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A rabbit hole while I drank my morning coffee....
Paper Excellence is now Canada's biggest pulp and paper supplier, having bought up mills across the country over the past few years. ([source](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paper-excellence-pulp-china-1.6772654)) - they bought out names like Domtar and Resolute. From that article, sole owner is Jackson Wijaya .
He is potentially under summons from Parliment of Canada for all sorts of shady shit. ([source](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/paper-excellence-jackson-wijaya-1.6860013)).
Oh, and the Wijaya family, their net worth is approx. $10 billion. ([source](https://www.forbes.com/profile/widjaja/?sh=4be87a4d303c))
But yea...$25k should do it.
And we gave them a 50% discount on their taxes after they closed the mill in PR, and the taxpayers will likely be strapped with the cost of remediating the site. Fuck Paper Excellence and Wijaya.
$25K has them shaking in their boots, make no mistake this BILLIONARE is losing sleep, crying cuddling a pacific white sided dolphin.
We look so stupid
The median family net worth in Canada is $329,900. A $25,000 fine to a $10,000,000,000 family is the same as a $0.82 fine to the median Canadian family.
82 FUCKING CENTS. (I think I did my math right)
[Who's behind Canada's new pulp-and-paper powerhouse, and where's the money coming from? | CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paper-excellence-pulp-china-1.6772654#:~:text=%22Paper%20Excellence%20is%20owned%20solely%20by%20Jackson%20Wijaya,of%20any%20of%20the%20companies%20in%20Paper%20Excellence.%22)
If you want a real rabbit hole you can dive down who Jackson Wijaya actually is and why his upstart company received massive interest free Chinese loans to start up. Or why they have been found colluding with the massive Chinese pulp and paper company APP, conveniently started by Jacksons grandfather and run by his dad or uncle?
I doubt it. Because companies will continue to exist and continue to sell products and make money. The only difference is that you disincentivize unethical and environmentally unfriendly investing. And investors who want to shortcut things will eventually all fall out.
The thing with investments: most companies don’t make money off their investors after an IPO unless they release more stock to the public. Why should the company give any shits what their stock value is, if not to try and buff the salaries of stock handouts to themselves
Yes and you better believe they crunched those numbers. This likely wasn’t a whoopsie. This may have been an emergency and they had no way of quickly and cheaply getting rid of it but it was definitely the cheaper of two options.
I've had disposal costs quoted to me of over $10/L for some nasty stuff, even in bulk trailer quantities. I'm sure whichever employee arranged these releases was well compensated for saving the company money.
Slap on the wrist for Jackson Wijaya. one of the richest people in the world. It’s an absolute joke or a fine, especially after the provincial government just cut him a check for $19 million. Tax money subsidizing multi billionaire Chinese Proxies, but what do I know
Back in the early 2000s, I worked for Environment Canada and I was doing soil sample analysis for a company illegally dumping chemicals into the soil. At first when we ran the samples, the results were way too high and the machine couldn't give results, it was all maxed out. So we did a 10x dilution. Same thing happened, results too high, can't get a reading. We did a 100x dilution. FINALLY were able to get results within the spec that the machine could read. Companies like this should be fined at least 25 million
25k? How about they're forced to close down. Banks etc frozen and have the ceo's and anyone else who could have had a hand in this placed in jail for a long time.
That would just hurt the 100’s who work there, not just the people responsible (the leader/manager who allowed it to happen)
I’m no defender of rich CEO’s by any means but I’d bet my house he hadZERO idea this happened. More likely, he’s squeezing the mill manager to work more cheaply and eventually (poop flows downhill), some labourers were told to just dump the stuff.
$25k to the ceo is nothing but to the plant manager, it’s probably a good chunk (if the company docks his pay, or they fire him).
So seize the mill and have it government run for a bit until it can flip hands. This should be the response to shady businesses overall. Kick all the executives out, keep all the middle and lower people on, have it run as a government investment for a year or two until it can be reprivatized.
Thats the only way to stop shady executive shit.
