In a letter last Friday, U.S.
Senator Angus S. King, Jr. (I-Maine) pressed U.S. Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk for
answers about the Canadian government's distribution of $124.5 million in what
appear to be illegal trade subsidies to the Port Hawkesbury Paper Mill in Nova
Scotia that are responsible in part for the elimination of 45 jobs at the
NewPage Paper Mill in Rumford, Maine.
The trade subsidies, which
Senator King believes are in violation of established World Trade Organization rules,
enabled the Port Hawkesbury Paper Mill to flood the North American market with
tons of highly subsidized supercalendered paper. On Wednesday, February 27th,
the NewPage PaperMill announced the lay-off of 45 employees, citing a drop in demand for #5 Coated Paper, a product often substituted for supercalendered paper.
