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Uprooted: the contentious politics of population resettlement programs in Western

democracies

(Working Paper: Please do not quote or cite without authors’ permission)

Isabelle Côté1

Assistant Professor

Department of Political Science

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St John's, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

[email protected]

Yolande Pottie-Sherman

Assistant Professor

Department of Geography

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St John's, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

[email protected]

1 Corresponding Author

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Population resettlement programs have often been used to promote a country’s political and

economic objectives. Non-democratic states like China and the former USSR have famously

resettled large segments of their populations within their borders, often forcefully, resulting in

violent conflicts in both the home and host regions. Less known is that democratic governments

like Ireland and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) have to this day

adopted similar forms of demographic engineering to promote economic development. Do

resettlement programs in Western democracies produce different, less conflictual outcomes than

in their authoritarian counterparts due to their more “voluntary” and “community-oriented” nature?

Based on internal government documents made recently public, extensive media analysis and

interviews with government officials and academics, this paper investigates the contentious

politics of population resettlement programs in NL and Ireland. We argue that resettlement is never

completely devoid of contention; though the targets and sources of contention are different in

Western democracies: revolving around the slow and uncertain nature of the community-oriented

consultative process often resulting in insidious and indirect coercive pressures exercised by fellow

community members and government officials on people’s decision to relocate. This finding raises

issues as to whether state-organized population resettlements can ever be entirely “voluntary”.

Keywords: resettlement, internal migration, forced migration, voluntary migration, contentious

politics, civil conflict

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1. INTRODUCTION: UPROOTING PEOPLE

Population resettlement programs have long been used in a variety of countries to address pressing

socioeconomic and political issues. A large body of literature examines the contentious politics

(Tilly and Tarrow 2007) surrounding involuntary resettlement schemes in democratizing states of

the Global South (Bazzi et al. 2016; Kusakabe et al. 2015) or in non-democratic states like China

(Cernea 1997; McDonald et al. 2008; Wilmsen et al. 2011). Whether politically or development-

induced (Xue et al. 2015), such programs have met violent resistance from resettlers and the

communities which receive them (Cote 2014; Wilmsen and Webber 2017). But authoritarian states

are not the only regime type that engages in internal population resettlement. Voluntary

resettlement schemes also have long histories in Western democracies. To date, while scholars

have examined such programs, including in Canada (Copes 1972; Courtney 1973; Kennedy 1997;

Withers 2012) and Ireland (Rosegrant 2002) the political processes across these democratic

community relocation projects have yet to be examined.

This article contributes to the literature on contentious politics and population resettlement

by comparing resettlement schemes in Ireland and the Canadian Province of Newfoundland

Labrador. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s (NL) adopted a resettlement strategy

in 1953 in order to centralize its rural population, and later to mitigate the fiscal mismatch between

shrinking populations and infrastructure costs in outport communities (Withers 2012). The Irish

Government provided funds for a grassroots-based resettlement project from 1991 to 2015, which

encouraged marginalized urban communities to move to rural communities. Our objective in

selecting these case studies is to consider whether population resettlements in democracies produce

different, less contentious outcomes than in their authoritarian counterparts.

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Based on internal government documents made recently public, extensive media analysis

and interviews with government officials and academics, this paper provides an in-depth

investigation of the contentious politics of population resettlement programs in NL (1953-) and

Ireland (1991-). While these two cases represent different levels of government, they are similar

in geographical size, urbanization level, and economic profile. These two cases were selected for

they show ongoing instances of economic migration where people relocated within their respective

country’s borders to better their life and that of their families. They also illustrate that resettlement

programs in Western democracies can adopt many facets: they may facilitate out-migration from

rural areas (e.g. NL) or encourage in-migration to rural areas (e.g. Ireland), a variation that helps

identify the circumstances contributing to contentious local politics in both home and host regions.

We argue that resettlement, whether in authoritarian or in democratic contexts, is never completely

devoid of contention; however, the sources and targets of contention are different. Instead of

producing clashes between the resettled populations and the host communities and/or government

officials owing to the forceful nature of the relocation, relocation-induced contention in Western

democracies typically take place within the very communities considering resettlement and revolve

around the slow and uncertain nature of the community-oriented consultative process.

The paper first provides a brief overview of the various resettlement programs

implemented in authoritarian contexts, comparing their rationale, scale, and processes with those

in Western democracies. While resettlement programs in Ireland and NL did not result in

widespread bloodshed or violent clashes between the three primary stakeholders involved (i.e. the

individuals/families resettled, the host communities where people were resettled, and officials

involved in the relocation process), the outcomes of such programs were not devoid of contention

altogether either. We then examine the main sources of contention existing in resettlement

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programs in NL, focusing in particular on the voting process (e.g. who should vote and what is the

minimum threshold of support needed) and the length of the community-oriented consultative

process. These, we show, often create insidious and indirect coercive pressures on people’s

decision to relocate. Given these significant limitations, we discuss whether resettlement can ever

be truly “voluntary” and conclude with a brief discussion of the policy implications of population

resettlement for NL and Ireland, and for Western democracies in general.

2. METHODOLOGY

To address these questions, we adopted a multi-pronged methodological framework, which

includes media analysis, review of policy documents, key informant interviews and field visits to

primary sites of analysis.

We analyzed 348 newspaper articles covering the issue of population resettlement in

Canada/NL and Ireland from eight newspapers. Table 1 summarizes frequency of relevant articles

in the sample by newspaper and years of coverage. We identified relevant articles by keyword

searches of resettlement scheme/program; contentious AND resettlement; violence AND

resettlement; anger AND resettlement; resettlement AND (de) centralization; rural resettlement;

Newfoundland; and Ireland, using several databases including Factiva, Eureka, and ProQuest

historical newspapers, and accessing Irish newspapers archives and the Center for Newfoundland

Studies (QEII Library, NL). Centralization or resettlement was first implemented in NL in 1953,

but had gained full strength by 1960. For this reason, media coverage of resettlement in NL covers

the period 1960 to 2016. The first mention of Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI), the first program

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of its kind in the country, was made shortly before 1991, hence the use of that year as the starting

point for the media analysis.

