Without Our Past, What Does Our Future Hold?
Many of the problems being experienced in the rural communities of Newfoundland and Labrador these days are nothing new under the sun. Since the first settlers arrived hundreds of years ago survival in the outports has been tough and prosperity nearly beyond hope. The difference back then was the abundance of fish that was available to help support far flung towns and villages. Today that resource is all but gone and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Many people in Newfoundland and Labrador recall, or have at least heard, how the Province’s first Premier, Joey Smallwood, tried to re-settle rural areas of the Province decades ago. Back in the day, Smallwood openly tried to persuade, entice and coerce entire villages into uprooting their families, giving up the past and moving to larger communities in order to help support the population and stabilize the Province.
It was Smallwood’s belief that government could not afford to provide roads, schools, hospitals and other services to the more remote areas. He believed that if things didn’t change the Province would develop into a two tier society where people in larger centers, such as St. John’s, would have access services that not available in the rest of the province he also believed that the cost of keeping those small towns alive would eventually crush the Province financially. The status quo could not continue. The plan was a dismal failure in the end and although many people did move to larger towns, many more did not. As a result there are still hundreds of small communities dotting the Province's coastline and costing the small tax base a fortune to maintain.
The problems recognized by Smallwood are no different today, in fact they’re even worse. Today the cost to government still exists and is growing. In addition to this, the industries that once supported people in many of those communities are dying before our eyes. Today making any kind of a decent living in rural Newfoundland and Labrador has become about as rare as finding a big fish in your net. Life isn’t getting easier for the people there, it’s steadily worsening. The collapse of the fishery in the early 90’s, the pull out of Abitibi Consolidated from Stephenville, ongoing problems with FPI, pricing problems in the shrimp and crab industry and now a bankruptcy facing Dailey Brothers fish plants, have all added to the mess. Simply put, life in rural communities has been under siege for decades.
Today the Province has the largest per capita debt in the country, the highest unemployment and arguably one of the most wide spread populations. It’s a geographically large province by any standard yet only has the population of a small city. The questions asked decades ago still exist. How can the province sustain infrastructure and services to such a large area? How can equality of services be assured when there are villages consisting of a few dozen families living many hours away from the nearest large center? How can the people in rural communities find a way to make a living without needing repeated government intervention and how can the Province help maintain the rural way of life if it can’t afford to service or support it?
I personally wish rural Newfoundland and Labrador would not only survive but prosper like no other place on earth. I come from a small town so I understand what life there is all about. I also understand that losing the towns and villages of the Province will be a loss like no other. Having those areas die off would be one of the saddest things ever to have happened to the Province. It would mean losing a big part of what Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans are.
Everyone knows that the songs, love for nature, respect for each other and innate ability to help others without a second thought, which the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are known for, were all born from living in those remote areas. Traits resulting from a strong survival instinct bred into the population by their environment. I know all of those things, but I also see the reality of the world today, a world where time and technology change so rapidly, that you either ride the crest of the wave or you drown. Today survival isn’t necessarily about getting along with each other and helping your neighbor, instead it’s about efficiencies and fiscal responsibilities. Like the song says, “You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing”.
The reality for rural Newfoundland and Labrador today is much the same as it was in Premier Smallwood’s time, but even more problematic. No Government, either federally or provincially, can continue throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the situation without seeing some kind of a return on that investment. Yes, one time support may be possible, even two or three times but eventually the well has to run dry. Already we are hering calls from the fisheries union for the provincial government to provide financial support to fish plant workers displaced by the Dailey Brothers bankruptcy, but will they get it? This is a situation where a private company, hit by the financial realities of today, has been forced into bankruptcy and like any private company its workers are left to fend for themselves. That is the type of reality these communities will have to face more and more going forward and they may have to realize that government cannot be the answer to all their problems.
How long can the Province continue to spend millions on top of millions in order to protect a past that is clearly becoming exactly that, the past? I wonder sometimes if Newfoundland and Labrador will ever realize its dream of becoming a “Have” province. Can it get there if it continues to pour so much money into maintaining hospitals, health centers, schools, roads, policing, government services and everything else to so many far flung locations? Can it get there if it continues to provide financial support to communities that are clearly on an ever worsening downward spiral? I often wonder about that. I also look at what makes the people of the Province who they are and I wonder if turning our collective backs on the past and letting those rural communities die is a price that is simply too high to pay. What kind of future will it be if in order to achieve it we are forced to give up that way of life?
22 comments:
Why not talk about the Canadian Seafood Boycott?
Myles, usually I loathe you and your writing but this was an incredibly eloqent, beautiful and poetic piece that lays out the conflict between ruralism, globalism and modernity.
Good work.
PS to Anonymous - The boycott has nothing to do with any of it.
