Resettlement: Uprooting and Rebuilding Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and Beyond was edited by Isabelle Côté and Yolande Pottie-Sherman, however the two also contributed three of the book’s seven chapters.
The first four chapters dealt directly with post-Confederation resettlement programs which started in 1956, and which have continued in a series of programs ever since. In an effort to consolidate small coastal communities and reduce the expense of providing services, the Newfoundland and Labrador government approached small communities with the idea of resettlement. The issue was voted on for future consideration, eventually leading to a vote whether or not to relocate. This system of democracy, where people had the right to vote on their futures, was not the best way to conduct such possibly life-changing matters. Open debate in extremely small communities pitted neighbours against each other where everyone already knew each other’s business. The entire system of open-participation democracy was foreign to those who were so used to the prior system of government prior to Confederation that when presented with the option of standing up and being heard, many people stayed away.
The voting system and initial approval rate of 90% for resettlement was analyzed in relation to specific communities. I found it most interesting that simple math could show that in extremely small communities a single vote one way or the other could decide the future if the community stayed or resettled.
Seventy years since the first resettlements, debate continues whether or not people chose to leave voluntarily, or if the government forced their hands by cutting off services. Premier Joey Smallwood always stated that people wouldn’t be forced to leave their homes, however for the minority that did stay behind, services were indeed cut. George Withers, the author of the chapter called Not Just Pawns in a Board Game: Local Actors in the Newfoundland Fisheries Household Resettlement Program, 1965-1970, argues that:
“In contrast to the focus on the ‘heavy-handedness’ of external actors that has dominated so far the resettlement literature in the province, I contend that coastal people were not pawns in a board game.”
Withers wrote that coastal communities protested and pressured the government to amend resettlement agreements and gave examples where grass roots triumphed over bureaucratic tree trunks.
Smallwood had grand visions to industrialize the province and the resettled workforce would add to the needed influx of labour. The plans to move people out and immediately into new communities was often out of synch, as there were plenty of testimonials where settlers had no house nor job waiting for them:
“However, nearly half of resettlers chose to move to growth centres without changing occupations and into situations where they were more underemployed and experienced a higher rate of unemployment than in the sending community.”
The final three chapters refer to the Beyond in the title. They focussed on resettlement projects in other jurisdictions such as Kalaallit Nunaat, Ireland and the Canadian Arctic. I was most interested in the resettlement of remote Kalaallit however the influx of new residents into Nuuk led to a sudden increase in homelessness and its consequences. I found this chapter, entitled Resettlement, Urbanization, and Rural-Urban Homelessness Geographies in Greenland to be the most academic read among the seven chapters, and while interesting reading, it was a dull slog to get through.