[insert Table 1 here]

After compiling the articles, we developed and applied a three-part coding scheme that

categorized excerpts according to three research objective-driven frames: Government; Economic

Development; and Contentious Politics. The ‘Government’ frame includes excerpts referring to

the role of government in the resettlement process, including the justifications provided by the

government (or considered by local residents), its provision of essential or civil society services

(or lack thereof), as well as references to Government budgets and funding for resettlement

programs in both contexts. The ‘Economic Development’ frame includes all references to the

economic rationale for resettlement. In this frame, we placed excerpts that associated resettlement

with rural infrastructure challenges, employment opportunities, tourism, sustainability, quality of

life, urban development, and the use of public finances to support resettlement or rural

infrastructure. Finally, the ‘Contentious Politics’ frame includes all excerpts that associated

resettlement with violence, non-violent resistance, voting, financial hardship, and emotional

hardship and loss of culture for residents.

In addition to analyzing media coverage, of resettlement, we also examined documents

obtained via Access to Information Requests (ATIPP). This sample consists of just under 1100

pages of documents and correspondence on the part of communities in NL that submitted

expressions of interest in resettling to the Provincial Government, requested information on the

cost and benefit analysis, or contacted government officials to express their opinion on

resettlement. We use these documents to gain a better understanding of the evolution of the NL

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resettlement policy over time, including its relationship to other related issues like the

centralization of the fisheries. These documents also allowed us to delve more deeply into the

themes of debates taking place within communities, and to explore the growing tensions existing

between communities and government officials.

Finally, in April of 2017, one of the authors conducted fieldwork in Ireland over a seven-

day period, which involved three in-depth key informant interviews with local experts on

population resettlement in Ireland, including with the Founder and Chairman of RRI. These

interviews explored the histories of and rationale for the RRI project and for rural resettlement

projects in general. Internal documents and reports related to RRI and rural resettlement were also

collected during fieldwork.

3. RESETTLEMENT PROGRAMS IN AUTHORITARIAN AND DEMOCRATIZING

COUNTRIES

States have often relied on population resettlements or “organized” migration in an effort to

promote various political objectives. Some like Indonesia have done so to claim sovereignty over

newly integrated territories like Papua (McGibbon 2004; Upton 2009); others like Sri Lanka to

ensure national security (Kearney and Miller 1987), whereas others still, like the former USSR,

have moved so-called “undesirables” (e.g. prisoners) or “enemies of the state” to improve national

stability and cohesion (Martin 2001). More so than other states, Communist China has repeatedly

organized the relocation of its population across provincial borders to promote socialist progress,

political stability, and military security through cadre transfer and youth rustication policies (see

Li 1989; Lary 1999; McMillen 1981). State-organized population movements have also been an

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important component of national integration as they extended state control over non-Han areas,

making minority regions at once “modern and Chinese” (Rohlf 2003). The Jianshe Bingtuan or

Production and Construction Corps (PCC or bingtuan), best known for its work in Xinjiang but

also present elsewhere in China, is the ultimate example. Formed in 1954 as a paramilitary

organization of cashiered soldiers, convicts, and volunteers, the PCC now comprises 2.56 million

people in Xinjiang alone (Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2009: sections 4-12). Its mandate is mainly

political, guarding China’s borders and aiding the army and civil authorities in quelling local

dissent in Xinjiang, though it is also economic, producing approximately 15% to one-third of

China’s yearly cotton output (Eickholm 1999; Mozur 2007).

In recent years, state-organized population resettlement programs have typically toned

down their political agenda, playing up instead their economic rationale. China’s Three Gorge

Relocation Project, which relocated 1.3 million people over a mere 17 years (Wee 2012), is a good

illustration of large-scale resettlement induced by the development of dams and other sizeable

national development projects. The transmigration program in Indonesia—arguably the world’s

largest contemporary program of organized population movement—is another example of state-

organized economic resettlement. An offshoot of the Dutch kolonisasie program, the transmigrasi

program relocated over 1.15 million families of poor farmers from the centre islands (Java,

Madura, Bali) to the margins (notably Sumatra, Kalimantan, East Timor, and Papua) from 1969-

2000 (Tirtosudarmo 2001:212). According to the Director General of the Ministry of Manpower

and Transmigration, 88 of the 500 Indonesian regencies were established due to transmigration.

“Could you imagine if there had been no transmigration in Indonesia? Our country would be less

and less integrated. We would have been split off like the USSR or Czechoslovakia (Cote 2014a).

The above quote makes abundantly clear that Transmigration’s economic mission neatly overlaps

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with its political agenda, for it implicitly promoted “deliberate community building in the name of

development and progress” (Hoey 2003: 110) while providing the government with the means to

control its population and strengthen national security (Tirtosudarmo 2001: 203).

The non-democratic nature of the aforementioned states facilitated the relocation of their

respective population, for few authoritarian states’ constitution (when they in fact had one) granted

their citizens freedom of movements within their borders. States that possessed extended political

authority and capacity have also been more successful at relocating people en masse than less

powerful states. With limited room for debate, control over the media, and full access to extensive

financial and material resources, authoritarian states like China and Suharto’s Indonesia, for

instance, were particularly well positioned to use organized population movements to promote

their national interests and economic development (Côté 2014b).

Unable to give their free and informed consent to resettlement and without the presence of

a genuine and realistic opportunity to stay in their original settlements, it is questionable whether

such massive state-organized migration projects can be called “voluntary.” According to some

scholars, whether or not to resettle is always a choice, even at gunpoint, as one can always choose

to resist (Oliver Smith 1991, 2001). Others, like Schmidt-Soltau and Brockington (2007: 2184)

argue that “there is bound to be an involuntary component to all migration” since all of us are

constrained by larger circumstances. Their investigation of development-induced resettlement

within Korup national park in Cameroon, where rural populations were persuaded to sign

agreements to resettle “voluntarily” lest “armed forces drive them out” (2007:2193) is a good

illustration of the underlying prevalence of coercive pressures even in contexts were people so-

called consented to relocation and got compensated for it.

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Not surprisingly, such forced resettlements have oftentimes raised the ire of both the

resettled populations themselves and that of the local communities where they relocated, often

resulting in wide-ranging strategies of resistance and contentious politics. As defined by Tilly and

Tarrow (2007:4), contentious politics brings together three familiar features of social life:

contention, collective action, and politics refers to collective political struggle. In this sense,

contentious politics includes social movements, but it also includes less sustained forms of

contention –like riots and strike waves— and more extensive ones –like civil wars, revolution and

episodes of democratization—while also intersecting with routine political processes –like

elections and interest group politics (Tarrow 2013). As such, it is important to note that not all

resistance and contentious politics turn deadly.