Anon,
Thank-you for the kind words although I'm sorry to hear you loathe me so much.
I guess that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things though as long as you, and others, keep reading the articles and as long as those articles continue to make people react on either side of an issue. Discussion and communication is what this site is about after all.
Nothing to do with it? Elaborate on shellfish prices, would you?
All of these small remote communities would be able to survive if not thrive if there was roads connecting them to the rest of the world.
NL problem is IMHO a lack of infrastructure and year round trade and transportation routes.
The cost of ferries along the south shore alone could have paid for a road since we joined this phoney federation of Colonial/Federalism.
With a road power lines would have came and the remoal of dependance on generated electricity.
The TLH is only being put in to access more minerals not to give access to remote rural communities. The majority of Labrador is still going to be serviced by third world ferries operation in one of the harshest climates in the world.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/04/24/old-ferries060424.html
NL problem is IMHO a lack of infrastructure and year round trade and transportation routes.
Most of NL's population has year-round trade and transportation routes.
The cost of ferries along the south shore alone could have paid for a road
Have you done that calculation? Could you share it?
since we joined this phoney federation of Colonial/Federalism.
What's phoney about it?
With a road power lines would have came
Power lines don't require roads at all. The power lines in Labrador, for the most part, don't follow roads, and pre-date the construction of roads even where they do. The Lower North Shore of Quebec is fed from the Robertson Lake power station, from which lines fan up and down the coast. Only Blanc Sablon to Old Fort, and Tabatiere to Mutton Bay, are connected by road; the rest of the communities are not linked to one another on the ground.
The TLH is only being put in to access more minerals not to give access to remote rural communities.
(a) What minerals?
(b) Where are those minerals?
(c) How do you build a road that "accesses more minerals", yet doesn't give access to remote rural communities?
The majority of Labrador is still going to be serviced by third world ferries operation in one of the harshest climates in the world.
Of 32 communities in Labrador, there are nine, with about 12 percent of Labrador's population, that are dependent on ferries, or, in the case of Mud Lake, private transportation. The other 22, with 88 per cent of Labrador's population, are connected to at least one other community by road.
Why hasn't the provincial government of which Labrador is a part put more money into Labrador's highway system? Why don't Newfoundlanders pressure Danny Williams to cough up, instead of passing the buck to the federal government for anything and everything to do with Labrador other than tax collection?
I can't agree that they would survive simply because of roads, powerlines and infrastructure. Simply having an easier way to access a community does not make it viable.
There are plenty of towns that have roads and power but are barely surviving or even dying. They often manage to hang on simply because they are close enough to some major industry or bigger town allowing the people who live there to find work.
Roads and power will not change the remote location of a town. If they are (for example) 3 or 4 hours from a major center living there will not make working in that larger center possible and 9 times out of 10, any new industry or business will settle in the larger center.
The only thing that will help communities like those is if they have some sort of local industry (like fishing) which many don't and it isn't a simple matter to get something else going in many of them.
In reality, developing roads and power structures into places where there are small populations and little or no industry likely to take hold, simply means additional cost for the provincial tax base, not survival of the community.
We need to cut the apron strings now before its too late and let nature take her course. If a town survives it survives or it doesnt. Why keep propping up towns that have no future?
Its time to move forward or we'll never amount to anything.
simply means additional cost for the provincial tax base, not survival of the community.
I suppose building, servicing and manning ferries is free?
Not to mention the loss of trade tourism and everything else that comes with having isolated communities.
NL is a coastal country was and will always be and as such it should have coastal highways not these roads through the hinterland with ofshoots to every nook and cranny like we have now.
What was the reason for building the Cabot trail in Cape breton there aren't any communities there that couldn't have been serviced by ferry.
I'm not talking about 4 lane divide highways, two lane dirt roads would be better than ferry service IMHO and cost less in the long run while at the same time providing a real time transportation link.
Our future will look bleak if we allow communities to die a natural death. Communities like Grand Bank and Fortune which has been around since the 1700s, first settled by the French are towns that are rich in history of the fishery and its people. The fishery must be fix where it will benefit the people of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. We must have the quotas tied into the communities and all fish caught within the 200 mile limit to be process in the province. By doing this, the only thing one may worry about is the price of fish. Instead we are being held hostage to companies like FPI,government policies on both levels concerning the fishery and policies that are directed to empty out rural parts of Canada. These policies makes it hard for anyone to live in a rural part of Canada. We should fight for rural Newfoundland and Labrador, because we do not have anything to lose. The FPIs of the world, would like to see all fishing activities shut down in North America, so foreigners can catch and process the fish at cheap labour costs. The only trouble with this model is that the consumers are still paying high prices at the retail level. If the fisheries die in Newfoundland and Labrador, our culture will die too. Why not fight for government policies that will benefit the people? If we don't fight, our way of life will die as the towns are dying.
