner, Paper Excellence, and that indebtedness is being used to circumvent Nova Scotia’s environmental laws. |
| June 9, 2022 | The demise of Mountain Equipment Co-op could spell expensive trouble for Nova Scotia. In 2020, a federal law and a BC judge dismantled Mountain Equipment Co-op. Now, the same federal law that was used to destroy MEC is being cited by Paper Excellence in its $450 million lawsuit against the province of Nova Scotia related to the creditor protection of Northern Pulp. And the case is being heard by the same judge |
| April 20, 2022 | Northern Pulp says it is ‘insolvent’ and can’t pay its pension obligations, but it’s got plenty of cash to bankroll legal assaults on Nova Scotia’s government and laws. |
| April 11, 2022 | Northern Pulp is in a polluting league of its own: A new study shows the mill’s emissions of some air pollutants greatly exceeded federal reporting thresholds and were often much higher than other mills in Atlantic Canada. |
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April 4, 2022
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Northern Pulp and its wealthy owners seem intent on taking Nova Scotians to the cleaner: But the Pictou pulp mill has had plenty of Nova Scotian accomplices helping them fleece the province. |
| March 21, 2022 | Premier Tim Houston orders ‘Friends of a New Northern Pulp’ sign removed from Minister Pat Dunn’s constituency office window. |
| March 9, 2022 | Northern Pulp has a new set of “friends.” But the “friends” look familiar, and the “new” Northern Pulp sure looks a lot like the same old Northern Pulp. |
| March 1, 2022 | Dalhousie University’s decision to source “sustainable biomass” from J.D. Irving and Wagner a “piss-off.” News that Emera’s Brooklyn biomass plant is out of commission is making waves in Nova Scotia, while Dal’s biomass facility in Truro garners little publicity |
| December 20, 2021 | The Pictou mill: fleecing Nova Scotia for 53 years – and counting. The company claims it’s the victim of unfair treatment in Nova Scotia, and that it should be paid hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. But what about the high costs Nova Scotians paid for the mill for more than half a century? A quick tally of those suggests the real victims are the people of this province, whose politicians sold them down the river. |
| December 17, 2021 | Northern Pulp mill plans “best in class” or best in BS? The Paper Excellence company that is part of the global corporate empire of the Widjaja family has submitted plans for the “transformation” of its hibernating pulp mill to the Nova Scotia government for approval, even as it sues the same government for hundreds of millions of dollars. |
| December 6, 2021 | Proposed Wentworth wind farm gets blowback. While local group fears negative effects, Northern Pulp stands to profit from the giant wind project because it’s on Northern Pulp land purchased with a loan from Nova Scotians. |
| November 5, 2021 | Why isn’t Northern Pulp using the wastewater treatment plant next door at Canso Chemicals? Is mercury an issue? |
| October 31, 2021 | Woo and sue: Northern Pulp’s strategy in Nova Scotia. |
| October 20, 2021 | Northern Pulp is demanding it be given “more than $100 million” from the province. |
| September 7, 2021 | Wastewater from Northern Pulp’s hibernating paper mill is being discharged into the Bay of Fundy. |
| July 26, 2021 | Paper Excellence’s very big deal. Northern Pulp’s parent company is set to acquire the North American pulp and paper giant Domtar. While the acquisition is getting very little media attention in Canada, around the world many people are worried about it — for many good reasons. |
| July 21, 2021 | What are Paper Excellence’s real plans for Northern Pulp? This week two men presented the company’s plans for a “complete transformation” of the the mill at a special Pictou Town Council meeting. They faced persistent questions and made some telling comments that do not bode well for Nova Scotia. |
| July 16, 2021 | Paper Excellence holds a media show and piles on the PR. Northern Pulp’s owner is working on a $350 million “complete transformation” for the mill in Pictou County, but doesn’t say whether any of that money will be public, or why Nova Scotians should trust them. |
| June 10, 2021 | Public engagement, future of the forestry, and the Harvest Plans Map Viewer. Activists says the online tool where Nova Scotians can submit feedback on what happens to the forests on public lands is inaccessible and lacks historical data. |
| May 12, 2021 | Northern Pulp is “insolvent,” but the company that owns it, Paper Excellence, is on a $3 billion buying spree |
| April 20, 2021 | How the Biodiversity Act was killed. Forest Nova Scotia, which represents the biggest forestry players, gets an awful lot of public money — including millions of dollars to administer a forest roads program panned by the auditor general. It also has a paid lobbyist swaying the policies of the very government that funds it, and who started working on its behalf just as the Biodiversity Act was gutted. |
