Sunday, March 11, 2007

Our Have-Not Province

In my humble opinion, one of the key reasons this province is in the mess it's in is because our governments have been keeping Labrador down since Confederation. They have been controlling the population of the bigland by keeping industries away or by dividing them with the island. i.e.'s 1.Labrador Linerboard. 2.Voisey's Bay 3.Alcoa Aluminum etc. If, on the other hand they allowed industries to fully develop in Labrador using Labrador's low cost Hydro Power, there would be more jobs then workers in the bigland could handle. Workers would have to come from the island in the thousands to fill the work positions. Isn't that far better then having to leave to help other provinces with their work force problems?

The government should be taking advantage of the fact that a hugh section of their province is part of the landmass of North America, Labrador isn't an island.
Labrador is the land of opportunity like Alberta with all its resources. Newfoundland has been shooting itself in the foot since 1949 by dividing and conquering this bigland called Labrador and for what? The island has been seeing their people leaving in droves, leaving for rich Alberta instead of rich Labrador. If Labrador was permitted to develop, rich Labrador would be fantastic for the whole province. The proof is in the pudding, what this province has been doing isn’t working so some major changes have to be made to save it. Changes that may go against the board of trade in St.John’s but so be it. What must be done must be done in spite of their resistance. The outcome would be prosperity.
i.e There wouldn't be a problem of coming up with funds for a fixed link, that could be done in short order.

If Ontario can prosper from environmentally destructive Nuclear Power, Labrador could surely do it with Hydro Power.

The powers that be should smarten up and build a four-lane highway across Labrador to Quebec and get rid of the foolishness from Joey's days, foolishness like, "we will never build a highway to Quebec". What have that foolishness done for this province, diddly squat, I say.

Think for a minute about what mainlanders say about island of Newfoundland people, "stupid Newfies" and face it head on and maybe tell yourselves there is something to it. I mean we have continuously given our raw resources to other provinces, we chase those resources for work, and our workers turn those resources into finish products and sell them back to the island. Why can't the products be made here, especially Labrador and sent the other way?

Labrador isn't that far away from Ontario or the United States and we are on the boarder of Quebec. It's like a Geologist told me once at the Voisey's Bay and Beyond Conference. He said that we were gonna benefit 100% from this Nickel Mine. I asked him, how do you figure that unless we turn the Nickel in Stainless Steel right here using our cheap clean Hydro Power. He said that we couldn't turn the Nickel at Voisey's Bay into Stainless Steel right here in Labrador because Labrador was to far from the markets. I asked him where the major markets for Stainless Steel were. Expecting him to say, Europe or Asia somewhere, but he told me it was the United States. I told him I thought we were near the boarder of the United States.

I often wonder if people think Labrador is on the Moon somewhere.

No comments: