Strait mill hires bureaucrat

A former bureaucrat at the Department of Natural Resources starts his new job at Port Hawkesbury Paper on Monday.

Allan Eddy, who served as a senior executive with the department tasked with regulating the mill’s forestry activities, rose to the job of associate deputy minister. He held that title from April 2014 until December 2016 when he took over the same position at the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

“We went looking for someone with experience in the industry who knew both the perils and opportunities,” said Bevan Lock, who has been serving as the co-operations manager at Port Hawkesbury Paper in Point Tupper, Richmond County.

“Allan, with his experience in forestry, fit that bill.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, Eddy has served as executive director of Strategic Corporate Initiatives with the Nova Scotia Department of Finance and Treasury Board since July 2017.

While it may be a good hire for the mill, not everyone in northern Nova Scotia is as comfortable with the close ties that have developed between the industry’s biggest players and the government regulator.

“He was there regulating the pulp mill and now he’s going to work for them,” said Paul van de Wiel, who with his brother, John, built Rivers Bend Hardwood Flooring from a small business their father started in his dairy barn in 1994.

In 2011, they invested $1 million on Atlantic Canada’s first pre-finishing line — a 45-metre-long series of machines that sand, apply finish and dry flooring.