Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte

This riding ran for just over 31,000 square kilometres along Newfoundland's western and northern edges: the Bay of Islands and Corner Brook, the Humber valley and Deer Lake, the whole length of the Great Northern Peninsula up to St. Anthony, and, across the island's neck, the Baie Verte Peninsula and the southwest coast of Notre Dame Bay. Springdale and Pasadena fell inside it, along with the offshore Grey Islands and Horse Islands. Unlike most Newfoundland districts it predates the 2003 redistribution, having been drawn in 1987.

Candidates

Gerry Byrne (Liberal) — Byrne had held the seat since a by-election on 25 March 1996, called when Brian Tobin left Ottawa for the provincial Liberal leadership. Born in Corner Brook on 27 September 1966, he holds a Bachelor of Science in environmental science from Dalhousie University. He was parliamentary secretary for natural resources from 1997 to 1999 and later for health and for intergovernmental affairs, and he held the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency as a minister of state between January 2002 and December 2003 — sworn in at 35, the youngest federal cabinet minister the province had produced. He was seeking a fifth full term.

Mark Kennedy (NDP) — Kennedy was an engineering technician from Corner Brook.

Lorne Robinson (Conservative) — Robinson was a financial planner from Pasadena, in the Humber valley.

Wayne Ronald Bennett (NL First Party) — Bennett, a retired Pasadena resident, had succeeded the founder Tom Hickey as leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador First Party in 2008. Launched provincially on 5 November 2004 on the argument that the province was treated unfairly within Confederation, it wound up its provincial wing to concentrate on Ottawa and obtained registered status from Elections Canada in September 2008. It fielded three candidates, all in Newfoundland.

About the Riding

Corner Brook, with 20,083 residents in 2006, is the province's second city and the commercial capital of the west coast. Construction of the pulp and paper mill on the harbour began in 1923 and the first paper came off in 1925; Bowater ran it from 1938 and Kruger bought it in December 1984. It remained the city's largest private employer, though a strong dollar and softening demand for newsprint were squeezing margins across the industry. The city also held western Newfoundland's regional hospital, Memorial University's Grenfell campus and the government services a region of that size requires.

Deer Lake sits where the Trans-Canada Highway meets the road north. Its airport, built in 1955 and given a rebuilt terminal in June 2007, is among the busiest in the province and the gateway to Gros Morne National Park; the hydroelectric station raised on the Humber in the 1920s to power the Corner Brook mill still operates nearby.

The Baie Verte Peninsula has a mining history rather than a fishing one. An asbestos deposit found in 1955 brought Advocate Mines, a division of Johns-Manville, to open-pit production in 1963. The operation survived a fifteen-week strike over working conditions in the 1970s, shut down in 1981, reopened the following year under new owners and closed for good in 1990, leaving the peninsula reliant on exploration and smaller gold ventures.

Northward, St. Anthony (2,476 in 2006) is the largest community on the Great Northern Peninsula and the service centre for northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador — a role inherited from the hospital network Wilfred Grenfell began building along that coast after 1900. Shrimp and crab landings, seasonal plant work and tourism carried the local economy, and ferry service across the Strait of Belle Isle, road conditions and the terms of the shrimp fishery were the federal questions raised most often here.