I've given a lot of thought to what I feel we should do, as a province, in these situations.
If I was in charge and had $90 million to tackle the problem of having our fourth-largest city reliant on a dying industry, I wouldn't use it as a sustenance loan.
I'd use most of it to provide 100% coverage grants to mill workers who want training to change their careers. The money would cover two years at any provincially-supported educational facility (MUN/Grenfell or CNA). I'd limit it to two to encourage workers to choose useful trades rather than intellectual pursuits. There's nothing wrong with the latter, of course, but it doesn't help this situation.
The rest of the money I'd provide to the municipality and regional investment attraction initiatives. In Corner Brook, I'd expect a lot of the money to go into aquaculture and tourism.
The corporate bigwigs of the dying industry wouldn't get anything from me.
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Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
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