Michelin’s potential silver lining-Marilla Stephanson CH- It’s a good problem to have, I reminded myself. Knuckles clenched around the steering wheel in downtown Hali¬fax on Tuesday, jammed between a construction-blocked street and an aggressively tailgating trans¬port truck, I thought of the 500 families in Pictou County who are suddenly weighing the rapidly changing options in their econom¬ic futures. On Monday, Michelin Tire announced 500 jobs will be cut over the next 16 months at its Granton plant. The rural-urban divide that has plagued the eco¬nomy of this province is being carved a little deeper. Downtown Halifax is busy, with side streets blocked by hives of construction. The bustling pedes¬trians who obliviously continu e to dart between vehicles provide one more challenge for parking ¬starved drivers. The out-of-place dump trucks, the heavily bundled work crews. Looking up tells the tale: The needle-like cranes hover over buildings under expansion , con¬struction or renovation. It’s great for a city that has been through a long period of downtown stagna¬tion and needs to stay strong as the s olid economic engine for Nova Scotia. Halifax is the only provincial county that experienced popula¬tion growth over the last federal census period. The story is very different in many rural parts of this province. There aren’t too many traffic jams in Pictou these days. But there is quite a game of musical chairs going on with jobs at Mich¬elin Tire. On the surface, there are the fears of workers who do not yet know their fates: severance, retiring years before they had planned, or moving to a new community. Under the layers, there is a story about provincial funding and potential expansions for both Michelin’s Waterville plant and the local airport. Michelin has 3,500 workers in Nova Scotia among its Bridgewa¬ter, Waterville and Granton plants. The cuts at Granton will swallow about 15 per cent of that workforce. But there is a potential silver lining to this story. There is a $73-million expan¬sion already underway at the Waterville plant, with the province kicking in $8.9 million committed by the previous NDP government. That project will add 50 jobs. Kings County Warden Diane Brothers has said a second larger expansion worth up to $500 mil¬lion could mean another 2 30 jobs at the Waterville plant. Michelin is interested in the Waterville airport land to make this expansion happen, which means moving the local airport elsewhere. There are two options for that project; one at 14 Wing Greenwood costs $7 million, the other $10 million. The double whammy of this deal, if it unfolds, would be great for the Annapolis Valley region and the entire province. It’s not really clear how the timing of job losses at Granton may line up with Michelin’s po¬tential expansion in Waterville. But there is little question that Monday’s announcement of lay¬offs at Granton lines up in a pro¬vocative fashion with a meeting next Monday between local and provincial government officials about the relocation of the Waterville airport. The province is expected to come to the table on the airport deal, smoothing the way for Mich¬elin, which has been an excep¬tionally strong corporate citizen in this province, to move on the Waterville project. But it’s hard to miss the reality that the overall job total may not quite match up when the dust settles. Meanwhile, workers in Granton will either accept a sever¬ance, opt for early retirements or move elsewhere for new jobs. Some families and workers will be uprooted and folks will have to learn to call a new place home. It strikes me that one of the two latest federal infrastructure funds — some $14 billion over 10 years that Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last month would be used for regional projects, or the $1-billion small communities fund — could also be put to good use in the Valley. How Nova Scotia’s federal cabinet minister Peter MacKay might secure some of that money, while kissing goodbye to 500 jobs in his own riding, is a challenge of a different kind. But change and challenge is where this province is at, whether it involves the workers, the em¬ployers or the politicians who have to find ways to keep more of both in this province. A Michelin expansion may not mean massive cranes or traffic jams in Waterville. But if there is a way to make it happen, it is one more step toward bridging the rural-urban divide in Nova Sco¬tia’s economy
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 14:52:01 +0000