Trump's tariffs could shutter this Canadian town - its residents are fighting to save it

Trump’s tariffs could force this Canadian town to close — and residents are battling to keep it alive

“We’re going to fight” — How an uncertain paper mill future could devastate a small Quebec town

As you drive across the Ottawa River into Témiscaming, Quebec, the paper mill dominates the skyline.

The town was founded more than 100 years ago around the mill and the surrounding forests of pine, birch, spruce and fir. Today, the community’s main employer and economic backbone is sitting idle after trade negotiations collapsed between Canada and the US and President Donald Trump imposed additional tariffs on the country.

Most of the mill’s 360 workers are now out of work, though for the moment they are being supported by partial pay through government tariff-relief.

For people like Nadine Suley, the mill’s closure could mean not only the loss of a job, but the loss of an entire way of life.

She says she is not “a city girl,” and later she is heading out moose hunting to make the most of the short season, like many others in town. She jokes that they will all need the free meat the animals provide this year.

“It’s not just a job. It’s our home,” Suley says, adding that the US tariffs on her town feel like “a personal attack”.

In early October, American owner RYAM carried out an “economic shutdown” of the mill for “an indefinite period”.

Property values in Témiscaming dropped almost immediately, and “For Sale” signs now appear in the yards of the modest middle-class homes that make up most of the town.

There are also fears that essential workers — from grocery store clerks to the doctors at the small local hospital — may leave as well.

“If the mill goes down, it’ll turn into a ghost town,” says Ronnie Raymond, who, like many in the town, comes from a family of mill workers.

“There’ll be nothing, nothing left. There’s no work for anybody, really. It’s scary.”

For more than a century, the paper mill has been Témiscaming’s economic engine.

At a broader level, Canada’s economy has so far endured the ongoing trade war with the US, its biggest customer. The national unemployment rate has stayed largely steady at about 6.5% since Trump’s tariffs were introduced, alongside sluggish but steady economic growth.

But a closer look at the figures reveals pockets of severe pain in sectors directly hit by US tariffs of up to 50%, including steel, aluminium, automobiles and — in Témiscaming’s case — lumber, pulp and paper. That has raised questions about whether the Carney government is doing enough to support those under strain while a trade deal remains out of reach.

“If there was 10% of job loss in Toronto or Montreal or Quebec City or Vancouver, it’d be all over the news, and it’d be a lot of pressure on the governments to do something,” says Stéphane Lefebvre, a worker and union leader whose father and grandfather also worked at the mill.

The economic damage could spread through the region’s entire forestry sector, including sawmills and trucking. One local contractor told the BBC he has already had to let 13 people go.

The last time the town faced such an existential threat was in 1973, when the mill’s then-American owner threatened to close it, prompting local workers and managers to unite and buy it themselves.

They transformed it into Tembec, a Quebec-owned international company with operations across North America and France.

Now workers are hoping to repeat that feat, rallying a coalition of locals who want to buy the plant back from RYAM, which acquired it in 2017.

“We’re hoping that lightning will hit twice,” Lefebvre says, speaking in the town’s union hall.

But he says they cannot do it without major support from Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Quebec government, whether through tariff relief or financial backing.

Suley says the prime minister has stressed “buy local” and support for Canadian workers since taking office. She says backing the town’s effort to repurchase the mill would be one way for Carney to honour that promise.

In an email to the BBC, RYAM said it would not comment on a possible sale of the plant or on any potential buyers.

Stéphane Lefebvre, his father and grandfather all worked at the paper mill in Témiscaming.

Mayor Alain Gauthier does not blame RYAM for its decision. He describes US tariffs as “a bomb to shut down our manufacturing in Canada”.

He wants Ottawa to respond with its own duties on board products entering Canada from the US, which are currently tariff-free.

And he says that although politicians have said Canada is in an economic war with the US, “in reality we see absolutely no evidence of war measures being taken”.

“We feel we got into a war with kid’s water guns to fight back.”

Some, including Lefebvre, believe forestry has been pushed aside in the effort to save other tariff-hit industries such as steel and autos.

This month, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly threatened Stelco — one of Canada’s biggest steelmakers — with financial penalties or a forced asset sale if it proceeds with planned layoffs of about 500 workers because of pressure from steel tariffs.

Stelco in Hamilton, near Toronto, is owned by US-based Cleveland-Cliffs, which pledged to keep jobs in Canada when it bought the company in 2024.

Last week, Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced nearly C$9bn ($6.4bn; £4.8bn) to support Ontario’s steel and auto sectors. They said the money would help the industries modernise, boost domestic demand and expand into new overseas markets.

Sébastien Lemire, the elected MP for Témiscaming from the Bloc Québécois party, told the BBC he is “very concerned and worried” about what he sees as inaction from the Carney government in supporting the town and Quebec’s forestry industry more broadly.

A spokesperson for Minister Joly told the BBC in a statement that the government has made $400m available to support the forestry sector in rural and remote areas.

It has also launched a programme to help tariff-hit businesses access cash flow while they work to shift away from US markets.

Regarding the Témiscaming mill, the spokesperson said the government “is actively working with all parties involved to find a viable solution to the issues facing the company, while responsibly managing Canadians’ dollars.”

Residents of Témiscaming gathered for a union-led rally to support mill workers and draw attention to the struggles of the lumber industry.

In August, after trade talks broke down, the US imposed 50% duties on about C$28bn of Canadian goods, including wood and paper products such as pulp, stationery and boxes.

Canada responded with its own “dollar-for-dollar” counter-tariffs.

The Témiscaming mill, which makes paperboard used in frozen-food packaging across North America and in the scratch-off lottery tickets commonly sold at convenience stores, sends about 75% of its output to the US.

Trump says these import taxes strengthen US manufacturing and create jobs — in effect trying to protect American workers who could face the same fate as those in Témiscaming.

Frank Dottori has lived through all of this before.

Now in his 80s and retired in Témiscaming, he was an engineer at the mill that helped organise employees in the 1970s to accept a 10% pay cut so they could collectively buy it. He later became CEO.

At the time, their plans were viewed as foolish, and he remembers being “politely ejected” by the Quebec premier when he first sought support.

But they succeeded with help from the labour union and an ex-employee with executive experience and plenty of swagger. Dottori says that person’s forceful charisma was key to their success.

Dottori says the new generation of workers needs someone just as bold.

“Does the local group have that? Highly unlikely. Can they get it? Yeah, if they if they organise themselves,” he said.

Frank Dottori led the effort to buy the Témiscaming mill in the 1970s during a period of economic hardship

He also says US tariffs must be removed to restore the mill’s long-term economic viability, at least in the short term.

Many workers in Témiscaming say they are pinning some hopes on the upcoming US midterm elections to pressure Trump — whose approval ratings have fallen among Americans, according to polls — into easing some of his tariffs on Canada.

“We’ll take any help we can get,” Suley says, adding: “There are Americans that care what’s going on, and it’s affecting them too.”

There are signs the Trump administration is paying attention to that pressure, with some tariffs on Canadian goods lifted last week after lobbying from Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins, who is running for re-election in November. Those changes do not apply to products made at Témiscaming’s mill, however.

Suley and others hope a solution comes soon, before winter, when sub-zero temperatures could freeze equipment at the idle plant and cause damage that would make reopening even harder.

For now, Lefebvre says he remains determined to make local ownership of the mill a reality, whatever happens.

“We’re in Game Seven right now,” he says. “We’re gonna play till the last whistle.”