‘Like a drive-by shooting’
Former coal miner recalls anniversary as an economic homicide for Cape Breton
WATERFORD, N.S. – For some people, Jan. 28 might mark an anniversary or birthday. But for Steve Drake of New Waterford it signifies an “economic homicide” of Cape Breton.
Drake said Jan. 28 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of the coal mines when then Natural Resources minister Ralph Goodale announced plans to privatize the coal mining industry in 1999.
“They did it like a drive-by shooting,” Drake said.
“I stood side by side with 200 coal miners and their families at the Delta Hotel in Sydney and shook my head as minister Ralph Goodale hammered the final nail into the coffin of our beloved coal industry,” Drake said.
“The government handed out information kits like they were lottery tickets, like we had all won something.”
The federal government’s announcement included plans to close Devco’s Phalen coal mine by the end of 2000 and sell the company’s Prince mine and other operations.
According to information in this story from the Beaton Institute and Drake’s personal library, a total of 1,667 people worked at Cape Breton’s two remaining coal mines. Four years prior, more than 2,200 worked at the mines. When Devco began in 1967 there were 6,300 workers.
Drake, now a crown prosecutor in Sydney, started in the coal mines in 1977 at Lingan mine as an industrial electrician apprentice. His first day was a backshift underground.
He was president of the local United Mine Workers of America district from 1994 to 2002.
The days leading up to the announcement Drake said they knew something was coming down.
He said when the new five-year plan for the coal mines went to Ottawa for approval, there were some tweaks. Then came a rumour they were going to get a visit, but Ottawa didn’t discuss with the miners what was happening.
“…it’s just the whole thing was done in such a clandestine way in Ottawa and they weren’t giving us any information at all. They left us in the dark.”
On Jan. 27, 1999, media leaked Goodale would be making an announcement regarding privatization of the coal mines.
Goodale said Lingan would be mined out and closed in 20 months, and Prince colliery in Point Aconi and the remaining assets would be placed on the auction block. Plans included shutting down Phalen mine over the following two years to make the company look more attractive to potential buyers.
They suggested privatization of the industry would bring 500 jobs and announced a $111-million support package for miners, retirement and severance packages, and $68 million for community economic development.
Drake said the government called it the “best option plan” but to him it was the “the worst option plan.”
On Nov. 23, 2001, Davy Reashore of Florence, a former shear operator at Prince mine, said they were mining coal 11 kilometres below ground when a call came down announcing the government was shutting down the industry.
“It’s from up above telling us the mine’s shutting down and the majority of the crew would be all laid off,” he said.
At the time it was estimated the loss of payroll from the federally owned colliery, a honeycomb of tunnels that extended eight kilometres under the sea from the north shore of Cape Breton, would cost the local economy about $100 million.
Reashore was among the crew that worked the last backshift. The mine closed for good at 2 p.m. the following day.
“It was just like we lost our best friend,” he said.
Reashore then worked in construction in Ottawa and eventually for Municipal Ready Mix. He has been a stevedore at Marine Atlantic the last 13 years.
“I’m still not over it,” he said. “Last week I took my dog down by the power plant for a walk and when going by the pit on the way, I had a bad feeling.”