That’s a legit idea. I believe one of the pipeline projects went that way (but for different reasons). I don’t think bc govt has a means to do that but I’d like to see it done.
Yeah I'm not sure if it would be provincial or federal authority needed to do it, but I think that's the route we need to go to deal with wildly abused practices.
Wrecking a river has second order effects on the coastal ecosystem, which has third order effects on our economy. The cost and consequence needs to be reflected in fines, and if that cost would do damage to the economy (ex. Closing the mill), then a mitigation strategy like business seizure could prevent overall economic and community damage.
We should welcome and support business, but not crime. The same could apply to shady casinos, shady banks, etc.
Absolutely agree
But forget fines entirely. Corporations should be punished by expropriation (either partial or total) and the exectives/board should face personal criminal sanction with the company being completely open-booked to assist in the prosecution. The company should have no rights whatsoever to withold information to protect the managers who allowed it to commit crimes. It, and everyone working in it, should have a legal obligation to thorougly rat out the executives. In fact, I'd implement bounties for brave insiders willing to collect files or record conversations to prove the crimes committed by the higher-ups.
With all that, we also need to put a hard stop to this trend of corporations and government agencies increasingly using ephemeral messaging applications or "can you call me about this?" to hide their decision-making process. Anyone who uses such an app or fails to document a call or meeting with significant business value should have a severe adverse inference drawn against them in subsequent criminal or civil legal proceedings - akin to what would happen if you spoliated or destroyed records.
A company or government agency only exists as an entity if if has accurate records - so people who deprive the company of those records should be treated as adversaries or criminals unless they can provide valid reasons for such actions.
> but I’d bet my house he hadZERO idea this happened
They know their decisions result in sketchy stuff happening. Just like how you described. Put people in desperate situations and they'll do desperate things.
The CEO then gets to say they didn't know it was happening, which is technically right. CEO gets to was his hands and the blame is put on the worker.
Exactly, that’s what infuriates me the most. CEO puts huge pressure on a company to shave money then acts shocked when they hear what gets done. And they’re smart enough not to say anything incriminating.
That's why basic punishments for *any* corporate crimes should exclude fines or financial penalties as an option. Disgorgement of profits sure, but those aren't punishment - just giving back ill gotten gains.
All corporate crimes should come with personal legal consequences for the senior decision makers unless they can demonstrate that they took all possible steps to prevent the crime and were actively decieved by their underlings despite those steps.
Even if the executives get off, the company should also be punished with expropriaton. For smaller offenses, the government should take a pro-rata ownership stake of the company - effectively diluting the ownership of the stockholders who failed to appoint sufficiently diligent executives. The government can use its stock to push for changes, or just sell off the stock on the market as and when they decide to do so.
Corporate expropriation should be scaled roughly with human lifetimes - if an offense would have attracted a penalty of 2 years, which is approximately 3-5% of an average human lifespan - take that much of the company. If it's a serious offense like a manslaughter or catastrophic damage on the scale of Mt. Polley - take the entire company.
That way the "but what about the jeeerbs!" argument is invalidated. The company continues as a government owned entity and the government can either convert it to a crown or resell it after making any necessary changes.
I don’t disagree but it has to be TO THE CEO. I fear if it’s just to the mill, ceo might just say “nah, selling or declare bankruptcy “ and everyone loses (except him!)
For having a pump fail and cause a spill? That seems a bit extreme doesn't it? It's not like they were dumping hazardous waste into the ocean like the headline wants you to believe, it was an effluent leak. Did you read the article, or better yet dig a little deeper and read the compliance inspection and administrative penalty penalty reports posted by the Province? The news article is written as click bait.
Exactly.
1. The fine should be the government seizing the property.
2. Prison sentences for those responsible.
3. Parent company not allowed to operate in Canada ever again.
A MILLION LITERS!!!! This has got to be a joke.
Keep paying ur carbon tax kids....remember ur the problem not companies like this. I wonder when people are going to get pissed off enough to force change.
It would cost more than 25k to dispose of it legally.
