Grassroots Without Borders

An interesting little tidbit hit the news in two provinces last week, though without the prominence it deserves.

VOCM reported (link now defunct):

Communities Working Together for Better Results
January 24, 2007

Communities in northern Newfoundland, southern Labrador and the Quebec lower north shore are thinking of themselves as one region. They're calling it "A Region Without Borders." Mayors in the region met in Blanc Sablon recently to talk about what they feel is an inadequate transportation system and problems of isolation. They're calling on governments to improve road links in the area.

Similarly, Radio-Canada reported:

Développement des régions
Des maires s'unissent pour le bien de leur région

Mise à jour le mercredi 24 janvier 2007, 11 h 38 .

La municipalité de Blanc-Sablon a été le lieu d'une rencontre historique la semaine dernière. Des dizaines de maires de la Basse-Côte-Nord et de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador s'y sont rencontrés pour discuter d'isolement et de l'exode massif de la population.

Les maires soutiennent que leur économie est paralysée en raison d'infrastructures de transport déficientes. Selon le président du Conseil des maires de la Basse-Côte-Nord et porte-parole du regroupement, Randy Jones, un lien routier entre la Basse-Côte-Nord et le Labrador pourrait tout changer. « C'est la seule place où il reste du développement à faire et les routes vont faire en sorte que l'on va changer notre sort si vous voulez. On ne peut pas développer rien sans avoir la route », fait-il valoir.

Pendant que la frontière entre Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador et le Québec fait toujours l'objet de querelles entre les deux gouvernements, les maires souhaitent mettre sur pied une stratégie commune. « On a écouté la bureaucratie pendant les 50 dernières années, venir avec des solutions pour essayer de sauver nos villages, de dépenser des millions de dollars pour absolument rien faire. Là, c'est un mouvement de la base qui va prendre ça en main », affirme Randy Jones.

Les centres locaux de développement de la Basse-Côte-Nord appuient les démarches des maires. Le regroupement espère maintenant convaincre Développement économique Canada et ACOA, l'équivalent dans les maritimes, de se joindre à leur cause.

Une rencontre est prévue cette semaine avec le ministère des Transports du Québec.

It's gotten attention in the francophone press in Quebec as well, as in this piece from Le Nord-Est Plus in Sept-Iles.

Des maires abolissent la frontière Québec-Labrador!
Par Jean-Guy Gougeon

Réunis la semaine dernière à Blanc Sablon, des maires de la Basse Côte-Nord, du sud du Labrador et du nord de l'Île de Terre-Neuve ont aboli dans leur esprit la frontière séparant le Québec du Labrador depuis 1927.

Une région sans frontières, qui a besoin de liens routiers. C'est le message que le président du Conseil des maires de la Basse Côte-Nord et maire de Gros-Mécatina, Randy Jones veut apporter aux élus du Québec et de Terre-Neuve. Car les maires, les collectivités et les représentants régionaux se sont réunis à Blanc Sablon pour discuter du prolongement de la route 138, d'un lien terrestre avec Terre-Neuve, des problématiques d'isolement et de l'exode massif de leur population.

La priorité a été donnée à la construction de la route 138 entre Vieux-Fort et Kégaska, longue de 376 kilomètres, de même qu'à l'amélioration des routes existantes, soit des tronçons entre quelques localités de ce secteur, totalisant au plus cinquante kilomètres.

Le développement d'un lien terrestre entre la Basse Côte-Nord et l'île de Terre-Neuve sera le «dernier clou» de la transcanadienne, selon le maire Jones. Celui-ci a déjà entrepris des démarches pour rencontrer les dirigeants québécois et terre-neuviens.

Un comité a été formé à l'issue de la rencontre de Blanc Sablon, le maire Jones a été nommé pour représenter ce comité.

One of the attendees, Burf Ploughman penned the following email [link won't be active forever] to Bill Rowe, in response to Rowe's shock column earlier in the month:

Time to get in bed with Quebec

Bill,

Excellant commentary. Should be read by every Newfoundland and Labradorian.

If we could only get the Upper Churchill monkey off our back we could then start to sensibly discuss the rationale for our two Provinces to start working together to pursue common goals and interests.

