(Québec) “Schefferville is in a state of shock”, this evening in November 1982, 40 years ago. Bernard Derome, at Newscastrelays the report of the reporter sent on the spot, who observes “the anger and the frustration” of a population which has just been seen confirming the disappearance of its employment, but also, squarely, of its life.
People will have until July 1983 to vacate the premises. It will be the exodus for nearly 4000 people. Today, Schefferville has about 1,100 Innu, 800 Naskapis, and about a hundred whites, mainly transient residents, for health services and education. Tata Steel, a company from India, had decided to restart operations on a smaller scale, but it recently suspended operations.
On the sidelines of the general consternation, “the women feared the impact of idleness on their husbands,” recalls André Maltais, at the time federal Liberal MP for Manicouagan. Another wondered: what will happen to the relatives buried in the cemetery? They will never be exhumed.
This closure was an announced death, today estimates Gilles Porlier, who was present at the announcement at the gymnasium and who is still in Schefferville. “We saw this coming for a long time. Annual production had gone from 12, to 8, then 1.5 million tonnes,” he notes. It seemed clear that the iron mine was doomed. Porlier had immediately bought ten houses for a nominal sum from the Iron Ore Corporation (IOC) at the time.
After 55 years in Schefferville, he owns almost everything there, from the funeral directors to the grocery store, including the restaurant, the hardware store and the ambulances. “I’ve built myself a golden cage that I can’t get rid of. Who would like it? “, he summarizes, aware that his properties would not find a buyer.
PHOTO BY IAN SCHOFIELD, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Downtown Schefferville in 2014
For Réal McKenzie, only the resilience of the Innu has made it possible to maintain a community. “Without us, we wouldn’t have talked about Schefferville for a long time. It would be like in Gagnon where everything was razed,” says McKenzie, recently re-elected chief of Matimekush–Lac-John, the reserve that covers most of the old town. In his opinion, the closing was not done properly.
They demolished the city, more than 300 houses, abandoned infrastructures, the swimming pool, the hospital. I’m still angry, they sacked their camp by not giving a damn about the Natives.
Réal McKenzie, chief of Matimekush–Lac-John
The cost of airfare has made sport fishing prohibitive. The caribou, which were still numerous a few years ago, are now protected, including for Aboriginal people. The Quebec Department of Wildlife had allowed hunters to kill two caribou, up to 6,000 per year in the area. “It’s not the only reason, but it has made us go from one million caribou in 1995 to 3,000 today,” says Chief McKenzie.
City closure
At the time of the announcement, IOC President Brian Mulroney explained that the mine was operating at only 37% of its capacity, operations were no longer viable, “we can no longer sell our product”. Mulroney, it was known, had political ambitions, it was important to him that the closing was done correctly.
In Quebec, the Council of Ministers does not raise its voice. “The company, it must be recognized, offers employees good departure conditions, more generous than what it was obliged to do”, noted Yves Duhaime, Minister of Energy and Resources at the time, according to the transcripts of the Council of Ministers, now accessible. Yves Bérubé, head of the Treasury Board, concludes with a bang: “We must avoid being too sensitive to the effects of the closure on a population which, in any case, is quite nomadic. »
PHOTO RON POLING, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Brian Mulroney, during an announcement on the IOC compensation plan, January 1983
The holding of a parliamentary commission on the spot to explain the decision is quickly settled. It will be the first to be held outside parliament. “I knew that the situation was not easy for the employees, the population was worried,” recalls François Gendron who, as head of the Planning and Development Office (OPDQ), led the exercise. “It doesn’t happen every day that you decide to shut down a single-industry town. Above all, we wanted to go and listen to the citizens, their fears. We had already thought about compensations, we had to improve them. I wanted Brian Mulroney to come and explain why there was no hope of recovery. He had been a good teacher,” observes the former PQ MP.
Mulroney will point out that IOC has “provided work for thousands of employees, who for a quarter of a century have been among the best paid in Canada”. Nearly half of the $1.2 billion invested by IOC in the mines has been directed towards the extraction and beneficiation of the Schefferville ore. Steel requirement forecasts were overestimated by 23%. No dividends have been paid to shareholders since 1971, and averaging 4%, long-term profits have lagged inflation.
“When your colleagues talk about the multinationals that have bled the North Shore, ask them if it’s a fact or another myth,” Mulroney told MPs. Surprising observation for the time: Mulroney already mentioned, in the early 1980s, the presence of “rare earths” and strategic minerals, which today arouse great interest in the mining industry.
Last upload
Jocelyne Lemay’s father was the last to drive a 120 ton truck in the summer of 1983, the last load of ore. “He was emotional when he spoke to us about this period. He will drive the zamboni to an arena in Terrebonne”, but will later find a driving truck in Montreal. Mme Lemay stayed in Schefferville until 1988, trying unsuccessfully to start a tourism project around hunting and fishing.
Ghislain Lévesque was administrator of Schefferville, until 2020. The government had passed a law to close the city, but had to change its mind in 1990, in front of the will of the Aboriginals and some whites to stay on the spot. Today, the locality finds itself with “a problem of stray dogs, more than a hundred, some of which have returned to the wild state. Some say it’s an advantage, they warn us of the presence of bears! “.
In 1982, the golden age of the 1970s was over, observes Jean-Guy Gougeon, a long-time journalist in Sept-Îles. He pointed out, last week, “without the Innu and the Naskapis, Schefferville would have suffered the same fate as Gagnon, which was completely razed in 1985”. The closure of Schefferville had a direct impact on Sept-Îles and Port-Cartier, whose populations halved, he observes. In 1985, Prime Minister Mulroney pulled out all the stops to send Port-Cartier a federal prison, initially planned for New Brunswick.