NL is a coastal country
NL isn't a country, coastal or otherwise.
What was the reason for building the Cabot trail in Cape breton there aren't any communities there that couldn't have been serviced by ferry.
The Cabot trail, as with the Gaspé highway before it as another good example, was built over much easier terrain than the south coast of Newfoundland.
I'm not talking about 4 lane divide highways, two lane dirt roads would be better than ferry service IMHO and cost less in the long run
Have you, or anyone else, done the math that confidently predicts that it would "cost less in the long run"?
while at the same time providing a real time transportation link.
"Real time transportation link"? What's that?
There are plenty of coastal communities -- coastal BC, large swaths of Alaska, the Western Isles, coastal Norway -- which manage quite nicely without a highway link, with ferries only. It can be done. The problem with south coast Newfoundland is that the ferry systems stinks. It is good for neither locals, nor for unlocking the tremendous tourism potential of the region. That, not the lack of a road, is the real short-sightedness.
Someone needs to check out what they do in Quebec with the North Shore coastal boat and the Magdalen Islands cruise-ferry. They are YEARS ahead of what the unimaginative, race-to-the-bottom NL provincial government is doing to ferries and coastal boats.
You know it's damn near impossible to book a tourist trip on the nearly-empty Northern Ranger to northern Labrador these days?
Geniuses.
For those of you who didn't know it, Newfoundland is a province of Canada, the ugly-assed little triangle floating off the east coast. We also have Labrador, but like the dead bodies under the stairs, we don't like to talk about it much.
So. Newfoundland. Home of Newfies, fish, outrageously bad accents, unemployement, and moose. Our main exports include enough oil to keep us going, but not enough for the US to invade us, unemployed homeless fishermen, and fish. Well, not even the fish anymore, since almost all of them are gone.
Now for the real topic. Every country has patriotic citizens. Some more than others. Some, in the case of Quebec in the 60's, have some separatist movements. But never did I dream that Newfoundland, Canada's case of genital warts that keeps leeching money, would want to separate.
Almost everwhere you go, you see people wearing Free Nfld! shirts, hats, bumper stickers, etc, or Newfoundland Liberation Army shirts, with a photo of an army of awe-inspiring greatness: about 20 some odd guys holding up fiddles, accordions, fishing rods, and the occasional hunting rifle.
Yes, I realise this is all in good fun, but remember just a year or two ago, when good ol' Danny Williams ordered the Canadian flag taken down because the federal governement wouldn't give them all the profits from the oil company. NO! No Danny, they hate us enough as it is, without you being a whiny douche bag.
Trust me, the last thing Newfounland needs is to be on its own. Canada might not even notice our disappearance, but we would be screwed like it's nobody's buisness getting screwed that badly.
"WOOHOOH! We gone done it by's!"
And so, the first few wild nights of partying would begin, and continue, and continue until every last inhabitant of this fair new country would slump, passed out, over his cousin, hoping he'd forget what had just happened.
Then, the government would step in, and new rules and regulations would be set down.
Pre-teens everywhere would rejoice as the legal drinking age, the legal driving age, skidooing, and ATVing ages would be reduced to 8.
Driving while inebriated would promptly be encouraged, with fines of up to $500 for driving while sober.
And everywhere, the pround and magnificent flag of the Democratic Republic of Newfoundland would be flown, its green, white and pink swaying in the breeze.
Yes, that's right.
Then the entire world would set up a collective cheer as Newfoundland drank, smoked, and screwed itself in a downward spiral into oblivion.
So, I say,
NO YOU POLE-SMOKING MORONS!!
Patriotism is good, but only when your country is something to be proud of. I grew up in here, and if I can find some way off this godforsaken rock, I'm out!
Be happy that you are part of a great country.
Now go shoot some moose.
Yes!!!
Tie the fishery industry to the rural communities! This is a fantastic idea! We are trying to get the lumbering industry of New Brunswick tied to our rural communities too. The Conservative government is not interested in the idea but the Liberals who have always been tied to the forestry industry in this province are more open to the idea. We are trying to get the issue on the agenda for the next election, hopefully soon!
We are not giving up! I hope rural Newfoundlanders never give up fighting for your rights either! Keep talking, keep posting, keep getting the truth out there!
You are not alone. There are rural communities all across Canada who are in the same boat trying to avoid heading for Alberta. There is no reason why some of those companies can't be set up in our rural areas except that we have not demanded it loudly enough!
We must stop re-acting and falling into depressions that either leave us immobile or puts us on a plane outta here instead we need to start taking action against our common enemies. Organize, protest, network, talk, talk, talk and do whatever it takes!
While I realize this may be the unpopular opinion:
So what in Newfoundland has great little historical towns? If they are not commercially viable why should the rest of the province (and country) subsidize the rights of Newfoundlanders to inhabit them.