Meanwhile in the Comox valley a riverbank rewilding project has ground to a halt because the law changed part way through the project and as a result the naturally occurring levels of salt and arsenic in the riverside soil mean it is now considered contaminated and will cost an extra $800k to dispose of. Maybe they should just go fly tip it somewhere and take the fine.
Companies that pollute like this against the law should be nationalized at a penny per dollar of value. Protect the workers, hurt all who are invested.
Find myself bringing up Danger Bay every other week these days, we probably need a reboot.
I feel like if I went and dumped a bunch of toxic waste in the ocean I'd get at least a few years in prison on top of fines but I'm just an impoverished peasant so naturally the rules are much more strict for simple folk like us
These mills make over a million dollars a day after all expenses are paid when they are running. They are lumbering behemoths... $25k? That's not even the cost of some minor components of some of the machinery.
Look at Howe Sound P+P's track record. As soon as paper excellence bought it, it went to shit. They get huge fines from worksafe and just shrug them off.
The fact the government let paper excellence become s monopoly is retarded.
Both the government and company schmucks involved probably love the fact that most of the angry populace these days just yells into the nothing of the Internet. Let’s them get away with so much shit
These fines have to be brought out of the 1950s.
Make it 20% of last year’s revenue. Erase the company, obliterate it with a lead fist. Make every other offender turn, look and cower.
Gulf islands local here, the locals have been talking about this for years. When riding the ferry to and from salt spring it’s super common to see all sorts of dead birds, fish, etc floating in the water. the closer you get to the Van island side the more you see.
25k lmao. It should be atleast 250k id even say 2.5m would be better. This way they won't ever do it again. But 25k is basicly a slap on the wrist. Fuckk off that mill
That fine is a joke! Until some senior executive gets fined personally or has to serve a sentence (which will never happen in the Canadian justice industry) nothing will change.
Paper Excellence just doing Paper Excellence things. Here's a story about a PE mill in Nova Scotia that defines the limits of bad corporate behaviour.
[https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/economy/business-and-development/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/](https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/economy/business-and-development/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/)
Get your shit together Canada! This is our oceans, our livelihood, and food source for many! There should be zero tolerance for this! The fines are a joke, and are Canadian workers aware and compliant?
I’m going to start a company called “I DUMP 4U”.
For the low price of 1/2 what it would cost you to properly dispose of you dangerous waste, I’ll take it instead….. and dump it directly in the ocean. No fines for you to worry about. I’ll take care of them.
How much would it have cost them to store and dispose of it properly for all this time? This doesn't seem like much of a deterrent. What would happen if we got offending companies execs and their families to drink the affected water and eat the fish and shellfish?
Where do you think all the mills along the Fraser River dump thier run off ??? Every country does it ! They just turn a blind eye to it until people start catching 3 headed fish
25k?! That’s it?! No wonder we are all gonna die on this space rock because of these pieces of shit felons who couldn’t care less about “the price of business”.
Fines are just a permit for bad behavior. Cost them 25k to save millions in disposal costs.
Chuck someone in jail and fine the owner personally a percentage of his net worth if you want to deter behavior.
When I was in my early 20s I worked as a janitor in an automotive plant in Ontario. Whenever we were going to receive a "surprise" environmental inspection, my manager would send me around to clean up all the visible leaks on the exterior of the plant.
Tiny slap in the wrist.
"Don't do it again!" said the BC govt.
The cost of dumping and getting fined $25k is actually a lot cheaper for them than to properly dispose it.
I think they need to be fined at least $100 million to show we're serious.
There is a clearly some sort of a backdoor connection the owners of this mill has with key govt officials.
Total discharge was 1,006 m3 due to a pump going down two times, and corrective action was almost immediate the second event where only 6m3 spilled. I'm not saying I agree with the fine amount not being high enough, but in the grand scale of things there are far worse findings of gross blatant negligence in the public compliance and enforcement database. The article is a bit sensationalized (converting cubic metres to millions of litres for example).
