Arsenault says Mine Closure “Tough Blow” for New Brunswick
SAINT JOHN – New Brunswick’s Energy and Mines Minister Donald Arsenault says the government didn’t see the closure of Picadilly Mine coming–until last night.
“We did get a call. We met with the president last evening where they shared this news. . . unfortunately they had to make the decision they made,” Arsenault said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Saint John.
On Tuesday morning PotashCorp announced it is immediately suspending operations at its Picadilly Mine near Sussex. Up to 430 people will lose their jobs at the mine as a result.
Arsenault said it’s a tough blow for the province, especially for Sussex residents and the surrounding communities. He said the government already has the department of Post-secondary Education, Training and Labour on the case.
“We’ve already deployed the department of Post-secondary Education, Training and Labour to make sure that they have a team in the Sussex community to make sure anybody who needs help in terms of looking at their own situation in terms of what they want to do next with their career.”
“We want to make sure they get all the help they can get to those employees affected, as well as reaching out to contractors that are affected by this decision,” Arsenault said.
Arsenault said there was nothing the government could have done differently and the decision was made because of the global potash market.
“This is a global economy and there’s a lot of challenges out there and it does have an impact on a small province like New Brunswick,” he said. “We’re not immune to that and unfortunately we’ve seen the impact of that.”
The ceasing of operations at the Picadilly Mine will have an affect on provincial revenues. Arsenault said about $18 million in royalties will be lost.
“There’s no doubt with that amount of employees, personal income tax will take a hit . . . at the same time there’s 25 to 40 megawatts of power being purchased through NB Power, so there’s another impact on that site,” he said.
The closure will also have an impact on other businesses in the province as well. Port Saint John CEO Jim Quinn said the suspension will affect the amount of tonnage they’ll take. The port handled 26.4 million metric tons of tonnage last year, but the closure means there will be a change of 400,000 metric tons of cargo. Quinn says this about a 2 per cent deviation from last year’s total performance.
“There is a financial impact and we’re assessing that impact,” he said. “But it’s one of those things that any impact on the revenue side, we look carefully at our expenditure side and make the adjustments that need to be made to ensure that we continue to do the strong financial performance that we’ve been able to achieve over the last number of years.”
Quinn said fortunately, Port Saint John has a very diverse cargo base.
“It’s one of those things we’re going to continue to watch closely and will continue to work hard of course in all the other sectors to continue with what we need to do to help them grow,” he said.