A common form of resettlement-induced resistance and contentious politics in non-

democratic countries include the violent clashes pitting the population (to be) resettled and those

carrying out such policies –i.e. usually government officials. Oliver-Smith (1991) claimed that

ethnic differences between the ruling elites and the population to be relocated could make the latter

more likely to resist resettlement. Alternatively, ethnic differences between agents of resettlement

and the host communities could turn migration into a particularly contentious if not lethal process.

This was the case in China and Indonesia, where government officials belonging to the majority

ethnic group (Han Chinese and Javanese, respectively) facilitated the mass-migration of their co-

ethnics to peripheral regions populated by local minorities. Any attempts to oppose such

resettlement projects were thus framed in terms of opposition to the regime/country, and were met

with widespread repression (Cote 2014b).

Because of the harsh penalties imposed on those explicitly targeting agents of

relocation/government officials, host communities soon started expressing their opposition to

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resettlement by targeting another group: the migrants themselves, resulting in what Myron Weiner

termed “Sons of the Soil” (SoS) conflict (Weiner 1978). Fearon and Laitin estimated that 22% of

all civil wars fought between 1945 and 2008 and nearly one-third of all ethnic civil strife during

that period were sparked by violence between locals and recent migrants from other parts of the

country (2011: 200). As a recent review of the booming SoS literature shows, no part of the world

and no political regime is immune to SoS violence (Côté and Mitchell 2016). Authoritarian

countries like China (Cote 2015), democratizing countries like Indonesia (Cote 2014a), and fully

democratic countries like India and Israel (Weiner 1978; Haklai 2015) have experienced violent

clashes against people who have internally resettled within their respective country’s boundaries,

many of whom were forced to do so, though some were not. In such cases, contention and violence

occurred as host communities resented having to economically compete with often better educated

newcomers (Hannum and Xie 1998; Bookman 2002), nor did they appreciate having to integrate

ethnically-distinct populations that often considered themselves as culturally superior/advanced

(Smith 2002).

4. RESETTLEMENT PROGRAMS IN DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES

a) Resettlement in NL (1953-)

Economically-induced population resettlement1 began in NL shortly after the province joined the

Canadian Confederation in 1949. At the time, NL faced seemingly insurmountable problems: its

economic reliance on small-scale fishing in small outport communities was blamed for the

province’s high unemployment, low level of production, and lack of technical advancement.

Because of these deep-seated economic limitations, the island was said to be either

“overpopulated” (Copes 1961; Globe and Mail, February 6, 1970) or to have a population that was

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unnecessarily dispersed, making it particularly challenging to ensure all residents had access to a

reasonable level of government services and health care facilities. A true “revolution” was needed

to bring NL into the modern era, economically and socially speaking.

To solve these problems, the Liberal government of Joey Smallwood introduced the

Provincial Community Centralization Plan (1953-1965), under the Ministry of Public Welfare. In

a press release, dated October 29, 1957, Smallwood estimated that as many as 200 settlements in

NL “with no great future” and involving as many as 50,000 people could be resettled (A. G. Stacey

Collection). A new federal-provincial resettlement program administered by the Department of

Fisheries was introduced in 1965, to be replaced in 1970 by the Resettlement Scheme operating

under the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, which remained in place until July 1977.

Overall, from 1953-1977, 307 outport communities totaling anywhere between 28,000 and 50,000

people were resettled to selected “growth centers” (Withers 2012:13;Globe and Mail February 6,

1970). Though these numbers may appear small in absolute terms, they nevertheless represent the

closure of approximately 25% of NL’s existing communities and the relocation of approximately

10% of NL’s total population (Withers 2012:14). The costs of such programs were substantial.

From 1954-1971: resettlement grants totaled $7,439,780, of which the Federal government

provided $5,011,000 or nearly 70% (Watkins, 1971b). While resettlement was all but dropped

from the political agenda in NL after 1977, other small and isolated communities have continued

to obtain government assistance to relocate. From 2002 to 2013, four small communities

successfully resettled: Great Harbor Deep in 2002, Petites in 2003, Big Brook in 2004, and Grand

Bruit in 2010.

After an extended period of dormancy, resettlement has recently made a comeback, fueled

by chronic unemployment in the fishery and an aging demographic. The strain of providing

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government services to a far-flung population has simultaneously made the government

particularly receptive (CBC NL, March 26, 2013; Crummey 2014). Requests for relocation

especially started coming “fast and furious” (ATIPP #2, p.263) after the introduction of the 2013

Community Relocation Policy (CRP) under the Evacuated Communities Act of 1990, which nearly

tripled the maximum buyout package offered to families, from $100,000 to $270,000. The savings

generated by the withdrawal of infrastructure, including power generation, regular ferry services,

and other essential utilities over a 20-year period was expected to compensate for these high

immediate costs. To qualify for resettlement, communities had to successfully pass four distinct

stages, namely 1) an initial expression of interests showing that at least 90% of the permanent

population wanted to relocate; 2) a residency status determination conducted by the Department

of Municipal Affairs confirming who was eligible to vote; 3) a costs and benefits analysis

indicating clear savings for the government over a 20-year period, also conducted by the

Department of Municipal Affairs; and 4) a community vote confirming support from at least 90%

of the permanent population of the community considering resettlement. These steps have proven

so stringent that no new community has been approved for resettlement under the new policy:

three are still waiting to find out their fate (e.g. Round Harbor, William’s Harbor and Snook’s

Arm), and four were rejected at various stages of the four-step process (e.g. Nippers’ Harbor,

McCallum, Gaultois and most recently Little Bay Islands). Considering that the 2016 provincial

budget had no money allocated to the program (Hobbs, 2016), one may wonder if the NL

resettlement policy is anything but an empty shell today.

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b) Resettlement in Ireland (1991-)

In Ireland, contemporary population resettlement is largely the result of a single grassroots

organization entitled Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI). Except for a short stint as a government-

sponsored pilot project from 1999-2000, RRI operates almost entirely outside of the government’s

oversight. In 1990, after talking on the radio about the growing problems of rural depopulation

and urban poverty in Ireland, Jim Connolly suggested that “craftworker” families from urban

centers receive support to create a life in rural Ireland. Hundreds of people answered his call, and

despite having no institutional or governmental assistance, Connolly single-handedly relocated

seven families, mostly in County Clare where he resided. In 1992, thanks to fundraising efforts,

charitable trusts, national grants and volunteers, RRI was set up as a formal organization. Its main

objective was unmistakably to strengthen the future prospects of rural communities; the

improvement of migrating families’ quality of life was largely a pleasant, though secondary, side

effect. To do so, RRI was tasked with supplying the local context necessary for rural resettlement

to take place; in other words, it matched rural people with available housing with urban families

interested in relocating to the countryside. Both host communities and migrants were thus expected

to be active participants in the process. Prospective families had to fill out an initial questionnaire

and remained in touch with RRI every two weeks or so to check their status; this enabled RRI to

place those families that were most enthusiastic/committed to the organization’s mission

(Rosegrant 2002: 76). Since 1990, Jim Connolly, estimates that RRI was responsible for the

relocation of over 800 urban families to 16 rural counties in Ireland (interview Jim Connolly, April

20th, 2017).

