The deadline for 75 permanent residents of a south coast town to vote is April 6
Residents of Gaultois, a small, isolated, and fragile town on the south coast of Newfoundland, are having a vote that could change their lives, but they aren’t making a big deal out of it as they decide whether or not to leave their town.
Residents on both sides of the issue say they are careful not to make the community, which is close-knit and can only be reached by ferry from the nearby town of Hermitage, angry or divided. So, people are quiet when they talk about the resettlement question, and many people aren’t telling anyone how they will vote.
Mayor Gordon Hunt said that there are no plans for community meetings or campaigns to try to get people to think one way or another. Even the people who live there don’t want to say who started this latest attempt to move them.
Two earlier votes failed, but they were a long time ago, when the government-funded resettlement threshold was 90% and the community was younger and more active than it is now. The new policy of the government has lowered that number to 75%, but people still don’t know what will happen.
“I’m not sure. I can’t be certain, “said 49-year-old resident Jamie Howse, who is in favor of resettling. “Some people say yes and others say no.”
The only business owner in town is against moving
Ron Simms, who owns the only business in the town, is very against resettlement. But he wouldn’t dare try to influence his customers when they walk into his small grocery store.
“I don’t bother to bring it up,” Simms said. He is against the move, but only a few other people agree with him.
He said, “There are a few of us who are against it, and I’m hoping that we might get enough to cover the cost of resettlement.”
Simms will be 77 years old on April 6, which is the last day people can send their secret ballots back to the government. He said that he knows he is in the minority, but that a refusal to resettle would be the best birthday present.
“I don’t want to change anything as long as I can stay healthy and do what I want to do,” he said.
Mayor says he’s staying neutra
Hunt turned down a recorded interview because he doesn’t want to take sides. CBC News also talked to a few other residents who said they wanted to see how things went before giving their thoughts.
- A small former fishing village on the south coast of Newfoundland is thinking about moving.
- Gaultois is looking for people to move there as the island community prepares for winter.
The vote is the most recent part of a long and sometimes painful history of resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, the current changes are driven by the community, not by the government.
Little Bay Islands, Snook’s Arm, and William’s Harbour have all moved in the last ten years or so. A vote is also pending in Tilt Cove, a small community in Notre Dame Bay with only a few people living there.
The Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs sent voting packages to 37 households in Gaultois last week. These households have about 75 permanent residents who are old enough to vote.
A year ago, Gaultois residents sent the department 78 “expression of interest” ballots in sealed envelopes. A statement from the department said that a large majority of those ballots supported moving.
The department then looked at how much it would cost to provide government services to the community over the next 20 years versus how much it would cost to give residents money to move. The analysis showed that taxpayers would save at least $10 million, which is one of the requirements that must be met for the department to approve the move.
If people vote to move, the provincial government will give between $250,000 and $270,000 to a property owner, depending on how many people live in the home, and $10,000 to a voter who doesn’t own property but is of voting age.
Simms and other business owners like him get twice what their commercial property is worth.
Holdouts not forced to leav
Holdouts are not forced to leave once resettlement is done, but the province stops paying for services like ferries, schools, and electricity.
Jamie Howse said that since the unofficial vote, he’s heard that some people have changed their minds, but he’s reluctantly ready to give up on Gaultois.
“I really don’t want to leave. I don’t. I like it a lot. It’s quiet. It’s kind of like we got it made, “he said. “I’m only going because I’m young and because all of my friends are leaving.”
A bleak economic outloo
Gaultois is a small fishing town that used to be very busy. It is tucked away and protected by steep mountains, but it has been going downhill for decades. At its peak, more than 600 people lived there, and hundreds of people worked at a seafood processing plant.
The plant has been quiet for years, though, and the future of the economy doesn’t look good. The number of people living there is dropping quickly because many elderly people are dying and others are leaving because of problems with the ferry and a lack of health care services. In a rare bit of good news for the town, the number of students at the local all-grade school has gone up from four to five.
But it’s clear that a lot of people there think it’s time to leave. The question is whether or not enough of them will back this latest plan so that they can get money from the government to help them move.
Howse said he will go along with whatever the majority of residents decide.
Howse, who works as a seasonal fisherman and would likely move to Hermitage, said, “If we don’t get it, I don’t care, because I still have a roof over my head.”
‘I can take care of myself
But Simms isn’t happy about the idea of being forced to leave his beloved community, seeing the customers who have supported his business for the past 38 years step onto the ferry for the last time, or moving to a place where he doesn’t know anyone and where life moves at a speed he’s not used to.
“I don’t want to talk right now about going to a home. I can handle things on my own. My wife is doing well “he said.
“What else would I want to do besides go somewhere else and look in the window of someone else’s house across the street?”
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