(The following article is from the September 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Sean Burton

One hundred more manufacturing jobs can be added to the over 250,000 already lost across Canada in the last few years. Corner Brook could once claim to be an industrial centre of sorts in Newfoundland, boasting a large pulp and paper mill, a cement plant, and a wallboard gypsum plant. The cement plant closed well over a decade ago, and now the gypsum plant is joining it.

     The plant's owners, Lafarge, announced without warning early in July that they were closing the facility. The workers and the entire community were taken completely by surprise; many people thought the plant was doing well enough to get by. But according to Lafarge, diminishing markets and stronger competition forced them to make this difficult decision.

     The plant employs just over fifty people. Another fifty, primarily those involved in the shipping of the product, will also lose their jobs. A month later, the Williams government had yet to offer any serious commentary.

     The only major industry left in Corner Brook is the pulp and paper mill owned by Kruger, which directly employs almost one thousand people, and hundreds more indirectly. The mill has often told its employees and the public that it is having hard times, in spite of being one of Kruger's most profitable operations. The mill recently shut down one of its main machines for two weeks in an effort to stay "financially stable."

     This is only the latest in a series of industrial shutdowns in Newfoundland (and across Canada). The Stephenville pulp and paper mill owned by Abitibi Consolidated closed two years ago, and the other large mill in Grand Falls-Windsor closed one its main machines around the same time. The Williams government continues to act tough in the eyes of many Newfoundlanders, but this province still faces declining population due to the lack of stable, well paying jobs which workers can't get from Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire. Newfoundland and Labrador has oil, minerals, and other resources at its disposal, so there is no reason why our smaller cities and towns should be faced with such decline.

     This October, Newfoundlanders will go to the polls. Will voters back "Danny boy" to deliver the goods in the future? The answer is almost irrelevant, since the local Liberal and NDP opposition are lagging far behind Williams and his "fighting Newfoundlander" mystique. Meanwhile, another hundred people must figure out where in Canada they will have to move to support their families.