RRI’s innovative, grassroots approach to rural depopulation attracted international

attention. In 1999, the Irish Department of Tourism, Sports and Recreation – with generous EU

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funding – commissioned a one-year Pilot Scheme for Rural Resettlement to devise a national

strategy for rural regeneration, as well as to develop and manage a mechanism to enhance

understanding of the challenges linked to rural resettlement, particularly with regard to

employment, training, and vocational integration. Recently, as the number of so-called “new

homeless” in Dublin rose and with schools in rural Ireland struggling to retain teachers due to

declining enrollment, Connolly has entered talks with Dublin City Council to see whether rural

resettlement could be a mutually beneficial arrangement to solve both these problems

(McCormack, 2015). However, RRI’s limited funding has hampered its ability to increase its

operational scope and make long-term commitments (interview Chris McIverney, April 25, 2017).

Government assistance – even if modest – was officially terminated in 2012, which resulted in the

recent closing of RRI’s headquarters in the summer of 2017, though the general mission of the

organization is expected to continue as part of a new program called Rural Rejuvenation Ireland.

Compared to NL, resettlement in Ireland was thus promoted by non-state actors, which

provided it with more modest means and restricted the scope of its operations. However, the two

cases also differ from economic resettlement projects in non-democratic countries in terms of their

decision-making process: in authoritarian/non-democratic settings, relocation is largely top-down

(e.g. the state decides which communities/groups have to relocate, and how such relocation is to

take place) whereas the process is largely bottom-up or at least community-initiated in Western

democracies, though relocation itself is often facilitated by government financial assistance. What

effects do these different features have on the outcomes of population resettlement in Western

democracies?

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5. POPULATION RESETTLEMENT AND CONTENTIOUS POLITICS IN WESTERN

DEMOCRACIES

a) Absence of Contentious Politics between Resettled Populations and Host Communities

Compared to economically-induced resettlement programs in authoritarian countries, whose

forced and top-down nature often resulted in attacks on government officials and properties in the

home regions, and/or in violent clashes between ethnically distinct “natives” and migrants in the

host regions, resettlement programs in Western Democracies have rarely, if ever, led to outright

instances of violence involving resettled populations. In NL, at the heyday of the relocation

process, the Settlement Director declared enthusiastically that resettlement has been a “marvelous

thing, a marvelous success” (Watkins, 1971a). The Mayor of Grand Banks, a growth center,

concurred, stating that “as far as [he] can find out, the program has proved successful in the Burin

Peninsula. Everybody that has moved in has been accepted [by the local population]” (Howard,

1969). A similar positive outlook existed vis-à-vis the impact of resettled families on rural

communities in Ireland. A 2002 survey indicated that 56% of the local population directly credited

migrants with keeping local schools, shops, and post offices open in their small communities

(Rosegrant 2002: 244). This is not to say that locals did not have reservations about migrants

settling in. Negative stereotypes towards “blow in” or migrant populations are nothing new and

are often prevalent in communities with large migrant population. For instance, Irish host

communities questioned whether they would be able to maintain their unique “cultural fabric” in

the face of large urban influxes (interview Chris McInervey, April 25, 2017), whereas many feared

rural areas would lose their “ruralness,” in part due to the concern that migrants would bring drugs

and crime with them (Rosegrant 2002: 122).

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Yet, a number of factors prevented host communities’ negative feelings towards migrants

from being transformed into widespread SoS discourse and violence in Ireland and NL. First and

foremost, the Irish resettlement process needs to be initiated by two sets of actors: the individuals

interested in resettling in the countryside, and rural households who contact RRI and make housing

available to resettled families. As such, it gives agency to migrants and host communities,

transforming both groups into key agents of relocation and giving them all a stake in the successful,

conflict-free relocation of urban families. The presence of what can best be described as “two-way

consent and agency” and the near complete absence of government interference in the process

made resettlement particularly conflict-free in Ireland, though it severely limited funding available

and the scope of its activities. Another important factor mitigating the risks of conflict between

migrants and host communities was the comparatively modest scale of such programs in Western

democracies, reducing the “demographic threat” posed by resettled families to the host regions.

Irish rural communities may experience a population increase of one or two households over the

years, a modest population growth that can easily be integrated. The situation was somewhat

different in the early years of the NL resettlement program, as entire outport communities were

directed to specially approved “growth centers.” When the first resettled families began to arrive

in Arnold Cove, for instance, the community numbered about 70-80 households. Five years later,

in 1971, there were approximately 248 families, making it the “fastest growing town in

Newfoundland” (Watkins, 1971b). This requirement has since been dropped, and resettled

individuals can now relocate wherever they wish – in NL or elsewhere –, making it easier for host

communities to absorb a more modest intake of migrants. Finally, a key factor facilitating the

(comparatively) smooth integration of resettled populations into NL and Irish host communities is

their shared ethnic, linguistic and religious roots–thus distinguishing such instances from

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“traditional” SoS conflict, where “native” and “migrant” groups tend to be ethnically distinct. In

Ireland, resettled families and host communities were and continue to be almost exclusively of

Irish background (Rosegrant 2002: 186; interview Jim Connolly, April 20 2017); whereas in NL,

both groups are typically of British descent and include Protestants and Catholics. The limited

religious diversity existing within the NL resettled population is however mitigated by the fact that

Catholics tended to resettle in other like-minded religious communities (e.g. Southern Harbor),

whereas Protestants chose to relocate to elsewhere such as in Arnold’s Cove, just up the road.

