As is often the case, this means lay-offs. Harry Freeman and Son Ltd. in Greenfield has laid off 19 full-time employees, which, considering the area’s low population, is huge in scope.

“We’re the only major year-round employer in central Queens County and there are a lot of spin-offs,” Co-owner Richard Freeman said.

He added, “It is hard to do. It’s a great worry for us and we have quite a responsibility here to maintain our business but we have to think about all the employees. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes necessary to make a difficult decision to protect the remaining jobs.”

They number about 75.

The plant will be closing over the holiday season as well, but this is done annually, Freeman said.

However, this has sparked wide spread rumours the plant is closing permanently. Freeman said, “That’s news to me. We have no plans to close, permanently or otherwise.”

He said he believes the company has become efficient enough to cope with the current economic storm.

“It’s a big challenge for us – the strong Canadian dollar and the U.S. lumber markets have been poor due to the U.S. housing market. It’s the situation with the subprime mortgages that has created a mess in the U.S. economy and it’s going to take awhile to straighten out.”

Simplified, many Americans and sometimes-unscrupulous creditors got caught up in a type of collective house-buying spree over the past decade that drove up real estate prices beyond what many could afford.

Many Americans were given subprime mortgages with the term subprime referring to a less than ideal applicant. As a result of numerous subsequent foreclosures, the market collapsed in most parts of the country and values dropped below many mortgage amounts. At present, therefore, there is little financial room for borrowing in the country, which has seriously hurt the market for lumber.

Freeman is hoping it will be cyclical in nature.

In the meantime, he said the company has also increased the operation’s efficiency with equipment changes, and, generally, “looking at different ways of doing things to try and reduce costs as best we can.”

He said the company is still shipping to the United States but is always searching for more markets, both in Canada and globally.

Ironically, he said Canada and, in particular, British Columbia is responsible for much of the problem.

“When we’re looking at causes for the situation, it’s an oversupply of cheap subsidized lumber from British Columbia.” He is referring to low Crown land stumpage fees.

“We’re relatively small players (Atlantic Canadian industry) but we’re caught up in this issue that is primarily between B.C. and the United States.”

The company produces lumber and value-added lumber products.