Tired of the neglect

Isolated Labrador communities feel disconnected from the province in more ways than one.

Norman Bay and Black Tickle, for instance, are each cut off from the Trans-Labrador Highway. This remoteness poses both communities with similar transportation issues.

Both communities, however, feel estranged from the provincial government.

"There's not much money being spent out in this area by the PC government," Norman Bay Mayor George Roberts said. "All the money they're spending in Labrador, but they're not coming around this part of Labrador. I think mainly what they're talking about is the Trans-Labrador Highway, and that should have been through 20 years ago."

Norman Bay, home to some 60 people, is still waiting for unanswered questions regarding transportation and water and sewer.

Although a road, surveyed at roughly 50 km, is an uphill struggle, the people of Norman Bay continue to press the government for that or a better connection to Charlottetown.

"I suppose we got to keep fighting the government, though it seems like they're not on our side very much," Mr. Roberts said, adding that the snowmobile trail the people in his community use to travel for supplies needs reworking.

Norman Bay can also do with a helicopter pad, he added.

His town is also in a similar predicament to Pinware with water and sewer, in that cost-shared programs exist between the provincial and federal governments, which will pay 90 per cent of the overall cost for the project.

Ten per cent may as well be 100 per cent for a town with just 14 households, Mr. Roberts said.

"It's probably going to kill a lot of the small towns, if they don't start spending a bit of money; and all that oil money coming in, it's great for the businesspeople in St. John's," he said. "It's not only here, all over Newfoundland you hear tell of rural communities, up around different parts of the island, same thing, they can't get no money for nothing."

John Hickey, Minister of Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs, said he hasn't heard of either of these issues.

"I can't act on issues if people to raise them with me," Mr. Hickey said. "I got to say, these communities need leadership. Getting on an open line show is just not cutting it."

Although more than twice the population, Black Tickle has a lot in common with Norman Bay.

The dominant similarity is the road running through town.

Wendy Quinlan, chair of the local service district in Black Tickle, said there hasn't been any crushed stone put on the road since 1992.

"We got bedrock that's actually coming up through the road, so the base of the road that they used to go through the community is now coming up through," Ms. Quinlan said. "The road is just ridiculous. This is ridiculous. We're people, we're paying taxes like everybody else and we're being left alone, left out in the cold and it's ridiculous. Heaven forbid, they tell me the road in Norman Bay is worse than what it is here."

The withered road is an example of the provincial government alienating rural Newfoundland and Labrador, Ms. Quinlan added.

"Our feeling here, and I've heard a lot of people say around here, there's nothing outside the overpass in St. John's, and that's sad."

Bedrock pierces the crushed stone on the road through Norman Bay. Black Tickle has a similar problem with its road. Both communities agree the deplorable condition is symbolic of the provincial government's neglect of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. JONATHAN RUSSELL PHOTO