Port aux Basques mayor says 'tunnel going nowhere' meant incomplete highway, not Labrador

Port Aux Basques Mayor John Spencer says when he criticized the idea of a fixed link between Newfoundland and mainland Canada as a "tunnel going nowhere," he was referring to an incomplete highway, not to Labrador as a whole.

"Why are we going to spend all this money to develop a costly venture of a tunnel going nowhere?" Spencer told CBC Newson Tuesday, who says he's concerned a fixed link when decimate the economy of his port town on Newfoundland's west coast.

The proposed fixed link, which was listed in the federal Liberal's election platform, carries an estimated $1.65 billion price tag and comes with many hurdles both political and geographical.

But some who tookexception to Spencer's comments focused not on his opposition to the project but on his use of the word "nowhere,"accusing him of being dismissive of Labrador and the population that lives there.

"I might as well rename myself as the member from Western nowhere if we keep up with this attitude," Labrador West MHA Jordan Brown said.

Brown said such comments about Labrador have persistedfor decades especially, when it comes to proposed infrastructure projects.

"[These comments] paint Labrador and Labradorians as nowhere," Brown said.

"So when you go to the court of public opinion,when there is a project like that in Labrador,it always gets that opinion of, 'Why are we doing this in nowhere?'"

Clarification

But Spencer says that isn't what he meant.

Asked to clarify the comment, he said he was referring to an article he'd read on iPolitics.ca with the headline "Trudeau's Costly Tunnel to Nowhere" that noted Highway 138, which runs along Quebec's North Shore, is incomplete.

"It's an article that refers to the fact that Route 138 is not even started. It's started but it's 400 kilometres of vacant land upon the North Shore of Quebec," Spencer said.

"There was never any attempt to figuratively refer to the Big Land as nowhere."

Spencer says his criticism was of the economics of the proposed project and in no way was directed at the communities on the other side of the water.

"Please don't think that I don't want to see improvements in the infrastructure of Labrador. I want to see improvements in the infrastructure right across this nation," he said.

The completion of Route 138 would connect several isolated communities in Quebec to a road and has been called, buy N.L. Transportation Minister a "nation-building initiative" thatwould bring with it a more predictable trade corridor.

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