Manipulating the EI truth

I have a certain affinity to the people of the maritime provinces.  They are wonderful folks, on the whole, who live in a wonderful place with a great history.  No wonder that, when they leave to find work, they long to go back HOME.

The Harper government has made a lot of hay recently accusing maritimers, and others, of being too lazy to take jobs that are going unfilled in their regions or to move to areas of Canada that jobs are available.  They are making it rougher to collect EI benefits to force one to move away or to pump coffee at Timmy's.  If that is not social engineering, something that the Cons decrie, then I do not understand the term.

But is there anything in the political history of this country that may have contributed to the problems in the maritime provinces?  Let's take the Miramichi region as an example.  Since before confederation the Miramichi had been an economic powerhouse in Canada.  Shipping had been plying the Miramichi for decades before the Intercolonial Railway reached the region in 1875, shortly followed by the Northern and Western Railway (later the Canada Eastern Railway).  Fish plants, sawmills and pulp mills provided jobs and wealth to the area.  Until...

In the 1960s, the government of Louis Robichaud decided to build a new port at neighbouring Belledune.  Belledune took over the industries and jobs that were once in the Miramichi.  Then the federal government put the nail in the coffin by stopping regular dredging operations of the Miramichi River thus closing off the area to major shipping.  Miramichi, a jewel of Canada, was laid waste.  In June of 2011, the unemployment rate of the Campellton-Miramichi area was 16.8%... fully double that of Canada as a whole.  That means, according to Harper and his minions, that there are over 62,600 lazy people in the region... or has government had any role in the problem?