Southwestern Newfoundland councils agree fixed link would hurt local economy

STEPHENVILLE, N.L. — FRANK GALE
THE WESTERN STAR

STEPHENVILLE, N.L. — Bill Pilgrim doesn’t like the idea of spending his last years in Stephenville with his family all gone.
At 81 years of age, he fears that could happen if a plan by both levels of government to put a fixed link across the Strait of Belle Isle goes ahead. It proposes to reroute traffic through Quebec and down the Northern Peninsula, heading east through Deer Lake.
Armed with a diagram of the route and its implications for southwestern Newfoundland, he made a presentation at the meeting of the Southwest Coast Joint Council held Nov. 30.
Recent developments with Premier Dwight Ball meeting with Premier François Legault of Quebec to discuss the proposal, and with both the provincial and federal levels of governments giving the idea consideration, has Pilgrim worried.
“There’s great implications for the economy of southwestern Newfoundland because this route bypasses us completely,” he said.
Traffic coming to Newfoundland now goes along a mostly twinned Trans-Canada Highway until just before Cape Breton, then onto the Trans-Canada Highway across the island.
Pilgrim said the proposed highway along the north coast of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec (Route 138) currently goes to Kagaska but there is still a 375-kilometre distance that would have to be constructed to connect with Old Fort, just below Labrador, along rugged terrain.
Then there is the underground tunnel that would have to be put in under the Strait of Belle Isle connecting Labrador to Newfoundland.
Pilgrim said not only would it affect southwestern Newfoundland but also New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as American tourists from the Eastern Seaboard would not go through those provinces on their way to vacationing in Newfoundland.
At the meeting, Pilgrim got 100 per cent support against the plan from the nine Southwest Coast Joint Council communities represented.
Mayor John Spencer of Port aux Basques, who wasn’t at the meeting because of weather, said the plan would probably be a good idea at a different time, under different economic circumstances.
He said the province is trying to dig out of a deep hole created by the Muskrat Falls megaproject and now is not the time to discuss a fixed link.
“We need money for health care, education and better highways on the island, not creating another boondoggle project,” Spencer said.
He said the cost of such a project would be major and the overall annual savings would be minimal.
The 16-kilometre tunnel from Yankee Point on the Northern Peninsula to Point Amour in Labrador would be a single-lane shuttle rail link costing about $1.65 billion and taking 15 years to build.
Spencer said if this were to happen, it would greatly affect the ferry service to Port aux Basques.
“We’re suffering as a province and don’t need mega-magical projects to get the economy going. Put more emphasis on what we already have and get the cost down on the ferry service,” he said.

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