Labrador

Labrador is a giant wedge of wilderness, bordered on the south and west by Quebec and on the east by the iceberg-choked Labrador Sea. The riding is three times the size of the island of Newfoundland, which is just across the Strait of Belle Isle.

Nearly half the riding’s residents live in the extreme southwest corner, in Labrador City and Wabush, where much of Canada's iron ore is mined. The Trans-Labrador Highway links those towns to Churchill Falls, a massive hydroelectric project, and to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, which is home to an air force base.

Unemployment in the riding was 18.5 per cent in 2006 and the average family income was $78,546, the second-highest in the province. The biggest source of employment in the riding is mining and oil and gas extraction.

Thirty-eight per cent of Labrador residents identify themselves as aboriginal. But less than eight per cent list a native language as their mother tongue, primarily either Montagnais-Naskapi or Inuktitut. For almost 90 per cent, the mother tongue is English.

Living conditions in native communities are often poor. The Innu village of Davis Inlet, in particular, is infamous for gas-sniffing and squalor. Most of that community's residents have sought a fresh start in the new, $150-million town of Natuashish, 15 kilometres away.

Population: 26,364 (2006 census; a decrease of 5.4% since 2001)

Political History

Liberal Todd Norman Russell held on to this riding in 2006 when he defeated Conservative Joe Goudie by 1,240 votes. Labrador has been almost unswervingly Liberal since Newfoundland entered confederation in 1949. The only exception was 1968, when Conservative Herbert Peddle won by 735 votes.

From 1972 to 1995 Liberal Bill Rompkey, who served in a variety of cabinet posts, held the riding. When Rompkey was appointed to the Senate, voters handed the riding to Lawrence O'Brien. In 2004, O'Brien won with more than four times the votes of his nearest opponent, Conservative Merrill Strachan.

O'Brien died of cancer in December 2004. A byelection was called for May 24, 2005, and nearly wasn't held, when the tightest confidence vote in Canadian parliamentary history, on May 19, came close to forcing a general election.

The Liberal government won the crucial Commons vote, 153-152, and Russell, who was president of the Labrador Metis Nation, won the byelection five days later, with more votes than all other candidates combined.

This riding was established in 1949 as Grand Falls-White Bay. In 1952, the name was changed to Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador. In 1986, it was renamed Labrador.

• 1949-66 byelection inclusive - LIB
• 1968 - PC
• Since 1972 - LIB