You very eloqently outlined the commonalities we both share and which we do not have with any other Province.You also make a strong case for increasing our political influence at the Federal level by aligning ourselves with Quebec.

The one area where I would disagree with you is with regard to your suggestion we have a political union with Quebec.

May I take the liberty of proposing another alternative which may be more practical and achievable.

Let us consider a Coalition with Quebec.For the purpose of definition I prefer the one that states "it is a union of people and organizations working for a common cause. "

You may be interested in knowing this process has already started..

I was privileged to attend an historic meeting in Blanc Sablon, Quebec, on Wednesday,January 17 of this year. The meeting brought together the Mayors of the Quebec Lower North Shore ,the Mayors of Southern Labrador and the Mayors of St. Anthony and Roddickton on the Northern Peninsula.

What caused it to be historic was the fact that it was the first time since 1927, the year the borders were defined by the Privy Council, that the community leaders from the Quebec Lower North Shore and Southern Labrador had met.The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a strategy for completing Highway 138, the last section of road to connect the Lower North Shore with the rest of Quebec, completing the fixed link accross the Strait of Belle Isle which will give our Province a direct road link with the rest of Canada and to encourage our two Provinces to work together on the proposed hydro projects in Quebec and the Lower Churchill.Combined these hydro projects are estimated to cost close to 50 Billion dollars.To put his in perspective Alberta is planning to spend 90 billion in oil development over the next decade.

In addition to dealing with these various issues it was also decided to form a Coalition to meet on a regular basis to deal with other issues of common interest.

What is of particular interest with regard to this initiative is that it is not originating from St. John's, Quebec City or Ottawa but from rural Quebec Lower North Shore and rural Southern Labrador.

The proposition I would now like to make to you is let us expand on this initiative to form a Coalition between the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Province of Quebec.

Let the debate begin.

Indeed! The debate should begin. A sensible, factual one. It's long past time.

This effort on the part of southern Labrador, northern Newfoundland, and the Quebec North Shore, is just the latest in a long line. Going back to the 1980s, there have been periodic efforts by mayors of communities along the highway from Baie-Comeau to Happy Valley-Goose Bay to bridge the provincial, cultural, and linguistic divide. The record has been mixed. There has been a lot of talk. There has been much less action.

Given the frequent tendency to turf-protection that has often prevented southern Labrador and northern Newfoundland (let alone adding the Coasters from Quebec into the mix) from working effectively together, the organizers of "Region Without Borders" deserve full marks for getting this far. These regions have much more in common than they have apart; much more in common than many in either region often even realize. But this endeavour, as with any other grassroots and mossroots effort to link — politically, socially, economically — three regions into one, numerous social segments into something larger than the sum of its parts, is only as successful as the first interprovincial obstacle it runs up against.

And there's lies the problem.

As long as nationalist Newfoundlanders are suspicious of Quebec; as long as nationalist Quebecers are resentful of the mere existence of Labrador; as long as nationalists on either side of the provincial border, at least the one running, theoretically, down the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, hold out the other as a strawman and a target of vilification; as long, in short, as interprovincial relations, at the provincial government level, and at the level of the broader provincial society, involves little more than a slightly less crude version of Smallwood and Duplessis literally, or metaphorically, urinating across the provincial boundary line; then these grassroots efforts will continue to come to naught.

All the best intentions are only as powerful as the first bout of interprovincial sniping, petty jealousy, or misguided protectionism that the intentions run up against.

Yes, this means you, John Ottenheimer. And vigile.net. And those in Newfoundland who seem to think that with a highway connecting Labrador to Quebec, and especially without a precious "fixed link", that somehow Labrador will become Quebecified, and no longer be part of the province.

The real threat to provincial unity doesn't come from Labrador's proximity to Quebec. It comes from its distance from Newfoundland; a distance that grows with every double-standard on resource development or provincial policy decision, and every buck-passing to the federal government.

If nationalist Newfoundlanders and nationalist Quebecers care as much as they profess to do about the far-flung and forgotten outposts of their accidental 19th-century geographical empires, they will do the right thing by these grassroots attempts, on the part of the frontier communities, realizing that they are in the same boat, to pull together:

If they can't get out and help, they can at least get out of the way.