These segregated settlement patterns limited the emergence of overlapping group cleavages, a

common source of local resentment in large non-democratic or democratizing multiethnic

countries (see Côté 2014b).

b) Limited Contentious Politics between Resettled Populations and Government Officials

Compared to resettlement in authoritarian regimes, there were few instances of heightened tensions

between the resettled populations and government officials in Western democracies. Resettlement

process being almost completely free of government intervention in Ireland, there were no

recorded instances where urban resettlers clashed with government officials or with RRI

employees. A media analysis of resettlement in NL suggests that the “voluntary,” “community-

initiated,” and “community-driven” nature of resettlement in the province have limited the

emergence of contentious politics between these two stakeholders. Even during the early years of

the program when resettlement was actively pursued by the provincial (and often federal)

government, NL Prime Minister Joey Smallwood, the main architect of the program, was adamant:

“it [resettlement] must be absolutely voluntary. There must be no force, no compulsion" (Watkins,

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1971a). Whether the original resettlement program was, in practice, truly voluntary is, however,

hotly debated. Hubert Kitchen, then President of the NL Progressive Conservative Association,

questioned whether it was possible to remove indirect coercion from what was at the time

government-initiated resettlement (Walsh, 1968). The author Farley Mowat went much further.

According to him, centralization or resettlement was not just misguided. It was evil; “It is like

sending them into concentration camps where they are well fed. The Government calls them

growth areas – I call them death camps” (Walsh, 1968).

Despite such critiques, Smallwood continued to insist that the initiative to move had to

come from the people. The government, he said, had “no policy of centralizing or resettling the

population. What it had was a policy of [assisting] those who expressed a positive and since wish

to move” (Smallwood, 1977). This key element was later embodied in the 2013 CRP which stated

that the Department of Municipal Affairs may only provide information on relocation “provided

it receives clear indication that it is responding to a community-initiated, community-driven

request for relocation assistance”, e.g. a petition from community residents or a written request for

a municipality (CRP 2013). For the government, this voluntary, “bottom-up” or community-

oriented approach to resettlement was made explicit by the purposefully high level of community

support needed for resettlement to take place, and by the financial assistance offered to cover the

costs of relocation once the move has been approved. Indeed, voting being the last step in the

relocation process, individuals (rather than the government) had the last word. Besides, by

compensating those wishing to relocate with increasingly generous financial packages, the

provincial government could maintain that it had the socio-economic interests of its resettled

populations at heart, while eschewing claims that it was acting purely out of economic self-interest.

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The financial compensation package offered by the provincial government to communities

wishing to relocate increased substantially over the years, while the level of community support

required for a relocation mandate fluctuated. The initial Provincial Centralization Plan (1953-

1965) provided between $150 and $600 in cash grants per household to cover the costs of moving,

provided that all adult-age members of the community agreed to move. Under the new Fisheries

Household Resettlement Plan (April 1965- March 1970), the financial assistance was increased to

$1000 per family, plus $200 extra for each family member. By that time, the requirement was

lowered first to 90% and then to 80% of the householders in a community. The Resettlement

Scheme, which operated from 1970 until its termination in July of 1977, maintained the high level

of community support needed, in exchange of which it offered about $7,000 (Walsh, 1970). While

resettlement was not actively promoted from 1977 to 2013, it did not stop communities to request

–and receive—as much as $100,000 per household in government assistance to relocate out of

small outport homes. In March 2013, the new CRP increased to $270,000 the maximum amount

offered per household wishing to resettle, provided at least 90% of the permanent residents of a

community agreed to resettle. As Municipal Affairs Minister Kevin O’Brien admitted, “for

$100,000, for someone to move from an isolated community, it wasn’t enough to buy a home when

they would relocate. [The new $270,000 ceiling is] a “more realistic amount to facilitate a move”

(CBC March 26, 2013). Today, these precautionary measures make it difficult to claim that the

NL government is actively and eagerly promoting out-migration from small outport communities.

Only five of the last 11 communities that have officially expressed their interest to resettle to the

government were approved for relocation.

21

c) Contentious Politics Within Communities Considering Resettlement

But measures initially designed to ensure the voluntary nature of resettlement in NL often resulted

in the creation of deep schisms and contention within the resettled communities themselves. In

particular, the petitioning process, later replaced by a vote and meant to democratize this important

decision, proved highly controversial. Who should have the right to put their names on the

petition/vote on such a life-changing question? Initially, all adult householders were eligible, but

the 2013 CRP later restricted voting to permanent residents only–defined as people residing in said

community for at least 183 days in each of the two 12-month periods immediately preceding the

town’s relocation request (CRP 2013). If the vote was positive, permanent residents would receive

the full compensation package for the commercial and residential properties they were leaving

behind. In contrast, non-permanent (i.e. seasonal) residents were not only barred from voting on

this issue, they did not qualify for the full government buyout either.

With such high stakes, deciding who had the right to vote became highly litigious. Since

2013, 32 appeals were filed in four separate relocation cases, each costing the government

approximately $1,700 and taking approximately six months to complete. Though admittedly a

small number, given the size of most NL communities and the high threshold required for

resettlement to go ahead, a modest increase in voters could severely affect the outcome of the vote.

This was made painfully clear in the case of Little Bay Islands (LBI), a small fishing community

off the northern coast of NL. A request for access to information showed that 87 people were

initially deemed eligible to vote according to the Town Council. Following the lengthy process of

formal residency status determination, this number was brought down to 84 voting-aged permanent

residents. However, the successful appeals of 11 voting-aged permanent residents led to 95

individuals being able to cast their vote (ATIPP #2, p.10). Considering the close results of the vote,

22

with 85 ballots in favor of resettlement and 10 against, the inclusion of 11 additional voters ought

to have affected the outcome of the vote. Several residents of LBI expressed concerns that the vote

was an “unfair process” as it included non-permanent residents who were absent from the

community for nearly half a year, usually in the winter, when the full brunt of poor transportation

links and the lack of social services were most acutely felt (Barry, 2016). Seasonal, non-permanent

residents were just as irate for not having their voice heard and, were resettlement to go ahead, for

being barred from getting any financial compensation from the government for their seasonal

residence. A request for access of information unveiled several letters and emails sent to Kevin

O’Brien, Minister of Municipal Affairs, from the Coalition to Save LBI in which they request that

all homeowners/taxpayers of LBI have a vote in all matters regarding relocation.

We feel that if all homeowners/taxpayers do not have a say, they are being treated unfairly,

as we are all taxpayers paying the same amount whether we live in the town full time or

not as taxes are not adjusted for part time residents. (ATIPP #2, 183-4).