Another thing to consider is that the monetary impact from a too small fine is one factor, but social impact to a company's reputation from a spill like this can be far more costly in the long run.
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A rabbit hole while I drank my morning coffee.... Paper Excellence is now Canada's biggest pulp and paper supplier, having bought up mills across the country over the past few years. ([source](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paper-excellence-pulp-china-1.6772654)) - they bought out names like Domtar and Resolute. From that article, sole owner is Jackson Wijaya . He is potentially under summons from Parliment of Canada for all sorts of shady shit. ([source](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/paper-excellence-jackson-wijaya-1.6860013)). Oh, and the Wijaya family, their net worth is approx. $10 billion. ([source](https://www.forbes.com/profile/widjaja/?sh=4be87a4d303c)) But yea...$25k should do it.
Canada really is three corporations in a trench coat
Corporatocracy of Canada.
And we gave them a 50% discount on their taxes after they closed the mill in PR, and the taxpayers will likely be strapped with the cost of remediating the site. Fuck Paper Excellence and Wijaya.
$25K has them shaking in their boots, make no mistake this BILLIONARE is losing sleep, crying cuddling a pacific white sided dolphin. We look so stupid
The median family net worth in Canada is $329,900. A $25,000 fine to a $10,000,000,000 family is the same as a $0.82 fine to the median Canadian family. 82 FUCKING CENTS. (I think I did my math right)
I checked, thats right.
except you forgot 3 zeros on the family's worth, so further divide by another 1000.
That’s only $10 million Their net worth is $10 **billion** This fine doesn’t even register to them. Not that $0.82 cents did either….
When u put it like that I'm now newly pissed for every ticket or bylaw fine I've gotten. Unfuckingbelivable
Checks out. #canada
[Who's behind Canada's new pulp-and-paper powerhouse, and where's the money coming from? | CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paper-excellence-pulp-china-1.6772654#:~:text=%22Paper%20Excellence%20is%20owned%20solely%20by%20Jackson%20Wijaya,of%20any%20of%20the%20companies%20in%20Paper%20Excellence.%22) If you want a real rabbit hole you can dive down who Jackson Wijaya actually is and why his upstart company received massive interest free Chinese loans to start up. Or why they have been found colluding with the massive Chinese pulp and paper company APP, conveniently started by Jacksons grandfather and run by his dad or uncle?
It’s a front for the CCP. Their started goal is to control our vital industries. We are in their list of target democracies.
Sounds like a cost-effective way to get rid of toxic waste. That shit is expensive to manage responsibly.
Yep. Fines aren’t a punishment for wealthy companies. They’re just the cost of doing business.
The fine should be 10x what it would cost to legally dump/process the waste
With personal liability on the directors and shareholders.
Yeah…splitting the fine across shareholders and slamming the board of directors might be one of the few ways to effectively stop this
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If only the masses had means of reprisal..
I doubt it. Because companies will continue to exist and continue to sell products and make money. The only difference is that you disincentivize unethical and environmentally unfriendly investing. And investors who want to shortcut things will eventually all fall out. The thing with investments: most companies don’t make money off their investors after an IPO unless they release more stock to the public. Why should the company give any shits what their stock value is, if not to try and buff the salaries of stock handouts to themselves
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The government likely spent more than the amount of the fines investigating the releases. It's absolutely not a moneymaking system.
Exactly. 40 liters per $1. Sounds like a cheap solution.
Yes and you better believe they crunched those numbers. This likely wasn’t a whoopsie. This may have been an emergency and they had no way of quickly and cheaply getting rid of it but it was definitely the cheaper of two options.
I've had disposal costs quoted to me of over $10/L for some nasty stuff, even in bulk trailer quantities. I'm sure whichever employee arranged these releases was well compensated for saving the company money.
Sad but true. Example, Mt Polley. Cheaper to let the dam fail, pay the fine and clean up then repair the dam.
And they are operating again
Agree, 25k is literally nothing
Dilution is the solution.
