‘It’s not nice’ in region that brought in foreign workers.
Two years after politicians rushed to defend a mining company that was hiring workers from China over locals in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., residents are worried about their town’s future after layoffs at two nearby mines.
“It’s not nice,” said Clayton Knowles, who lost his job at Wolverine mine seven months ago. “Every day I’m counting the hours I get to make sure I can pay my mortgage.” As residents fret about their economic futures, local politicians are conspicuously silent.
“The federal government, the provincial government are not going to help this town,” Knowles said. “They haven’t yet, have they?”
A local newspaper recently quoted Tumbler Ridge’s deputy mayor as estimating that the unemployment rate in the town of 2,700 was as high as 70 per cent. And some local residents told The Tyee that people are leaving their homes behind as they flee the desperate economic circumstances of the town.
In April, Tumbler Ridge was walloped with news that Walter Energy’s Wolverine coal mine would be idled due to poor coal prices. Months later, Peace River Coal said it would follow suit at the end of the year, also citing low prices and a need for maintenance.
According to Statistics Canada, the amount of people on unemployment benefits in the district has tripled since May to 190. The rate of people on benefits is now the highest it’s been in at least 18 years.
Knowles is one of hundreds of workers who have lost their jobs in the layoffs.
On April 15, after arriving at work in a new truck he’d purchased a day before, Knowles said he and his coworkers were handed garbage bags and told to clean out their lockers.
“Right up until the day before they closed the doors they were telling us ‘Way to go guys’ and patting us on the back,” Knowles said in a phone interview from Tumbler Ridge. “You don’t expect when they tell you that everything’s good… you don’t expect that they’re lying. But that’s what they did.”
Today, Knowles supports his wife and daughter by taking construction jobs he can find — no easy task considering the area’s unemployment rate.
The local Chamber of Commerce manager, Carmen Drapeau, said that families have been split up as one parent leaves town looking for work elsewhere. Local food bank manager, Shirley Durand, said many people have moved away.
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