We'll have what they're having

From the Fred City Daily Gleaner:

NB needs a weather office

There was a time when each province had its own Environment Canada weather office which was responsible for producing the provincial weather forecasts.

In Atlantic Canada, there was one in Gander, Dartmouth and Fredericton. In the early 2000s under the Liberal federal government, several of the smaller weather offices across the country were amalgamated into the larger centres. This meant that the Gander and the Fredericton offices were moved to Dartmouth.

In the wake of this, Newfoundlanders were outraged with their weather forecasts being produced in Nova Scotia instead of Newfoundland.

I think Newfoundland and Labrador's discontentment was partly due to a perceived reduction in forecast quality -- as in, How can a Nova Scotia office have as much expertise on Newfoundland and Labrador weather as an office in Newfoundland and Labrador? -- and partly due to the uprooting of well-paid federal jobs from a province that has had its share of things taken away from it.

Over the ensuing months and years, a petition to reinstate the Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador weather office was circulated and gathered more than 100,000 signatures.

Since there was an impending federal election, the petition garnered the signatures of Paul Martin and Stephen Harper and both promised to reinstate the Newfoundland and Labrador weather office if elected.

So, when the Conservatives were elected, Harper kept his word and reinstated the Newfoundland and Labrador weather office in Gander in 2006.

This scenario begs a follow-up question: Why don't New Brunswickers want the New Brunswick weather office reinstated? Cleary a precedent has been set and if New Brunswickers were passionate enough on this issue, change would happen.

Carl Arsenault
Moncton, N.B.