Another LBI resident wrote a postcard to the Minister, pleading: “This is my home. Please do not

attempt to destroy it” (e.g. ATIPP #2, 176-7). Seasonal residents of other communities considering

resettlement shared similar concerns. A letter sent to the same Minister by seasonal resettlers in

McCallum mentioned:

We have invested a great deal of money into our home and my question to you and your

department Mr. O’Brien is why? Why should we have to lose everything that we have

worked so hard over the years because the majority rules and we have no other choice but

to leave? (ATIPP #2, p.318-20).

23

In response to these critics, a 2016 review of the CRP changed the definition of permanent

residents to year-round residency, with appropriate exemptions for work, schooling, and medical

reasons. According to Municipal Affairs Minister Eddie Joyce, “amending the definition of a

permanent resident will allow a definitive picture from year-round residents on how they feel about

the possibility of relocation” (CBC, Nov 26, 2016). It is unclear at this point if this amendment

will resolve the eligibility problems raised earlier by both permanent and temporary residents.

Indeed, when asked about her opinion on these changes, an LBI (part-time) resident stated: “I’m

not impressed. They [government officials] are just trying to separate one taxpayer from another,

to say one person who pays taxes has more rights than another person who pays taxes” (Cook,

2016).

Another contention-inducing aspect of resettlement in NL is its requirement that it be

“community-initiated and community-driven.” In most instances of voluntary economic

migration, the decision to relocate is an individual one, or at most, a family one. Even then,

individuals rarely take the decision to relocate lightly. It is usually the result of a long and intricate

reflection of the respective pros and cons that will befall said individuals and his/her family should

they move (i.e. “push and pull factors”). In contrast, when relocation takes place at the community-

level – for example, when nearly every inhabitant of a community must agree to relocate for the

resettlement scheme to go ahead— such a collective decision is compounded by a myriad of

mitigating circumstances, pitting the needs and desires of those who are currently employed,

healthy and young (those most likely to want to stay) against those who are older, in dire needs of

specialized health care, or who lack employment opportunities (those most likely to want to move

out). The question then becomes, for a genuine “community consensus” to emerge, how many

24

people should be in favor of resettlement? What should be the minimum threshold necessary for

relocation to take place?

As mentioned previously, the necessary threshold for resettlement has fluctuated between

80 to 100% over the years –a threshold significantly higher than the 50% +1 vote usually required

for a “majority vote” to pass in democratic settings. This was adopted to make sure no one –or at

least as few people as possible— is forced out of their homes. But the requirement of such a high

degree of community consensus, where a handful of votes may suffice to prevent resettlement

from going ahead, has done much damage to the unity of small communities, creating deep

schisms. In the early resettlement programs, people seeking information about resettlement often

asked for confidentiality and the mere presence of a Government Resettlement Officer was enough

to cause strong feelings in a town. Settlement Director Kenneth Harnum indicated: “I am very

careful to make sure that unless there are inquiries about moving from enough people in a

community they will not be visited” (Watkins, 1971a). Tensions are still widespread today in

communities considering relocation. Asked about the effect of resettlement talks on his town, a

resident of McCallum explained: “There’s a lot of animosity within the community and it’s really

hard to communicate with people. All the government has done is put a generous offer on the table,

and they’ve created a lot of broken families, friends and divided the community” (Howells, 2015).

Part of the problem is that it is nearly impossible for people to vote truly anonymously in small

communities, where everyone knows one another:

No one knows who voted for or who voted against because that was never released by

government, but of course you live in the town and it’s a small place and you hear people

say ‘Well I hope this don’t go through’ or ‘I hope it do go through’, so you do have ideas

25

of which way they voted… Everyone has their suspicions. (The Telegram January 27,

2016).

The provincial government’s requirement that a near consensus be reached for resettlement

to take place also had the unexpected consequence of introducing two types of coercive group

pressure in the petitioning and later the voting processes: 1) that exerted by the majority of the

population on a small group of people in an effort to coerce their support; and 2) that exerted by

the minority (sometimes as few as one or two individuals) on the rest of the population by

steadfastly refusing to relocate. In the first case, employed permanent residents –often a small

segment of the population in small, aging communities dependent on fishing—, resented being

driven from their homes by the unemployed or under-employed “majority” frantic to receive the

government buyout package. As one employed resident of LBI explained in his personal

communication to the Minister of Municipal Affairs obtained in a request for access of

information, not so subtle threats were even made towards him and his family:

We are being told by those wanting to leave, if we do not vote for the latest offer, this will

not be a friendly neighborhood. This program [resettlement] is already destroying our

community and it will certainly destroy my life if I have to give up my job and move, but

irreparable damage has already been done and for the safety and well-being of my family,

I will have to go. (ATIPP #2, 174).

To accommodate the needs of a small number of people who may wish to stay behind, and allow

for a true alternative to resettlement, the 2013 CRP stated that: “if a community relocation is

approved, no permanent resident who wishes to remain in the Community will be required to

relocate” (CRP 2013). As such, the CRP ensured that residual services (e.g. electricity, water,

26

snow clearing) would be provided to residents who choose to remain in a relocated community.

The provision of residual services was however cut in the 2016 revisions of the CRP. One may

wonder then about the impact of the subtle, but no less effective, pressure on the people to move

or do without amenities. The 31 permanent residents of Grand Bruit faced such heart wrenching

dilemma as they saw their school shut down in June 2007, followed by the closure of their only

store and post office in 2008, the decommissioning of their church in 2010, and eventually the end

of ferry and power services in the summer of 2010 (Thomas, 2010). With fewer and fewer

amenities and services at their disposal, could we truly say that these individuals “chose” to

relocate in the late summer of 2010? Was there truly an alternative for those who wished to stay?

Alternatively, the “majority” may also resent being dictated to by a handful of co-villagers,

taking issue with what they perceive as an unnecessarily high 90 percent requirement used to

determine whether to resettle residents. A resident of George’s Cove, a small community that

failed to meet the threshold for resettlement, explained: “Quebec would have separated from

Canada if they got 50-plus one per cent. If you have 70 or 80 per cent, they [the government]

should let the people move who wants to move” (Hurley, 2013). Other communication obtained

via a request for access of information made by the authors include a heartfelt letter by LBI Town

Clerk Jerry Weir that asked: “Where would our government be today of they needed 90% to get

in office?” (ATIPP #3, p. 57). The same individual continues, this time in an interview with the

main provincial newspaper:

I cannot believe that 10 people out of 95 are able to hold the other 85 of us hostage in this

community, with the majority being seniors and the majority of them who worked in the

fishery all their life and being seasonal workers, they don’t have the income to back them

up to move on their own. (The Telegram, January 27, 2016).