| April 15, 2021 | Communications specialist: “hundreds of thousands of dollars” were spent to produce “blatant lies” for the campaign against the Biodiversity Act. |
| March 23, 2021 | The most ‘Trump-like thing’ in Nova Scotia: how big forestry companies gutted the Biodiversity Act. |
| February 24, 2021 | The French Connection. People in southern France are battling pollution at a paper mill owned by a corporate behemoth: Paper Excellence Canada, the owner of the Northern Pulp Mill in Nova Scotia. |
| January 7, 2021 | Paper Excellence in France: different country, same game plan |
| December 9, 2020 | Northern Pulp is misleading the British Columbia Supreme Court about how the environmental assessment process works in Nova Scotia. |
| November 6, 2020 | Excellence in paper profits. Court documents show that after Northern Pulp made $59.9 million in loan repayments to its corporate owner Paper Excellence, it asked the province of Nova Scotia for $50 million in new financing, over and above the $85 million it already owes the province. The province declined to provide new loans, but did agree to a freeze on all payments from the existing loans. |
| July 19, 2020 | Corporate shell game: Part 1. Northern Pulp seeks protection from creditors in a BC court – and its largest creditor is its owner, Paper Excellence. |
| July 21, 2020 | Corporate shell game: Part 2. Northern Pulp-affiliated companies say that without major concessions, they won’t be able to pay back nearly $86 million they owe to the province of Nova Scotia. So far, however, the government has not caved, and is not agreeing to new financing. |
| May 12, 2020 | Nova Scotia government doles out $10 million more for Northern Pulp The effluent pipeline may have been turned off but the provincial money pipeline continues to flow |
| April 10, 2020 | Northern Pulp statement off-based and ill-timed during the COVID-19 crisis |
| Jan. 31, 2020 | The province issues tough new orders to Northern Pulp |
| January 24, 2020 | Northern Pulp takes province to court: The saga continues The unfolding saga of the 53-year-old Pictou County pulp mill operated by Northern Pulp Nova Scotia – a Paper Excellence company that is part of the corporate empire of the billionaire Widjaja family of Indonesia – continues to get “curiouser and curiouser” as Alice in Wonderland once remarked. |
| January 10, 2020 | Northern Pulp, past and future: “It ain’t over till it’s over” |
| December 20, 2019 | The Northern Pulp saga is a “really, really, really, really difficult time” for Pictou Landing First Nation. |
| December 17, 2019 | No federal assessment will be required for Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment project. |
| December 17, 2019 | Pictou Landing First Nation: “We are sticking to the January 31, 2020 date.” |
| December 11, 2019 | Northern Pulp lobbyists and the revolving door with government. |
| December 9, 2019 | Saltwire finds one scientist who thinks Northern Pulp’s effluent isn’t toxic |
| December 8, 2019 | Deciding Northern Pulp’s future: A tangled mess of dubious science, loans and liabilities will determine who government officials will act in coming days – and how much it will cost Nova Scotians. |
| November 21, 2019 | Northern Pulp’s “political game”: It’s decision time for the Nova Scotia government. It will either approve a pipeline for pumping mill effluent into the Northumberland Strait, or won’t. And it will either extend the Boat Harbour Act, or won’t. Those affected by the mill operation are laying out their case and preparing next moves. |
| October 6, 2019 | Pictou Landing First Nation to Stephen McNeil: Honour the Boat Harbour Act and No Pipe in the Strait. |
| October 3, 2019 | Northern Pulp’s sci-fi future |
| July 8, 2019 | Northern Pulp Mill’s missing environmental data. The mill says its effluent comfortably meets federal regulations, but a new study published by Dalhousie researchers suggests there is no way to know |
| April 9, 2019 | Nova Scotia has a mercury problem. Facilities associated with Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent pipe are immediately adjacent to a mercury-contaminated toxic waste site left over from the Canso Chemicals operation. |
| March 7, 2019 | The Canso Chemicals mystery: With the chemical plant long gone, why is the company still alive? And what about all that mercury pollution? |
| March 5, 2019 | Northern Pulp’s environmental documents, missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions. |
| February 21, 2019 | Northern Pulp says it “cares” – but for whom and what? |
| November 3, 2018 | Containing Northern Pulp’s mess: A half century of toxic waste in Boat Harbour, a leaky pipeline, and what happens next in the mill saga. |
| March 20, 2018 | Battle for the mill: The plan to pipe effluent from the Northern Pulp mill into the Northumberland Strait is dividing the community of Pictou, pitting neighbour and fishermen against mill workers. |