The Big Land, Newfoundland or No Man's Land

We as a people have been treated like a poor cousin in Canada. We have been allowed to flounder around for decades. Our resources are taken to provide jobs in smelters and refineries. Very little funding is given for our infrastructure, roads, hospitals, etc. Infrastructure funds are usually doled out according to population base and we have such a small population. When an issue arises that is of great importance to us, we are the last to be heard because we have so few elected seats. The list goes on and on.

Stop for just a second....

I don’t know how many Newfoundlanders realize it, but when reading the previous paragraph, if you simply substituted the word Newfoundland for the word Canada in the first sentence, you would be telling the story of Labrador, and it’s treatment within the Province.

As much as we as a province feel left out and used by the Federal Government, so to do the people of Labrador feel abandoned by the Province itself. Many of us who live on the island don’t realize that we have a crisis within our own province that is a mirror image of the one we are having within the country. The people of Labrador are fed up, and rightfully so.

Labrador with a land mass 3 times bigger than the island only contains about 5% of the population of the province. This population is spread out over a huge geographic area and many places are cutoff from the world for months at a time. The big land is a treasure trove of minerals that are being used to feed the coffers of the federal and provincial governments. Very little of the wealth and fewer jobs – in the form of smelters, mills, etc. – comes back into the area.

Labrador has been a part of Canada for over a half a century and still it only has about 100 miles of paved road. Think about that the next time you complain about a pothole on the Prince Philip Parkway or on Main Street in Grand Falls – Windsor.

It amazes me that in a province so attuned to the way we are treated by the rest of the Country, we could be so blind to the way we are treating a segment of our own population.

We all know the arguments that Ottawa has given us over the years. The most common of which is that the population is too small to warrant such a large expenditure. In reality we know that we aren’t getting what we need because the money will buy more votes in Upper Canada. Knowing these things, how can our own Provincial Government turn around and make the same arguments to Labrador? How can they pander to the voting public on the island while neglecting a key member of our family?

I am a strong advocate for our fair treatment within the Dominion of Canada. Having said that, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I didn’t support the people of Labrador. Their fight is a just one, a struggle for fairness and equality.

I put the challenge out to everyone on the island to look at yourself in the mirror and tell me what you see. Do you see someone who would fight alongside the people of Labrador, or someone who feels that they themselves deserve better, but to hell with everyone else. Think about it.

My mother always said, what comes around goes around. There are plenty of those types of sayings and we’ve all heard them over the years

As yea sow, so shall yea reap. Treat your neighbour as you would be treated yourself. These platitudes all say basically the same thing. Do the right thing and the right thing will be done for you. They have been passed down from generation to generation because they are more than just pretty words. They are words to live by.

In closing I just want to say that I know it will take a lot more fighting, dealing and pressuring in Ottawa for us to finally rise up to where we belong in this Country. We would do well to remember that we stand a much better chance of winning if we are all united and if we can show by our handling of Labrador issues that fair and ethical treatment is the hallmark of our people and our Government.

Before we can win the war we have a number of battles to fight and more than a few of them are with ourselves.