If you want to live in a historic culturally rich town will all your friends and relatives get an industry to support yourselves.
If you can’t convince the world that Grand Bank (and every other dying community) is a mecca for tourism why should we/the government/FPI be supporting your right to live there?
When world demand for asbestos dried up or coal mines were scraped dry I don’t remember calls for the government to force the companies to keep operating, the government to support the citizens or the tax payers to pay for those people to remain in their town.
I think most ironic is the fact that people are requesting Canadian/Governmental sponsored Newfoundland Nationalism (Yea makes as much sense as Canadian supported Quebec nationalism) You want to be a country support your citizens, you want to live in you sunny little towns, support yourselves.
Is the term "make work project" still a PC term?
In the past the federal transfer funds went directly to the rural communities in the form of work projects. Today the transfer funds go to the province who use it for their own purposes or the purpose of their business partners instead of the people who actually need the money. Ever since they changed the direction of that funding the rural communities have been dying.
It is so bad right now that the government does not even recognize Local Service Districts as being part of Canada! If you want any access to municipal funds you have to become a Rural Community. The problem with the rural communities is that it is only a scam to get you to turn your property and woodlots over to the government to manage it for you. It is all an insurance scam with SunLife who hopes they will soon own your property.
To the person who said that FPI shouldn't be forced to stick around.... Why the hell not? They are the ones who depleted the fishing stocks from over-fishing. As you say, machines do the jobs of 100 people. It is the same in forestry here in New Brunswick, the harvesting machines do all the work and people are forced to move.
Enough! **** machines!
Pay up now you bloody thieves!
Ever hear of the Luddites?
Hey we'll be fine if the Feds give us control of the resource adjacent to our shores.
Maybe then we will stop dragging the bottom into oblivion. Draggers might be good for the bottom line of distance corporations and oblivious mutual fund holders who only want returns on their investment but destroying a habitat and harvesting a species into extinction isn't what I would call a sound management plan, and the morotorium imposed on the people of NL along with the illegalization of the food fishery is meant for one thing and one thing only Ontario's benefit. Be that as bartering for trade concessions with fish quotas or Bay street profits the end result is the same destruction of a renewable resource at the hands of DFO and all Canadians are that much the poorer because of it. Poorest of all Canadians are the Newfoundland and Labrador people for joining this shame of a federation where we are treated like secoind class citizens at best and mocked and dismised at worse.
Read the Royal Commission on NL's place in Canda if you don't believe me.
http://www.exec.gov.nl.ca/royalcomm/
Oh FPI took all the fish did they?? The Newfoundland fishermen who like to work a few weeks then relax the rest of the year certainly didn't take any fish. Noooooooo. No one complains about over-fishing when their nets are full and the money rolls in. If they get early retirement I will leave this province forever. Millions of people work 40 hour a week jobs all year round and when they lose work no one offers them early retirement. Quit expecting government to fix everything you lazy sods!
Hey we'll be fine if the Feds give us control of the resource adjacent to our shores.
Yes, so that Newfoundlanders can cause the extinction of fish species under provincial regulations instead of federal ones?
According to news reports:
Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has announced a multi-million dollar upgrade of DFO Headquarters in the White Hills. Hearn announced an upgrade worth nearly $9 million, which includes an aquarium renovation costing $5 million, $1.7 million for improved cold storage, and over $2 million for facilities to handle hazardous chemicals. Hearn says today's announcement is part of Ottawa's continued commitment to fish science.
All I have to say is if they are really committed why don't they spend some of that money to put patrol and science boats on the water to protect the fish and really learn about them.
What a crock.
Not to worry there will be an election soon because NL'ians are going to demand that our MP's walk out and represent us as Independants unless Harpocrite does something and fast with the fiasco of quotas being doled out to foreigners while fellow canadians are losing their cars houses families and being forced tro move to Oilberta.
Ol danny boy isn't much better with his closed doors meeting of our betters right where have i heard that before? Let me see Commission of government then confederation oh the powers that be have taken real good care of the people of NL and their associated resources adjacent to our shores. Yep closed door meeting where the subject of foreign quotas inside and out of the 200 mile Custodial management of Canada's continental shelf if she mind to lay claim to it in accordance with the United Nations Law of the Sea Article 76.
I'm just flaberghasted at the level of
disinterest and the attitudes towards NL'ians by my fellow Canadians?
I can only rationalize it by concluding that it is because of our political system and is inherant in this Colonial/Federalist Imperialist Confederation.
I agree wtih some post and disagree with other...every industry is becoming more efficient, I agree. Because a fish processing plant need not employ then entire town to operate does not mean they are "big bad industry".
As Newfrownlanders we are so reluctant to accept change. Sorry, but the world changes with or without us.
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