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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has staked the future of the world’s 11th largest economy on natural resource wealth spreading across the country. Brandy Damm, a welder who lost her job from a locomotive factory in London, Ontario, last year, isn’t seeing the benefit.

Damm was one of about 465 unionized workers fired after Caterpillar Inc.’s Electro-Motive Canada unit said it would close its London plant following a labour dispute. Now, many of the jobs in her field are paying far less than the $20 to $30 per hour common at the factory — some just above Ontario’s $10.25 per hour minimum wage.

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“You feel like you are spinning your wheels,” Damm, 36, said by telephone from a job center created after the factory closed. “The time and energy we put into our trade to be good at it is worth something, and I think it’s worth a lot more than eleven dollars an hour.”

Harper and his cabinet ministers have argued that developing Alberta’s oil sands, part of the world’s third largest oil reserves, will bring economic opportunity across the country. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver estimates that more than 600 major resource projects may lead to $650-billion of investment over the next decade.