Northern Ontario pulp mills could get energy rebate... if they were still operating...

Yesterday's Ontario provincial budget is providing an energy rebate to large industrial facilities in Northern Ontario.

The plan is a three-year program that will provide electricity rebates of $150 million a year for big factories, smelters, mills and other industrial operations in the north of the province, where mining and forestry are the dominant industries, and have been hit hard in the economic recession.

Operations will qualify for the rebate if they agree to improve their electricity efficiency.

The rebate will amount to two cents per kilowatt hour of electricity used, or about 25 per cent of total electricity costs based on 2009 levels.

Domtar, St. Mary's Paper, and Weyerhaeuser are expected to qualify for the rebate.

The United Steelworkers are saying the rebate has come a little too late.

"A lot of our mills have shut down right across northern Ontario," said Wayne Fraser, the union's director for Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

"I think with the onset of these reductions, had they been in place, it might have made a difference in whether those mills were still open today, because one of the major factors on closing the paper mills and the sawmills was energy, not just the economy."

Source:

Energy rebate for northern operations, not much else for business in Ont. budget (Canadian Business Online)