Tembec Temporarily Shuts Down Its Béarn, Quebec Sawmill

Temiscaming, Quebec, Canada, 15 August 2006 – Tembec today announced a temporary shutdown at its Béarn sawmill in Quebec. This shutdown will last for a minimum of four weeks, effective 20 August 2006. This shutdown comes in addition to two weeks of outage taken in July at the Béarn facility, part of a market-related temporary capacity withdrawal that affected 10 out of the 11 Tembec sawmills located in Quebec and Ontario.

"This shutdown is due to a combination of factors, including overall market conditions, product pricing, and the high value of the Canadian dollar," said Dennis Rounsville, executive vice president and president of Tembec's Forest Products Group. "We regret the impact that this will have on our employees, but unfortunately the particularly high delivered wood costs in this region rendered this specific sawmill more vulnerable to challenging market conditions," Rounsville said.

The Béarn sawmill has an annual production capacity of 110,000 Mfbm of SPF lumber and employs approximately 150 people. Management has already met with employees to inform them of the company's decision.

Tembec is a large, diversified and integrated forest products company. With operations principally located in North America and in France, the company employs approximately 10,000 people. Tembec's common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol TBC. Additional information on Tembec is available on its Web site at www.tembec.com.