27

It was precisely for this reason that, in 1966, the threshold for a community consensus was lowered

from 90 to 80%, a precaution which Community and Social Development Minister Aiden Maloney

said was designed to prevent a few people with vested interests (such as merchants or local elites)

from blocking the wish of the majority to relocate (Walsh, 1968). Local politicians afraid of

creating a “ripple effect” across isolated communities in the province –and more importantly, in

their very district— have also been known to stall requests for resettlement, as in the cases of Great

Harbor Deep and LBI (McAfee, 1999; ATIPP #2: 27-28, respectively). But a lower threshold

simultaneously means that resettlement may get the “go ahead” despite a larger proportion of the

population (20% versus 10%) being against it, resulting in criticisms that it forcefully uprooted

people who wished to remain in their communities. For this reason, the provincial government

decided to re-evaluate upwards its threshold requirement back to 90% in 2013.

The recent results of the relocation vote in LBI, with 89.47% of the population in favor of

resettlement, tested how strictly government officials adhered to that figure and highlighted the

highly controversial nature of a few decimal points. A former mayor of LBI cautioned: “It’s not

going to be a pleasant time in this community if the number is not there” [i.e. if the government

does not round up the figure to the required 90%] (CBC NL, November 12, 2015). After a review

of the rules, the province reaffirmed that community relocation would only proceed if at least 90

per cent of all permanent residents in a town agreed (Barry, 2016). According to Eddie Joyce, the

Minister of Municipal Affairs: “We firmly believe that there has to be a strong consensus from

communities before proceeding with the process. That is why the vote threshold will remain at

90% to get a true picture of where permanent residents stand on the issue” (CBC, 26 November

2016).

28

As expected, this decision was not well-accepted in LBI. When he found out the process

of relocation for LBI would not proceed any further, a resident indicated his “unbelief and utter

disgust,” explaining:

We have been a part of this process for several years and the residents of LBI had placed

their trust in the new Liberal Government to do the right thing. We had been told by Premier

Ball that his government was supporting our efforts for resettlement with a resounding

“YES”. You, Minister Joyce had met with us in the past and were certainly sympathetic to

our situation. […] Obviously, we have been let down by those we trusted the most […].

This is our life and we feel as if we have been ‘kicked in the gut while we were down’

(ATIPP #3, p. 57-8).

Another resident lamented: “My disappointment is not in the people of Little Bay Islands, my

disappointment is in the government” (Cook, 2016). This recent denouement is particularly

noteworthy as it denotes a new target of resettlement-related contention: government officials.

Although it is still too early to say whether this represent a new chapter in contentious politics of

population resettlement in NL, early evidence suggests that the growing discontent and tensions

between communities considering resettlement and government officials are not going anywhere.

The above discussion also highlights another contentious dimension of resettlement in NL:

the slow and uncertain nature of the community-oriented consultative process. Consisting of four

distinct steps, the entire process may easily drag on over several years, creating substantial

uncertainty in those directly involved. A request for access to information on the decision to

relocate LBI revealed that the community first expressed its interests in participating in CRP in

2009, although the process stopped there as it did not meet the required level of community support

29

(ATIPP #1). Another expression of interests was sent to the government in April 2013, once the

revised relocation policy increased government buyout packages. From August 2013 to October

2014, government officials collected affidavits and information from residents and property

owners to determine their residency status, resulting in 18 appeal requests. An independent judge

was appointed who, in April 2015, recommended seven of the appeals be overturned. Once the list

of eligible voters was confirmed, the government was able to conduct an analysis of the costs and

benefits associated with the relocation of LBI, from June to October 2015. Having demonstrated

that the government would save just under $7,000,000 over a 20 years-period from this relocation,

a vote was organized in LBI, with the results being communicated to the town on November 12,

2015. Even then, because of the close results of the resettlement vote, government officials

informed the town council that the Department of Municipal Affairs would “wait until after the

provincial elections” to decide whether or not to round the results to the required 90%. It took over

a year for the new government to review its relocation policy and finally decide to terminate the

process of relocation for LBI. From start to finish, the entire process took just under three years.

During this waiting game, communities considering resettlement are frozen. Months and

in some cases years of uncertainty drain small outport communities of their social vitality. Towns

that are already struggling to prevent the out-migration of their youths –i.e. those with “sharp

minds and eager hands” who are most likely to take on crucial volunteer positions— now face the

seemingly insurmountable task of filling vacancies on Town Council or maintaining a functioning

Fire Department. Once these crucial services are taken from such communities, total abandonment

is almost inevitable. Residents, fearing they will have to leave sooner or later, refuse to invest in

the upkeep of either communal or private property, making it even harder for them to sell their

properties in the future were resettlement not to go ahead. A series of letters written by LBI

30

residents to various government officials clearly capture their increasing frustrations at the length

of the process and the nefarious impact it has on community morale and relations (e.g. ATIPP #3,

p.60, 65, 67). LBI was not the only community in limbo. After a decisive 97% vote in favor of

resettlement in the spring of 2009, the small community of Grand Bruit spent all summer long

wondering if the government would agree with its wishes. As the chair the local service district

explained:

We’ve been on hold and everyone in the community has been worried about this all

summer long. Some people have things they would want to do with their homes if they are

going to be staying here for the next five years or more, but which can probably wait if

they will only be using their homes as summer cottages (Kean, 2009).

To conclude, given the slow, contentious and uncertain nature of community-oriented

resettlement in NL, can we truly talk about “voluntary” resettlement? Requiring a near consensus

did not eliminate the insidious and indirect coercive pressures exercised by various individuals –

some inside the community, some not— on others’ decision to relocate. The literature on large-

scale resettlement in authoritarian and non-democratic countries points to the coercive pressure

government officials often directly exert on individuals, robbing them of any genuine agency or

say on the matter. Though such direct government pressures are largely absent in the two

resettlement programs in Western democracies covered here – even during the infamous

“centralization” program in NL— indirect government coercion remains. For instance, if the

government starts to take away public services and stops plowing the only road which connects a

town to “the rest of the world,” as done in Big Brook (Kean, 2004); or, if it closes the school for

lack of incoming pupils like it did in Grant Bruit in 2007 (Bartlett, 2007), is there really a valid

alternative for those wishing to avoid resettlement and remain in their hometown? The government

31

is not always the one setting rural depopulation into motion: the departure of a community’s main

merchant or clergy may similarly leave the remaining population stranded, setting a chain reaction

in motion. Noel Iverson and Ralph Matthews, former Professors at MUN, investigated several

communities where “moving fever” took hold and cleared out communities in a matter of months

as those who did not want to move were afraid of being left behind without services and without

the buyout package (Iverson and Matthews, 1968). Rumors spread unchecked, causing passionate

and emotional debates that divided families and friends against each other, transforming formerly

convivial communities into hostile environment. Matthews explained:

Resettlement is a panic phenomenon. It is acting out of crisis. People in a difficult situation

run for the first exist they can find. The whole thing operates on a process of rumor and

mass hysteria. They [government officials] set up a system of community development

workers. They go into a community and provide information that suggests the people

should resettle. The information says nothing about the [problems] that exists at the

resettlement points (Watkins, 1971a).

