My ten cents worth.

I try to deal with some of the points that Anonymous commented on below.


Anonymous said...
I believe our future as far as transportation on the Labrador Coast goes is have a South Coast transportation system and a North Coast Transportation system, and everything that is done from now on should be aimed at improving the transportation to/within those two systems.Isolated communities Rigolet South should be supplied out of Cartwright. Isolated communities Rigolet North should be supplied from Lewisporte. F@#& Happy Valley-Goose Bay and its pricer gouging suppliers as a supply Center for the North Coast. HV-GB is too far out of the way and only adds more time and bother as far as supplying the Coast goes, especially when it has to be utilized in conjunction with Cartwright. Let HV-GB keep its hub as the airline Center for North and part of the South Coast. And it can have a future as the place for travellers to top up their gas tank when enroute over the TLH. That's all the deserve. And that's enough for them.

I cant speak to what would be better for the south coast, as to the North Coast, well it sure gets complicated with so many players wanting input.

I think what should happen is an open debate as to what is going to happen once the TLH connection to the south is completed. The emphasis should be on what the North Coast wants verses what HV-GB or Lewisport want.

In my years of taking an interest in shipping/transport issues it seems that the established view of most is to keep the connection with the Island going. Reasons for this vary from long term relationships with suppliers, it is cheaper to ship by sea than by road, larger suppliers on the Island lead to cheaper prices than in HV-GB, more reliability with Island suppliers are just a few.

One train of though I have heard is that the shipping port from Newfoundland should be closer to St. John’s, after all, with the closure of Atlantic grocery in Lewisport that is where most of the suppliers are located.

One thing that has not happened to any great extent is; when the TLH connection was completed from HV-GB to Western Labrador it was thought [by government] that retailers would switch to wholesalers in Quebec or Ontario and more goods would be trucked in to HV-GB. Government rationalized that it was cheaper to ship by truck than by sea. This hypothesis has since been blown out of the water. Or off the road may be a better analogy.
Another reason for not going that route could be finding suppliers who have the goods that traditionally are sold on the coast. Many goods are manufactured on the Island exclusively.
Another is finding a supplier who would be bothered dealing in such a small market and to give credit on the goods purchased.

I worry, and I know others do too, that a strong lobby will insist on trucking goods from the Island into HV-GB for transshipment by sea. That would raise our prices through the roof, unless the trucking was subsidized.

I think it would be hard to eliminate HV-GB completely as a shipping point; people do quite a lot of shopping there. In some instances retailers are forced to buy things like pop and beer out of HV-GB.

The configuration of the shipping is the single most important issue in the short to long term. It will dictate how much people pay at the check out, so people should have a voice.