If I am hearing David Cochrane correctly as he does a debrief on CBC Radio, Premier Danny Williams insisted that nobody leave Harbour Breton last year when the town's only employer closed, and now cabinet is set to reject the bulk of the plan the local economic development committee developed over the past year.
Hmmm.
By the sounds of the project Cochrane described, the ideas that came up were typical - lots of government money, not much chance of success - that are typical of projects that come from desperate people in desperate situations.
It was almost laughable to hear Cochrane passing on what were obviously comments of some senior government political types that the plans to re-open the fish plant basically didn't offer any chance of success, or words to that effect.
The comments were laughable since the very reason the plant was closed is that refurbishing and restarting it wasn't really an economically viable option.
Not surprisingly, Cochrane is reporting differences of opinion within the community about what types of activity will have the best chance of success, who will get certain jobs and so on and so on. It's not surprising because in a desperate town, that's what happens. It's also not surprising since it is an easy excuse for government to blame the locals, even though government has done precious little itself to help out here.
Compare Harbour Breton to Stephenville and its committee of the highest level cabinet ministers doing the work that the local people of Harbour Breton have been trying to do by themselves.
Does it strike anyone else that this is the tortures of the damned for the people of Harbour Breton?
The Premier basically did everything he could to insist, coax and cajole people to stay in the community rather than leave Harbour Breton for work elsewhere. The government itself has provided minimal help - the rejection of the proposal is witness to that - and now the whole process of developing some kind of development plan is likely to start all over again.
