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WABUSH, LABRADOR — Ron Barron has spent 30 years working in the Wabush mine, one of three generations of Barrons who have toiled in the open pits in what western Labrador bills as the iron ore capital of Canada.
The family’s roots run deep here. Mr. Barron’s father was one of Wabush‘s first settlers, who not only got a job in the mine when it opened in the 1960s but also helped organize a union. Five of Mr. Barron’s brothers have worked in the same pits along with his son and nephew.
But now Mr. Barron’s life has been upended along with the rest of city. The Wabush mine, once the cornerstone of this community, is shutting down along with another iron ore mine called Bloom Lake in neighbouring Quebec. More than 1,000 miners will be out of work, not to mention a slew of other job losses from businesses that service the industry. It’s a crippling blow in an area with a population of about 9,000.
“Oh my god, everybody loses. All the organizations, the schools, everything loses. Everything will suffer because of it,” said Mr. Barron, who will be officially out of a job by mid-December. “We have had shutdowns and layoffs before, but this is different. The mine is closing.”
The reason for the closings is simple: The price of iron ore, a key ingredient in steel, has been in freefall, falling 60 per cent in three years. Where the resource once traded as high as $190 (U.S.) a tonne in 2011, it is now below $70. The deterioration is due to two factors: less demand from China and an oversupply of iron ore and coking coal, which is also used to make steel.
As a result, producers around the world are slashing costs, halting operations and laying off workers in droves. What’s happening in Wabush is taking place in many other Canadian communities as well as resource-rich countries such as Australia.
The fall out can be seen in places like Sept-Îles, Que., where an iron ore pellet plant was shut down, and in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where a number of nearby coking coal operations have been suspended and two mines closed. “When the commodity price goes down and mines close, it is devastating,” said Darwin Wren, Tumbler Ridge’s mayor. In Queensland, Australia, thousands of mining jobs have been lost as coking coal prices fall by more than 60 per cent since 2011.
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