Article content continued

“Around here, when it comes to working, it seems to be like how it was back home decades ago.”

Home, for Cory Guimond, is across the border in Escuminac, N.B., about a four-hour drive from Eastport. It is where his grandfather, Philias, started Millennium Marine — known then as Guimond Boats — in the 1940s before handing the business to his son, also a Philias, who hated the name and went by Phil. Phil passed away in 1995 and Cory Guimond took over. The 39-year-old is a third generation New Brunswick boat builder, a fact he is damn proud of. At best count, he built half the 81 fishing boats tied up to the wharf in his home community, perched on the south shore of Miramichi Bay. He employed upwards of 30 people, at times, and he would still be in Escuminac building boats now, he says, if he could just find enough willing bodies to get the job done.

“One of the main reasons I came down here was to find workers,” Mr. Guimond says. “A lot of that has to do with Alberta, with young people in New Brunswick moving out West where the better money is, and so there is a dwindling population.

“But then when you can also get $400 a week back home for doing nothing, why would you go to work for me for an extra hundred bucks? That’s the mentality back home. And it is a shame. But that is what it is. There are some really great workers there, but the unemployment rate during winter — it’s got to be north of 20%.”

In fact, it is 21.7%, according to Statistics Canada, a staggering figure more than three times the national unemployment rate. The unemployment rate for New Brunswick youth, meanwhile, is the highest in the country. Part of the problem appears to be that there aren’t many jobs to begin with. But the other part of the problem, as Mr. Guimond suggests, appears to be that nobody wants to do the jobs that there are, or were — like building boats for $12-20 an hour.