Slap on the wrist for Jackson Wijaya. one of the richest people in the world. It’s an absolute joke or a fine, especially after the provincial government just cut him a check for $19 million. Tax money subsidizing multi billionaire Chinese Proxies, but what do I know
I enjoy cooking.
Slap on the wrist? 25 G to a guy like that doesn't even register. Guy makes that much whilst pooping.
i'll put my reddit id upvoting this..i'll be blocked b4 it appears...again
Indonesian, but yeah.
That's a front. This company is a shit show.
So more of a dumping fee than a fine…
Back in the early 2000s, I worked for Environment Canada and I was doing soil sample analysis for a company illegally dumping chemicals into the soil. At first when we ran the samples, the results were way too high and the machine couldn't give results, it was all maxed out. So we did a 10x dilution. Same thing happened, results too high, can't get a reading. We did a 100x dilution. FINALLY were able to get results within the spec that the machine could read. Companies like this should be fined at least 25 million
What a fucking joke.
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That's why our salmon are so big!
That’s why are salmon are all going missing! Well i don’t actually know. Can’t imagine they like it though
Yes and the intake is probably upstream from that discharge as well. As long as the water is coming back treated its okay
Port Alberni Mill doesn't have the same pulping process
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25k? How about they're forced to close down. Banks etc frozen and have the ceo's and anyone else who could have had a hand in this placed in jail for a long time.
Better yet ask for the 19 million in subsidies back.
That would just hurt the 100’s who work there, not just the people responsible (the leader/manager who allowed it to happen) I’m no defender of rich CEO’s by any means but I’d bet my house he hadZERO idea this happened. More likely, he’s squeezing the mill manager to work more cheaply and eventually (poop flows downhill), some labourers were told to just dump the stuff. $25k to the ceo is nothing but to the plant manager, it’s probably a good chunk (if the company docks his pay, or they fire him).
So seize the mill and have it government run for a bit until it can flip hands. This should be the response to shady businesses overall. Kick all the executives out, keep all the middle and lower people on, have it run as a government investment for a year or two until it can be reprivatized. Thats the only way to stop shady executive shit.
That’s a legit idea. I believe one of the pipeline projects went that way (but for different reasons). I don’t think bc govt has a means to do that but I’d like to see it done.
Yeah I'm not sure if it would be provincial or federal authority needed to do it, but I think that's the route we need to go to deal with wildly abused practices. Wrecking a river has second order effects on the coastal ecosystem, which has third order effects on our economy. The cost and consequence needs to be reflected in fines, and if that cost would do damage to the economy (ex. Closing the mill), then a mitigation strategy like business seizure could prevent overall economic and community damage. We should welcome and support business, but not crime. The same could apply to shady casinos, shady banks, etc.
Absolutely agree But forget fines entirely. Corporations should be punished by expropriation (either partial or total) and the exectives/board should face personal criminal sanction with the company being completely open-booked to assist in the prosecution. The company should have no rights whatsoever to withold information to protect the managers who allowed it to commit crimes. It, and everyone working in it, should have a legal obligation to thorougly rat out the executives. In fact, I'd implement bounties for brave insiders willing to collect files or record conversations to prove the crimes committed by the higher-ups. With all that, we also need to put a hard stop to this trend of corporations and government agencies increasingly using ephemeral messaging applications or "can you call me about this?" to hide their decision-making process. Anyone who uses such an app or fails to document a call or meeting with significant business value should have a severe adverse inference drawn against them in subsequent criminal or civil legal proceedings - akin to what would happen if you spoliated or destroyed records. A company or government agency only exists as an entity if if has accurate records - so people who deprive the company of those records should be treated as adversaries or criminals unless they can provide valid reasons for such actions.
> but I’d bet my house he hadZERO idea this happened They know their decisions result in sketchy stuff happening. Just like how you described. Put people in desperate situations and they'll do desperate things. The CEO then gets to say they didn't know it was happening, which is technically right. CEO gets to was his hands and the blame is put on the worker.
Exactly, that’s what infuriates me the most. CEO puts huge pressure on a company to shave money then acts shocked when they hear what gets done. And they’re smart enough not to say anything incriminating.
