Mill closure and trade war force N.B. couple to rethink future

The closure of the town's major employer, a pulp mill, plus a raging trade war devastating small businesses and a family in a small community with few other options caught in the midst of it all. It's just been one thing after another for the last two and a half years. Alicia and Troy Nicholson are facing a double whammy. He received notice he's about to be laid off from his job at the pulp mill. The same week, she had to make the decision to stop exporting her cosmetic products to the U.S., which can amount to 50% of her business. I'm worried that we'll have to move away from family and friends and start over somewhere else. We've never been anywhere else. We're in Nacowick, New Brunswick, nestled on the banks of the St. John River. It's a forestry town. Clearly, its emblem is a giant axe, the world's largest, they say. So how long have you been mayor here? Since January of 2023. And what's on your mind these days? Well, on my mind these days is this mill closure. The closure will mean the direct loss of 350 jobs come November 4th. Protect Canadian jobs! Protect Canadian jobs! The mill is so important here. It's getting a lot of people, well, pretty riled up. Even the Premier. To take this ---- situation and find a good solution and a good way out of it. Until we save this goddamn mill for all of it. What we need now is the will to make it happen, and I assure you, we f***ing well have it. Owned by the A.V. Group, the pulp mill here is not like most. It doesn't make paper. It uses hardwood trees to produce dissolving pulp that it sells to its parent company in India to make fabrics. It does not ship to the U.S., so the closure is not because of the trade war, at least not directly. I think indirectly, you know, tariffs on everything else and tariffs on the finished products that are being bought by their product, it all has an impact. As she makes shampoo, Alicia Nicholson says her business, Upfront Cosmetics, is directly affected by tariffs. At the height of her success, her products were in 600 stores across North America. Just because our products may only be tariffed at, say, 5 or 10 percent, that doesn't mean that that is the end of what either we are paying or the consumer is paying. There are fees upon fees. After initially pausing exports to the U.S. in 2025, she thought she'd figured out a way to make it work, but now she's had to close off her U.S. market again. It's a really tough position for us to be in because Troy has supported me from the get-go. He's supported our family financially. Yeah, they press really well. That's like a perfect press. He also helps out making shampoo on his days off, and he's about to have a lot more of those. The not knowing is the worst part. It kind of gets a person thinking sometimes too much about what could happen. So far, the company that owns the mill has announced only that it plans to temporarily idle operations. And people here are hopeful that's the case. But most here don't believe this is a temporary situation. They don't believe the mill will reopen, at least not with the same owners. It looks like a final decision. So on our side, we need to protect the mill. the employees and see if there's options. Can be with the actual mills, can be with a part of the mill or a new project. The people who own this mill are not talking to us. Are they talking to you? They are talking to us, you know, like we don't have all the details. The only thing that the company has said publicly and to the workers as well is that this is due to prevailing market conditions and broader macroeconomic factors. Do you think that's a good enough explanation for people who are losing their jobs and in some cases have been Giving of themselves to this company for many, many years. For sure, people of that community have worked so hard for them that they can expect a little bit more, for sure. Right now, we need to, what is the objective? It's to make sure that this facility can be maybe transferred to somebody else. The Nicholsons say ideally Troy could work for the cosmetics company full-time, but for that they'll need a lot more business. If we can't increase our sales in Canada to make up for what we're losing in the US, Upfront won't exist anymore. We will have to sell our house and we will have to move somewhere where Troy can find work. Did you ever think you'd make shampoo? No. He tries to stay positive. You got to find the silver linings and things because uh... Well, I guess if you're negative about everything around you, that's all you're going to see. But with so many unknowns for them and others in their community, they're watching closely to see whether new owners will take over the mill and for what comes next in the trade war.