Stephen Harper is quoted as
saying:
Stephen Harper is right on
here. This culture of defeat is especially true of Newfoundlanders. This attitude
was going on even before Confederation. Before Confederation — for
500 years — year in and year out Newfoundlanders have gone out on the ocean
just to catch a few fish. Why would they do that? They didn’t get anything for
their efforts. You wouldn’t know but they were doing it to earn a living. We
all know that wasn’t the case, most of them barely got enough fish to feed
their families let alone get some extra income to buy clothes or winter boots
for their children. Over the centuries many hundreds of fishermen drowned just
because they gave up too easily.
Take, for example the loss of the Ocean Ranger in a
raging winter storm on the 15 of February 1982. What did the Newfoundlanders on
the Ocean Ranger do? They hopped off the rig into the ocean and then gave in to
hypothermia or drowned. Not a survivor amongst the lot. Of course the British,
and American rig workers also drowned and died of hypothermia. But that was
just bad luck — wrong place wrong time for those people.
From time to time some Newfoundlanders fell into
the water and did manage to save
themselves but they were an exception. For example, five or six years ago a man
from the South coast of Newfoundland found himself in the water after the tug
boat he was working on sank — in just a couple of minutes — just before
Christmas off the coast of Labrador. He was the only survivor. He managed to
swim ashore in about an hour. The only reason he survived at all was because he
found a trappers cabin near the shore. The cabin had a stove, wood, and some
food. It was pure luck that he survived, he didn’t have a thing to do with it
apart from his little December swim to land. And even then the only reason he
managed to get to shore was because he was thinking about his little children
and his wife. He said this himself in an interview. So he had a little
incentive. Also he didn’t build the cabin, he didn’t gather the food, or put
the matches in the cabin, all he had to do was light the stove and wait in
comfort for someone to come and rescue him.
