Miramichi, NB — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Miramichi

Few Canadian ridings are as thoroughly organised around a single river. Miramichi takes in the whole of Northumberland County, the northern edge of Kent County around Kouchibouguac National Park, and an arm running north to Chaleur Bay at Jacquet River and Belledune. The city of Miramichi — about 18,100 people at the 2006 census — sits where the river opens into Miramichi Bay, and is itself a recent construction, put together in 1995 out of Newcastle, Chatham, Douglastown, Loggieville, Nelson and several smaller places. Settlement thins upriver through Blackville and Doaktown; to the southeast the riding reaches the Acadian shore at Neguac and Baie-Sainte-Anne.

Candidates

Tilly O'Neill-Gordon (Conservative) — O'Neill-Gordon spent her working life in Miramichi-area classrooms. She started at Escuminac, her native village, in 1970, moved to Nelson-Miramichi in 1972 and to Chatham Head the year after, and stayed there fifteen years until the school closed in 1988. She finished at Ian Baillie Primary, retiring in 2003, then returned to teaching at Burnt Church the following year. Born at Escuminac in February 1949, she had moved with her family to Chatham in 1961 and trained at the Teachers' College in Fredericton.

Charles Hubbard (Liberal) — Hubbard was the incumbent, first elected in October 1993 and seeking a sixth term. Born in Newcastle in October 1940, he graduated from the Royal Canadian School of Infantry in 1961, served with the Canadian Guards in Germany and later held a series of posts with 2 Royal New Brunswick Regiment. He holds degrees in history and economics and in education, began teaching at Harkins High School in 1963, taught at North and South Esk Regional High, and became the first principal of Miramichi Valley High School. He farmed at Red Bank and spent about seventeen years as a director and president of Northumberland Cooperative Dairy. Under Paul Martin he was parliamentary secretary to the ministers of Indian affairs and northern development and of transport.

Donald A. Doucet (NDP) — Doucet, a small business owner from Lagacéville on the riding's eastern shore, carried the New Democratic nomination.

Todd Smith (Green Party) — Smith, a student, stood for the Green Party.

About the Riding

Forestry, fishing and mining built the Miramichi, and by 2008 all three had contracted sharply. UPM-Kymmene, which bought the former Repap operation in 2000, idled the paper mill in August 2007 and announced in December that the shutdown was permanent, ending roughly 535 jobs and the region's largest industrial payroll. Weyerhaeuser's oriented strand board plant at Morrison Cove had not run since January 2007 and was closed for good in June 2008, with no buyer found and American house construction collapsing. The Heath Steele base metal mines northwest of the city, which had diversified the local economy since 1957, shut in 1999.

What remained was a service and public-sector economy grafted onto a resource town. The federal firearms registry had run its central processing site in the city since 1998, one of the few large white-collar employers in the riding, and health care, retail and education accounted for most of the rest. The river system still yields close to half of all the Atlantic salmon taken on a rod in North America, sustaining outfitters, lodges and guides — far fewer people than the mills once did.

The result was a riding preoccupied with work. Employment insurance eligibility for seasonal fishing, forestry and tourism workers was the standing issue, federal management of the salmon and lobster fisheries a close second, out-migration to Alberta behind both. Hubbard had held the area for fifteen years in a seat the Liberals had won for most of its history, and the Conservative campaign rested on a locally rooted candidate and on the argument that the region needed a member on the government benches.