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PaperWeek: Lazar praises industry for taking charge of its future

The transformation was painful, said Avrim Lazar, but our industry is now finding its feet in the new reality of the pulp and paper industry. Lazar has been president of the Forest Products Association of Canada for 10 years now, and as he…

The transformation was painful, said Avrim Lazar, but our industry is now finding its feet in the new reality of the pulp and paper industry. Lazar has been president of the Forest Products Association of Canada for 10 years now, and as he looked at the audience assembled for PaperWeek Canada’s luncheon on Jan. 31, he commented that the last few years had been painful.

Lazar spoke of the human aspects of the transformation that has gripped our industry. He noted that while people are accustomed to change, change is usually happening within a dynamic equilibrium. “Those shifts from one equilibrium to another, those are transformations,” he said.

“We don’t quite know what the new world will look like yet, but it is revealing itself piece by piece.”

Lazar commended pulp and paper companies for looking forward during this tumultuous time, and for “transforming [themselves] in the face of these challenges, not being transformed.”

He also praised the government for putting its money and influence behind “the new equilibrium”, not the old.

PaperWeek Canada, PAPTAC’s annual gathering of the pulp and paper industry in Canada, took place in Montreal from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3.