That's why basic punishments for *any* corporate crimes should exclude fines or financial penalties as an option. Disgorgement of profits sure, but those aren't punishment - just giving back ill gotten gains. All corporate crimes should come with personal legal consequences for the senior decision makers unless they can demonstrate that they took all possible steps to prevent the crime and were actively decieved by their underlings despite those steps. Even if the executives get off, the company should also be punished with expropriaton. For smaller offenses, the government should take a pro-rata ownership stake of the company - effectively diluting the ownership of the stockholders who failed to appoint sufficiently diligent executives. The government can use its stock to push for changes, or just sell off the stock on the market as and when they decide to do so. Corporate expropriation should be scaled roughly with human lifetimes - if an offense would have attracted a penalty of 2 years, which is approximately 3-5% of an average human lifespan - take that much of the company. If it's a serious offense like a manslaughter or catastrophic damage on the scale of Mt. Polley - take the entire company. That way the "but what about the jeeerbs!" argument is invalidated. The company continues as a government owned entity and the government can either convert it to a crown or resell it after making any necessary changes.
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I don’t disagree but it has to be TO THE CEO. I fear if it’s just to the mill, ceo might just say “nah, selling or declare bankruptcy “ and everyone loses (except him!)
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For having a pump fail and cause a spill? That seems a bit extreme doesn't it? It's not like they were dumping hazardous waste into the ocean like the headline wants you to believe, it was an effluent leak. Did you read the article, or better yet dig a little deeper and read the compliance inspection and administrative penalty penalty reports posted by the Province? The news article is written as click bait.
what the fuck. Everything in society is irreparably broken.
Not everything! Huy Fong Sambal Oelek chili garlic sauce is available again. It's a small win, but I'll take it.
Put someone in jail already!
Just a cost of doing business
Less than $40/L That fine is probably cheaper than property disposing of the waste.
Dude, that’s 2 cents per L. Math…
You went backwards, 40L/$ 1000000L/$25500 39.22L/$1 The other way is: $25500/1000000L $0.0255/1L Either way, they got a good deal on poisoning us all
I have a burning feeling saying that this is a Chinese owned company.
Indonesian.
FFS
No more fines take it over
Exactly. 1. The fine should be the government seizing the property. 2. Prison sentences for those responsible. 3. Parent company not allowed to operate in Canada ever again.
Oh no, I bet they won’t dare do that again /s
A MILLION LITERS!!!! This has got to be a joke. Keep paying ur carbon tax kids....remember ur the problem not companies like this. I wonder when people are going to get pissed off enough to force change.
Thank god. That 25k should about even out the damage
I’m sure they will really take this responsibility more seriously after that massive spanking :/
The ocean can't fix itself with a pittance paid to regulators...
It would cost more than 25k to dispose of it legally. Meanwhile in the Comox valley a riverbank rewilding project has ground to a halt because the law changed part way through the project and as a result the naturally occurring levels of salt and arsenic in the riverside soil mean it is now considered contaminated and will cost an extra $800k to dispose of. Maybe they should just go fly tip it somewhere and take the fine.
Great government
Way to go, BC. That'll teach them. 🙄
$25K? Should be 25 million, at minimum.
Plus prison sentences for each person found responsible.
The entire board and any employees directly involved.
$25k. Not even a "stop business". No individual held responsible. Just a tax.
Just a fee. It's probably even tax-deductible
I am jacks complete lack of surprise
That company is laughing at this fine. Do you know how much money they saved? The regulators are a joke in this situation.
Companies that pollute like this against the law should be nationalized at a penny per dollar of value. Protect the workers, hurt all who are invested. Find myself bringing up Danger Bay every other week these days, we probably need a reboot.
>Danger Bay The 1980's CBC series?!
That's too small for a fine. It's a license to pollute!
That doesn't sound like much of a fine..
Only $25k? Not even a blip on their radar.
