Shane Kurki

Pollard Banknote owners announced Thursday the plant will close down at the end of February.

Kamloops-Thompson MLA Kevin Krueger was once ridiculed by the NDP for demanding Pollard Banknote receive preferential treatment to print B.C. Lottery Corp. tickets in Kamloops.

But a decade later, Krueger said government can no longer award contracts based on where jobs are created.

Krueger called it “galling” that Pollard Banknote is closing its Kamloops plant, axing about 200 jobs, and turning its back on the province that helped build its business.

Winnipeg-based Pollard Banknote told employees Thursday it will close the doors on the Kamloops plant Feb. 26 and move production to other plants, including in Winnipeg and Michigan.

In January this year, B.C. Lottery Corp. awarded Pollard Banknote, along with another American company, rights to print millions of scratch and win tickets for the next five years. But the contract did not stipulate where they would be produced.

The lottery corporation refused comment Friday on the contracts or job loss in Kamloops.

Pollard Banknote built a printing plant in Kamloops after the lottery corporation was established here by the Social Credit government in the mid-1980s. It remained its exclusive supplier for more than two decades.

Support for Pollard embroiled Krueger in a controversy when he was an Opposition member in the late 1990s. The city MLA approached the minister responsible for gaming, Dan Miller, in the New Democrat government asking for a contract extension for Pollard in Kamloops.

Krueger said Pollard representatives told him at the time “they needed to be treated as a special case” and threatened to close the Kamloops plant if they didn’t get the contract.

“They argued that repeatedly.”

New Democrat MLAs ridiculed the Liberal gaming critic — who aggressively attacked gambling expansion — for playing both sides of the gaming issue.

Despite antics in the legislature, the NDP awarded another five-year preferential contract to Pollard through the lottery corporation. The Liberals, however, did away with similar arrangements.

NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston said he believes there is still a place for preferential contracts based on local supply.

“They (Pollard Banknote) just signed a big contract yet they won’t be doing business in B.C. anymore, other than to collect cheques,” he said.

Ralston also noted the Liberal government axed the B.C. Job Protection Commissioner, who intervened in plant closures in an effort to find ways to keep operations open.

Krueger said some Pollard employees warned him when the Liberals moved to open tendering several years ago they would be vulnerable.

“I had letters from employees saying this could put their jobs at risk,” he acknowledged.

Pollard Banknote’s finance officer, Robert Rose, would not put an exact figure on the job loss Friday, saying only it is between 180 and 200 jobs.

Krueger said the company is offering workers employment elsewhere, but that won’t help the city’s economy cope with the loss of 200 family-supporting jobs.

“This is really tough on employees.”

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