One of Canada’s biggest labour issues is largely unknown

It was steady rain and cold as people shuffled through the postcard-perfect town. Past the homes decorated in anchors and buoys. Past the long-shuttered fish plant. Past the antique shop with a folk shanty faintly audible through its open door. Then, up to the government wharf in Brigus. Attired mostly in raincoats, the arriving groups were thankful for the shelter of the run-through—a barn-like structure open at both ends—covering the bottom of the dock. The gaps in the aged, wooden feature made you question how much longer it would stand. Regardless, it was welcome shelter for the gathering that peaked mid-afternoon on Sept. 11, with several dozen people staring out into the fog.

It was a fair size crowd for a miserable weekday in a town of 699 people (as of the 2021 census), down from the 723 recorded just five years before. Of course, a declining, aging population is common in Canada’s rural, coastal towns. The trouble is these towns have also long been the source of an outsized number of the country’s seafarers.

Canada needs them now, and far more even than exist here, facing an ever-worsening demand for workers both qualified and willing to work at sea as deck hands, navigators, engineers, ship cooks and captains.

 

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