South Bruce sawmill embarks on multimillion dollar modernization amid U.S. tariff uncertainty

Bernie McGlynn Lumber/South Bruce Flooring near Mildmay, Ont. is embarking on $5.3 million expansion thanks to a $1.6 million investment from the Ontario government. (Scott Miller/CTV News London/CTV News London)

Bernie McGlynn Lumber near Mildmay has been turning logs into two by fours since 1964. After being started by his parents, Bernie McGlynn and his wife Doreen are now preparing to pass the business onto their three children.

“The excitement is pretty, pretty big between my sister and brother, and I. We’ve been a part of it our whole lives, and to be given an opportunity by our parents, means a lot to us, to keep the ball rolling,” said Luke McGlynn, future co-owner of Bernie McGlynn Lumber/South Bruce Flooring.

To keep the sawmill and flooring company moving forward, the McGlynns are embarking on a $5.3 million expansion to double their production space, increase output by nearly 50 per cent and dramatically modernize equipment.

“We’re putting up a new 30,000 square foot building on the other side of the road here. Hopefully by Christmas, after we get the mill installed, we’d be putting in the thermal kiln. Hopefully, we’d be up and running, sometime early next year, likely March, so we can hit the market again, for the decks and other outdoor products,” explained Bernie McGlynn, current owner of Bernie McGlynn Lumber/South Bruce Flooring.

The thermal kiln will be the first-of-its-kind machine in Ontario, allowing the McGlynn family to make outdoor decking, completely from Ontario grown trees, to compete with composite decking produced largely overseas.

To help get the project started, the province’s tariff fighting Forestry Sector Investment and Innovation Program is kicking in $1.6 million.

“I think the biggest impact we’re seeing coming out of the United States is uncertainty. Markets and investors don’t like uncertainty. So, part of our roadmap is making sure that we’re instilling that confidence back into the forestry sector here in Ontario to attract those investments, and grow the industry, and protect the jobs that rural and northern Ontario communities depend on,” said Ontario’s Associate Minister of Forestry and Forestry Products Kevin Holland, who was in Mildmay for last week’s announcement.

The expansion will add about five jobs, but will retain another 13, modernizing and stabilizing a South Bruce employer when the community needs it.

“A year or two ago we were involved in the process to bring a nuclear waste deep geologic repository (DGR) to the area, and when that kind of fell through, we said we were going to look at other alternatives to replace that, and here we are. This is a perfect example of South Bruce and the McGlynns’ working together, along with other levels of government to replace what we didn’t get with the DGR,” said Municipality of South Bruce Mayor Mark Goetz.

The McGlynn family is excited about what the future holds.

“We need to get more out of the products and have something that somebody else hasn’t done at the present time in a big way, and grow it from there,” said Bernie.

“This is all very important because it’s going to put us ahead of a lot of other competition, and give us new markets and continue to grow,” added Luke.