Reduced railway freight traffic and now Tolko Industries shutting it's doors, the Mayor of The Pas says it's a devastating time.
Tolko which employs about 332 people in the community announced yesterday that they were shutting down in December due to financial issues.
The Pas Mayor, Jim Scott says this is going to be a enormous ripple effect.
"These are very well paying jobs, they represent a huge number of people in our community. This is going to turn into a rather large ugly situation, we're probably looking at the end of the day probably over 1,000 people without jobs."
The news comes shortly after Omnitrax announced it's cutting freight service in half on the Hudson Bay Railway.
"That has an enormous effect on The Pas too, people don't seem to realize that. Mile zero of that rail line that goes to Churchill starts in The Pas, this is where the rail yard is." says Scott. "We had 14 people that were laid off immediately. There's 40 or plus people who would normally work the grain season that won't be coming to work, they won't be staying in our hotel, they won't be eating at our restaurants, that's a huge huge impact. I just said two weeks ago, 'we're lucky this isn't Tolko, and look what happens" Scott adds.
Workers received 14 weeks notice yesterday and Tolko will shut down on December 2nd.
