 PETER BLACK Gasping & Grasping in Gaspé
The Gaspé Peninsula may not be the Golden Horseshoe or Silicon Valley, but is it really Quebec's very own piece of the Third World?
That's what some fuming locals claim as the area's economic troubles mount, and it slides backwards in the midst of one of the greatest economic booms North America has ever seen.
The charge is that government overlords have concocted a dirty, rotten colonialist plot to suppress the local economy in order to supply cheap labour for the big cities.
This grim theory, advanced by a group called Action des Patriotes Gaspésiens, led by Gaston Langlais, a local college professor, may be somewhat hysterical -- although it's backed, they say, by a secret government study. Nevertheless there would appear to be something definitely screwy going on that a place seemingly blessed with so many natural advantages has managed to escape lasting 20th century economic development.
Langlais' group says the alleged deliberate policy of keeping the Gaspé downtrodden amounts to "economic genocide" and there's talk of taking the region's case to human rights tribunals in Geneva, plus launching lawsuits against the federal and provincial governments. These actions may draw attention to the Gaspé's plight, but they don't explain what has gone wrong.
Leaving aside the breath-taking beauty which draws thousands of visitors every year, either for salmon-fishing, camping, ogling Percé, or inspecting the collection of historic attractions along the highway that hugs the Baie des Chaleur coast, the Gaspé would seem to have a whole lot to offer would-be industrialists.
Geographically speaking, Gaspé harbour would appear to be blessed with many advantages for Atlantic shipping, an attribute that was noted by Jacques Cartier when he planted a cross for France there in 1534. Located near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and not all that far by land, river, or sea from the lucrative markets of the U.S. northeast, one might have expected the port to have boomed and bloomed.
But no, except for the fishery that sustained it for nearly 500 years, and periodic bursts of wartime activity, Gaspé town never became the maritime and industrial hub suggested by logic. Now that the groundfish fishery glory days are gone, at least for the time being, the port languishes.
Further down the Baie des Chaleurs, at Chandler, an immediate life and death struggle is going on. Last fall Montreal-based Abitibi-Consolidated pulled the plug on its money-losing. strike-prone Gaspesia paper mill that once employed 600 well-paid workers and sustained the town of 5000 with its $40 million annual payroll.
While the town empties of people seeking work elsewhere in the province or the country, the remaining laid-off workers, themselves hampered by union in-fighting, are trying to get governments, Abitibi, and a potential buyer together to get the mill running again. The problem is that Abitibi doesn't want any competition from another owner in an already crowded newsprint market, but to produce another type of paper would require a mega-million dollar modernization investment.
To make matters worse, the loss of the Chandler mill endangers rail service to the area, which is already on shaky ground with the shutdown of the Murdochville copper mine last year. If the freight train pulls out, there would be scant industrial users to maintain the track, which would threaten the Via Rail passenger service that brings thousands of tourists into the region during peak season.
There are no easy answers to Gaspé's predicament; indeed, one of the few growth industries is the activity of economic development agencies, think tanks, and committees trying to come up with some suggestions to bring growth to the Gaspé beyond eco-tourism and retirement villages.
What's happened in the Gaspé has parallels in other Canadian coastal areas, notably in Newfoundland's struggle to pull itself out from the gloomy depths caused by the collapse of the fishery.
So, there is hope, but still, it's a crying shame that the people eking it out in such a magnificent chunk of the country must be subjected to ceaseless tests of their love and loyalty for their native land.
Copyright © 2000 Peter Black/Log Cabin Chronicles/01.2000 |
