Change in the Maritimes

I'm Robert Vana. I'm an inshore fisherman. I spent a few years deep sea fishing. I was born in Stonehurst parents. My grandparents was born in Stonehurst. They lived in Stonehest all their lives. Most of the people at Stone are tanners. There's nothing else in stone to do except fishing and thin shore fishing. just a poor fisherman. Uh, now I haven't got all that money to spend, but I'm happy. Very, very happy. I mean, I think Stonehenist is is a great place. My name is Professor William Weiss Smith. Like Robert Tanner, I come from the Maritimes. My job is to find ways of making the Atlantic provinces as rich as the rest of Canada. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> The Maritimes are rich in their stubborn geography, in their proud history, and in the character of the people individualists. We too are stubborn and proud. >> Much as what I've seen in the Maritimes, well, I think it's real beautiful. You see, nothing like the Maritimes. Maritimes is dressed up wonderful. Poverty is nothing to be proud of. Yet the poverty is due to our geography and our stubborn pride. Our forefathers in their time harvested natural wealth with methods suitable to the time. Their methods we still use, but the wealth is gone. Some maritimers are not aware that they're poor. Poverty is all they know. Poverty is all they will ever know if they can't be taught the need for change. For the wealth of a country is an educated people. And for Canadians, we are poor. >> [music] >> I don't want these children to grow up and have to sell empties for a living. Our environment [music] can produce the affluence others have achieved just an hour away by plane. Our coastline has become one of our problems. For maritimers of a 100 years ago, the distance the next town was less important than nearness to resources. But isolation in this age of mass communication [music] is a problem. In our environment, we have always harvested land and sea to provide our income. Yet our natural wealth is not as plentiful as elsewhere in Canada, and many of our traditional resources are being exhausted. The fish no longer come as abundantly insure. And although the conditions have changed, the fisherman won't. >> You don't change a fisherman's mind so easy. I mean, if any for any taste of fishing, well then he'd look along while before he leave. >> If it's all you've ever known, the opportunities in a village seem good enough. From the time you're able to walk where you're seeing fish and it seems like it gets into your blood. [music] [music] [music] I like to be my own boss. One thing about your own boss, you know when to go and you know when to come. >> [music] >> If you got something and you like it, you don't leave it. You figure, well, I'll keep going to see as long as I can manage to make a living. And after you can't make a living, well, I guess then you know what's up. You got to shift and maybe [music] the city. But people that lived all the life in Stoners, they wouldn't leave Stonus. I don't take him with a gun. >> [music] >> If carrying water to the house in a bucket is a lifelong habit, it doesn't seem so bad. Nor does sawing firewood. If stubborn old men are still able to work, why shouldn't they? As an economist, I know that old-fashioned methods slow up production. >> It'll always be fish caught as long as the world stands. I mean, it's a I know somebody has to catch the fish. Fish do have to be caught, but there are better ways. For science and the applications of science have developed an industry too complex for competition from a rowboat. And to match this one hall, a village like Stonehurst would have to send out all its dories for a whole season. Our resources can all be handled by machines. More resources would mean more machines, and we could still have unemployment. But one resource we have failed to consider. What of the maritimer himself? [music] Somehow we have to create more jobs. How can we do this? Many of us in the Maritimes think this can be done by manufacturing goods based on human scale and not just on natural resources. How can we switch from harvesting things to making things? First, we must persuade the population to move from isolated villages into the cities. Then we will have the people for our new industries. All the old people take them out of stoners and put them into a city where I think they die rats. They just they kick right off because the chain be so great that they wouldn't be able to take it. The people we need for our new industries must be prepared for. We must attract them with the city's advantages and services, not wait until poverty drives them. We need that workforce. And our cities must change to an industrial pace from this way of life which was founded on our natural resources. >> I find it a city is kind of odd to me. I mean, I don't like the city. I mean, uh well, a fisherman, you're a fisherman. You can't uh go in the city and fish. That's one thing about it. And like I say, when you if you start out a new job in the city, well, you have to make friends, all new friends. The workforce we attract will need roads, water, materials for building, and of course, power. The scope of these projects to get cities moving takes heavy investment has needed government planning for the work to proceed. But facilities like cheap power cannot bring us new industries unless we have a workforce trained. >> If you're not highly educated, well, you don't stand much of a chance you've been in the city. The knowledge and use of today's techniques [music] can make us richer. Educated people can be trained to produce complex machines. They have work and they make work and they don't rely on a local supply of natural resources. In cities only can we bring all the many factors together. I enjoy the job of a fisherman. I mean, there's a change. It's It's not the one thing over and over. You work in a factory every day and every day and every day is pretty the one thing. Every day a job to do, whatever the weather, every week a paycheck, whatever the season, for Charlie Anttomont, an FM quality inspector. The job that Charlie's been trained to do is one that makes more jobs for those without his training. Multiplication of jobs is the major reason for recommending that we put technical skills in place of old crafts. I think the best way of overcoming the disadvantages of our geography is by education and by encouraging the villagers to move into the cities. Oh, no. I wouldn't like to leave Stonehest. I mean, as far as live far as a place to live, I I don't think that I'd pick any place but my own home place where I live now. [music] If you got something and you like it, you don't leave it. Heat up