Politics and the Churchill Falls

Back in 1959 the International Woodworkers of America, IWA, a union involved in the forest industry in British Columbia came to this province to try and organize the loggers who supplied the two paper companies with wood A.N.D. in Grand Falls and Bowater’s in Corner Brook.  I worked in the woods at that time, and I stayed in wood camps that if you put a dog into them today you would be locked up; besides that, the pay was very low 50% of the pay of the people that worked indoors in the comfort of the mills.

When the loggers went on strike for better working conditions some camp operators, like Cecil Ball, grandfather of former Premier Dwight Ball, who had 3 wood camps and who treated his workers well, closed down in support of the loggers.

A lot of the contractors kept open with what was called scabs created a lot of tension with the loggers who were only trying to get a decent living and better camps.

The union planned a large rally in Badger of loggers from all over, Premier Smallwood sent a large cogent of RCMP officers to Badger, what was a peaceful protest turned into a riot which led to the death of Constable William Moss.  The person charged with the death off the Officer lived on the same road as I did in Deer Lake but was later cleared because they could not determine who swung the stick that killed him, the loggers or one of their own.

Joey Smallwood supported the paper companies and as soon as we began to win, he decertified the IWA union and enforced another union on the loggers, we did get better working conditions after that because of the IWA, but  we were defeated by our own government.

The loggers including myself hated what Premier Smallwood did to us and we never forgot there was a lot of voters including the families and friends of the loggers used our votes to try and oust him.

That was the beginning of the end for Premier Smallwood, he was desperate trying to save his own skin.

Then along came Churchill Falls and the Quebec government saw that Premier Smallwood was between a rock and a hard place and played on our weakness, forcing Premier Smallwood to sign a bad deal, which he did in order to try and get elected.  He gave away one of our greatest resources with the promise of jobs and as voters are easily bought with their own money, he won more time in office but in the end was defeated.

I am not intelligent enough to form an opinion on the recent MOU being a good or bad deal but I am depending on our government and others to make sure that we get the best deal possible we can, so that this province can prosper and take our rightful place in society so that our children and grandchildren can have a better life without this huge debt that we have amassed because of poor management.

(Ret.) Capt. Wilfred Bartlett

CBS, NL wilfbartlett@hotmail.com