How can individuals, let alone whole communities, make such a life-changing decision with

imperfect and incomplete information then? Under these circumstances, can “free and informed

consent” really be given by the peoples considering relocation? Last but not least, the in-depth

case study of NL’s various resettlement programs revealed that an important source of indirect

coercion comes from co-villagers, who have been known to express not-so-subtle threats towards

their fellow community members considering casting a “no” ballot in the relocation vote. Such

intra-communal contentious dynamics were largely absent in other resettlement programs

reviewed in this paper, and warrant further examination.

32

6. CONCLUSION

Although this paper provides an in-depth case study of resettlement-induced contentious politics

in two Western democracies, it also contributes to the larger comparative literature on migration,

population resettlements, demographic engineering and rural economic development programs by

comparing and contrasting these cases to other instances of large-scale population resettlement

around the globe, most of them from authoritarian or less than democratic regimes. Contemporary

resettlement schemes in NL and Ireland are a far cry from the large, forceful, top-down relocation

schemes underway in China or even the softer forms of demographic engineering exhibited during

the heyday of the transmigration era in Indonesia. And yet, the aforementioned discussion made it

clear that even community-initiated and community-driven resettlement projects are never fully

“contention-free”, in large parts due to the indirect coercive pressures exerted by fellow

community members. This paper thus sided with the growing literature in migration studies taking

issues with the prevalent dichotomy classifying resettlement as being either forced or voluntary

(e.g. Baird and Shoemaker 2007; Rohlf 2007). It presented a more nuanced depiction and

understanding of resettlement politics, showing how, even in Western democracies where people

may be required to vote on such issues and get financially compensated, it is difficult to fully

remove indirect coercion from the resettlement equation.

From a policy perspective, this paper also raises several important questions. In times of

economic uncertainty and government cuts, deciding where to spend scarce public resources is a

particularly difficult exercise. Ever since its implementation in 1953, resettlement programs have

played a key role in NL’s history and economic development. They have shaped the social,

33

economic and political views of generations of rural and urban Newfoundlanders alike. Yet, the

fact that they have once existed should not suffice to justify their continued existence in today’s

context. Is resettlement an appropriate public policy response to the socio-economic and political

challenges faced by NL today? Within the Canadian context, the resettlement program in NL is

particularly interesting as it was and continues to be an idiosyncratic response to make government

service delivery more efficient over very large distances while promoting economic development.

Comparing NL resettlement policies to those of Ireland also underscores that government’s

involvement may vary and that resettlement may take many forms. While NL opted to settle people

out of peripheral rural areas, RRI has, until recently, been promoting the relocation of its urban

population into rural areas. Could RRI’s experience of resettling Irish urban families, many of

them unemployed and some even homeless, suggests a less conflictual approach to population

resettlement? One that operates outside the state’s purview and relies on the informed consent and

the presence of a valid alternative for both communities involved in the process: the migrants

themselves and members of the community where they resettle?

Recently, resettlement politics –this time involving international migrants—have once

again gained attention in Western democracies following the mass influx of Syrian refugees in

Canada and in the EU. Whether various governmental levels (e.g. national, sub-national,

municipal) should play an active role in resettling these populations is an open question. The Irish

experience with population resettlement highlights the importance of close collaboration of

resettling agencies with local partners and authorities in the host communities. The example of

Riace, a small village in Southern Italy that has experienced a demographic and economic revival

of late thanks to refugee influx, confirms that municipalities could and should be able to implement

34

population policies attuned to their specific needs and that this could largely be accomplished

conflict-free (Bruckner 2016).

Last but not least, this line of research also raises difficult normative questions: when the

reason for a community’s founding ceases to exist –e.g. when a once thriving fishing communities

runs out of its prime natural resources—, should the community remain? A key tenet of democratic

regime is that people have the right to choose where and how they live. But how far does society’s

responsibility to support that choice go? What level of service should NL’s remote communities

expect, for instance, and how should they be funded? These complex questions remain open-

ended, but one thing is certain: uprooting populations, no matter for what reasons or in what

political regime, is doomed to present thorny economic and political dilemma for those promoting

such policies.

35

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38

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39

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Commemoration, February 2012.

40

Table 1 –Media analysis

NL/Canadian newspapers (years covered) (number of relevant articles found)

Globe and Mail 1960-2014 42

Western Star 2004-2016 26

Telegram 1960-2016 108

CBC 2005-2016 31

________

207

Irish newspapers (years covered)

Irish Examiner 1991-2016 52

Independent 1991-2016 46

West Limerick Leader 1993-2003 6

Irish Times 1990-2015 37

________

141

1 It is important to note that other types of non-economic resettlements also took place in NL since the province joined the Canadian confederation. Most notable was the resettlement of five small fishing communities on NL’s West Coast which had to be resettled in the early 1970s to make room for the newly created Gros Morne National Park (Globe and Mail, December 1, 1971) and the relocation of two Inuit communities totalling just under 100 families or 500 people from Hebron and Nutak (northern Labrador) to communities in southern Labrador, after the NL government closed the sole local store and cut off services in the late 1950s (Curry, 2010). The NL government formally apologized in 2005 for the lack of consultation of the residents, which caused serious hardship and disruption in the residents’ way of life, and a memorial was unveiled at the site of the former community in 2012 (CBC NL, August 15, 2012). A nomadic hunter Innu community was also twice relocated by the NL and federal governments: once from northern Labrador to Davis Inlet in 1967, following government promises of good housing and better living standards, but once these promises failed to materialize, another resettlement took place, this time to Shango Bay in 2002 (MacDonald, 2002).