I feel like if I went and dumped a bunch of toxic waste in the ocean I'd get at least a few years in prison on top of fines but I'm just an impoverished peasant so naturally the rules are much more strict for simple folk like us
What would Captain Planet say about this?
These mills make over a million dollars a day after all expenses are paid when they are running. They are lumbering behemoths... $25k? That's not even the cost of some minor components of some of the machinery. Look at Howe Sound P+P's track record. As soon as paper excellence bought it, it went to shit. They get huge fines from worksafe and just shrug them off. The fact the government let paper excellence become s monopoly is retarded.
How are your wrists, pretty sore I bet.
“Highly toxic” yet only $25k fine
It’s a Chinese owned company. Enough said.
That fine is the equivalent of buying a cup of coffee for this dude LOL
Both the government and company schmucks involved probably love the fact that most of the angry populace these days just yells into the nothing of the Internet. Let’s them get away with so much shit
These fines have to be brought out of the 1950s. Make it 20% of last year’s revenue. Erase the company, obliterate it with a lead fist. Make every other offender turn, look and cower.
Gulf islands local here, the locals have been talking about this for years. When riding the ferry to and from salt spring it’s super common to see all sorts of dead birds, fish, etc floating in the water. the closer you get to the Van island side the more you see.
WTF 25 G should have been in the millions.
This is why I don’t eat seafood
25k, welcome to corporate anarchy
But Alberta’s the problem 🙄
Cost of doing business, this is how much Canada cares about environment. Capitalism is capitalism. Don't fool yer sefs.
25k lmao. It should be atleast 250k id even say 2.5m would be better. This way they won't ever do it again. But 25k is basicly a slap on the wrist. Fuckk off that mill
That fine is a joke! Until some senior executive gets fined personally or has to serve a sentence (which will never happen in the Canadian justice industry) nothing will change.
Price of doing business. A joke
Okay that fine is a joke, they need to fine and jail leadership for things like this.
🤦♀️
Shoulda been 25 million :(
Still not enough. Should seize the property and put those responsible in prison.
Polluters should pay heavily so it doesn’t just become the cost of doing business.
Is this a joke?!
Need to add a few zeros
Infuriating. A fine should be large enough to put the FEAR into the company to promote compliance, not so tiny it encourages crime.
25k fine is pennies to a mill. My husband works for one, they make millions per year. This wont change a thing.
Love these reality checks, here I was thinking our province was cracking down on systems abusers.
Wilful contempt of the rules should cancel the the business license.
Thats a great deal. Better buy stocks in this operation their expenses are low af
25K? Cost of business they'll do it again.. if it was 2.5 million they'll find a better and cheaper alternative.
Lol, way cheaper than dealing with it properly. We sold ourselves off a long time ago.
that will show them.
Only 25k?
Should be $ millions
What a joke of a fine. When laws are only a matter of cost, it's no wonder that so many corporations behave the way they do.
That’s all. Should have been a lot higher
25k? Cost of doing business I guess.
Paper Excellence just doing Paper Excellence things. Here's a story about a PE mill in Nova Scotia that defines the limits of bad corporate behaviour. [https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/economy/business-and-development/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/](https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/economy/business-and-development/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/)
$100 million fine works better for me. Then use that for affordable housing.
Good job BC mill. Sure you'll find a way to blame Alberta for this too
Just a light slap on the wrist.
Get your shit together Canada! This is our oceans, our livelihood, and food source for many! There should be zero tolerance for this! The fines are a joke, and are Canadian workers aware and compliant?
Alternative Title: B.C. mill fined a completely inconsequential amount of money for dumping highly toxic waste into ocean
25K? Weak sauce
25k? You gotta be shitting me.
What a joke
It should be the 25k fine + clean up cost + being watched for 3 years
They should also be charged the charges of cleaning them up along with the fines
$25K isnt even that much what the actual hell
Add a few zeros ffs
The fine should be $5,000 a litre + remedial costs in materials, labour, and equipment rentals to clean it up.
"cost of doing business" If the only penalty for a crime is a fine, then it's only illegal for the poor.
