Cape Breton unemployment rate hits 17.5 per cent

Cape Breton has never been just one of the pack; not by Canadian standards, not even in terms of the Maritimes. The coastal views are more spectacular, the fiddling more inspired, certainly more plentiful. And now another distinction, though not nearly as cherished: The unemployment rate has now hit 17.5 per cent, by far the tops in the country. No other major centre in Canada is even close.

According to February numbers just released by Statistics Canada, there are more than 10,000 people in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) looking for work. The CBRM covers the eastern side of the island and includes such communities as Sydney, Glace Bay and New Waterford. In some communities, the unemployment number is as high as 40 per cent, Mayor Cecil Clarke told the CBC. Clarke is calling it a crisis and is now reaching out to Defense Minister Peter MacKay, the senior minister for Nova Scotia, for a life rope.

Early reports suggest the request so far is for a five-year, $300-million funding arrangement, from both Ottawa and Halifax, to help underwrite the municipality’s operations. And as honed and experienced as Maritime politicos are at asking for cash, some in Ottawa may end up offering a different kind of solution.

Clarke will remember, of course, that it was Mackay’s boss Stephen Harper who suggested, while campaigning for votes no less, that the East Coast had a “culture of defeat”, one that will be “hard to overcome as long as Atlantic Canada is actually physically trailing the rest of the country.” Like say, in employment levels.

While those views didn’t stir much of a fight west of New Brunswick, Harper quickly realized his choice words weren't going to win him any votes either, so that was that for pillorying Maritimers. Nevertheless, he hasn’t shown a great willingness to transfer additional dollops of Ontario’s declining manufacturing dollars or Alberta’s oilsands wealth to the area either. Not beyond the roughly $323 million in affirmative-action dollars that the East Coast receives annually through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA).

In his comments to the press yesterday, Clarke said that an unemployment rate pushing 18 per cent would be considered a state of emergency in “any other place”.

Clarke may want to check out the rest of that Statistics Canada employment report to see how other major centres survived February. The first thing he’d discover is that the national unemployment rate is now 7 per cent, which while suggesting that things are indeed critical in Cape Breton, also points out that there are considerably more jobs elsewhere. Hint hint.

In Halifax, for example, a four-hour drive away, the rate last month was a mere 6.4 per cent. Only slightly further afield, over in God’s country, southeast New Brunswick, the number was an even better at 6.3 per cent. And while we’re not suggesting anyone in their right mind would ever want to leave Sackville, N.B., or Moncton, they’d find unemployment was only 6.1 per cent in Ottawa, 5.7 per cent in Hamilton, Ont., 5.4 per cent in Winnipeg, to say nothing of the Prairies, where the jobs, like the potash, line the streets.

There’s no Cabot Trail near Regina, and there certainly isn’t a ceilidh in Calgary that can compete with Baddeck, but if its jobs Clarke is after, that’s where they can be found.

February unemployment numbers for select Canadian cities from Statistics Canada. January rate in brackets.

• St. John's, N.L. 7.0 (7.1)

• Halifax 6.4 (6.5)

• Moncton, N.B. 6.3 (6.7)

• Saint John, N.B. 9.6 (9.9)

• Saguenay, Que. 9.5 (9.6)

• Sherbrooke, Que. 6.3 (6.5)

• Trois-Rivieres, Que. 8.1 (7.6)

• Montreal 7.6 (7.8)

• Gatineau, Que. 6.9 (6.8)

• Ottawa 6.1 (6.3)

• Kingston, Ont. 6.7 (7.0)

• Peterborough, Ont. 9.9 (9.8)

• Oshawa, Ont. 9.4 (9.6)

• Toronto 8.4 (8.2)

• Hamilton, Ont. 5.7 (5.8)

• St. Catharines-Niagara, Ont. 7.1 (7.1)

• Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ont. 7.5 (6.9)

• Brantford, Ont. 7.7 (7.8)

• Guelph, Ont. 5.8 (6.2)

• London, Ont. 9.1 (8.5)

• Windsor, Ont. 9.2 (9.7)

• Barrie, Ont. 7.0 (7.3)

• Sudbury, Ont. 8.1 (7.4)

• Thunder Bay, Ont. 5.9 (5.0)

• Winnipeg 5.4 (5.4)

• Regina 3.7 (4.1)

• Saskatoon 4.7 (5.3)

• Calgary 5.0 (4.9)

• Edmonton 4.4 (4.3)

• Kelowna, B.C. 6.6 (6.4)

• Abbotsford, B.C. 7.0 (7.3)

• Vancouver 6.4 (6.5)

• Victoria 5.4 (5.4)

**NOTE: Noel Hulsman is a proud Maritimer hailing from southeastern New Brunswick. The editor of this piece, Ashleigh Patterson, grew up on Cape Breton Island.