Reesor Siding strike of 1963

The violent confrontation occurred near the small Francophone hamlet of Reesor Siding (a ghost town today), which is located just west of Opasatika, approximately halfway between Kapuskasing and Hearst in Northern Ontario.

Fifteen hundred members of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union, Local 2995 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, walked out on strike on January 14, 1963, effectively halting operations at the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company which relied on their logs for wood pulp.

The situation deteriorated to the point that on January 23, the mayor of Kapuskasing, Norman Grant, was quoted in The Globe and Mail: "These settlers are getting so desperate they are going to go into the bush with guns and shoot anyone who tries to interfere with their cutting.

Later, Donald MacDonald, leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP), would declare that affidavits indicated the police knew that the farmers had brought firearms with them that night, but had not taken any precautions to ensure that they were not used.

Paul-Emile Coulombe, Léonce Tremblay, and Héribert Murray were charged with firearms violations arising from the incident, which resulted in fines of CA$150 (equivalent to $1,460 in 2023) to each of them.

In 2005, Brent St. Denis marked the 42nd anniversary of the confrontation in Parliament, and it has also been occasionally raised in the course of the business of the Ontario Legislature as an important milestone in labour history.