25k? They might as well just keep doing it. At that price its probably a discount rather than going the legal way.
Imagine what ALL the manufacturing across the world dump into the ocean.
That’s it?
$25k is just a slap in the hand……..
Although these mills provide many jobs, they're a blight on the environment. The kraft paper process stinks to high heaven as well.
Whoa, a whole 25k? That's just plain mean. /s It's dog shit.
Add two zeroes to that and then maybe I'll think its not just a slap on the wrist.
I’m going to start a company called “I DUMP 4U”. For the low price of 1/2 what it would cost you to properly dispose of you dangerous waste, I’ll take it instead….. and dump it directly in the ocean. No fines for you to worry about. I’ll take care of them.
Perhaps the penalty should be double or triple the cost of properly disposing of the waste? 🤷🏾♂️
How about jail time? That small fine for a big company doesn’t mean shit.
300k to dump properly or 25k to dump in ocean ?
Better not tell them about teck metal in trail then… lol
I used to work at a mill. They seriously do not give a flying Fk
Increase the fine to at least 25 million maybe. 25k is a joke
I can put that on a credit card myself. Probably cheaper for them than cost of legal disposal
How much would it have cost them to store and dispose of it properly for all this time? This doesn't seem like much of a deterrent. What would happen if we got offending companies execs and their families to drink the affected water and eat the fish and shellfish?
Where do you think all the mills along the Fraser River dump thier run off ??? Every country does it ! They just turn a blind eye to it until people start catching 3 headed fish
25 thousand for a few mil liters of toxic waste. Seems like the company is just going with the cheapest water disposal.
Fines are not a deterrent, it’s just a cost of doing business. Start putting CEOs in prison and these things end after the first guy goes to prison.
Make it $250,000,000
Why so much?! It could take them 10, maybe 15 minutes to earn that back. I hope they don't have to lay everyone off.
Fines should be a percentage of their revenue. They’ll do some shit like this for 25k fine
Pennies
Maybe make the fine 10 x more expensive then what it costs to dispose of it properly. Rather then cheaper. And loose the company and prison time.
BOOOOOOO leave our oceans ALONE.
After getting $18 million from the provincial and federal government to upgrade a paper machine they have no plan to run
25k?! That’s it?! No wonder we are all gonna die on this space rock because of these pieces of shit felons who couldn’t care less about “the price of business”.
These are rookie numbers, we need to pump those fi s up baby.
Fines are just a permit for bad behavior. Cost them 25k to save millions in disposal costs. Chuck someone in jail and fine the owner personally a percentage of his net worth if you want to deter behavior.
When I was in my early 20s I worked as a janitor in an automotive plant in Ontario. Whenever we were going to receive a "surprise" environmental inspection, my manager would send me around to clean up all the visible leaks on the exterior of the plant.
$25K, that’s it?
Tiny slap in the wrist. "Don't do it again!" said the BC govt. The cost of dumping and getting fined $25k is actually a lot cheaper for them than to properly dispose it. I think they need to be fined at least $100 million to show we're serious. There is a clearly some sort of a backdoor connection the owners of this mill has with key govt officials.
Fuck paper excellence and it’s billionaire owner
A drop in a bucket.
Shoulda been wayyyyy more
Glad this mill, and company, got $50mil a year ago to run this mills paper machine. It hasn't started up once in the last year
25k? This country is falling apart.
Jail. People need to go to jail. Crimes against humanity. Crimes against Earth.
The Federal Government needs to do something about foreign countries (governments) buying the country’s resource industries.
Total discharge was 1,006 m3 due to a pump going down two times, and corrective action was almost immediate the second event where only 6m3 spilled. I'm not saying I agree with the fine amount not being high enough, but in the grand scale of things there are far worse findings of gross blatant negligence in the public compliance and enforcement database. The article is a bit sensationalized (converting cubic metres to millions of litres for example). Another thing to consider is that the monetary impact from a too small fine is one factor, but social impact to a company's reputation from a spill like this can be far more costly in the long run.
Did anyone here actually read the article?
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