Graham promises 1,000 Miramichi jobs

Last Updated: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 | 6:35 PM ET

CBC News

Liberal Leader Shawn Graham said $10-million would be allocated to the Miramichi campus of New Brunswick Community College for information and communications technology programs. (CBC)

Liberal Leader Shawn Graham has pledged that 1,000 of the 20,000 new jobs his party has promised will be in Miramichi if the Grits are elected Sept. 27.

The party knows that all those jobs won't come from traditional industries like forestry, Graham said, so the Liberals will create an information and communications technology task force. Its job will be to attract high-tech jobs to the Miramichi.

Graham also promised to direct $10 million to the Miramichi campus of New Brunswick Community College to create technology training programs for local residents.

For many in the Miramichi, jobs are the most important issue in this election.

Mike Richard, an unemployed former worker at the UPM paper mill, said he's heard a lot of promises but not many he can believe. UPM closed in December 2007.

"It's a bunch of bull. They promise us all the time work and we never get it," he said. "There's so many people on social assistance, which shouldn't be. They should have work here for us."

Joanne Henderson, whose husband and two sons left the province after they were laid off from their mill jobs, said Graham's plan is encouraging, especially for young people.

"It's going to be great, because they're going to be able to stay in the Miramichi and bring our population back up because so many of our young people are moving away," she said.

In a separate government announcement, Graham said the Miramichi Regional Hospital will get an MRI, something he said the community has been asking for for months.

Graham said the announcement was in the works before the campaign began.