Saying Goodbye to Courtenay Bay Generating Station

Today I had an opportunity to attend an event to mark the closing of the Courtenay Bay Generating Station after 47 years of operation. Many of you may not know this, but Courtenay Bay holds a special place in my heart, because in some ways, and like what has happened for so many others, it is where I started down the road that lead me to the place I am today.

In 1991, 17 years ago, I worked at Courtenay Bay G.S. for 4 months during the last co-op work term of the Chemical Technology Program I was enrolled in. I worked with a great bunch of people – Chem Techs Kevin Thorne, Mark Allaby, Sean Maxwell, Malcolm Manderville and Bernice Lanigan, and they sure taught me a lot. Like the rest of the people down at “the Bay”, they were great role models and they went out of their way to help me learn.

Glen Brown was the lab supervisor then, and I remember that one day he wanted to see me in his office. I was a little nervous, because as a student I wasn’t often asked to go to the boss’s office, but I found out he just wanted to get to know me a little better – I was more than just a worker at the station, I was part of the family, which was the way things worked at Courtenay Bay. At the end of the conversation, he told me he was pleased with my work and he was going to put in a good word for me. Later the next summer, I did start working with NB Power, and the rest as they say, is history.

So like many other people, it all started right there for me, and today was a bit of a sad day, as we said goodbye to Courtenay Bay Generating Station. Having said that, I do want to tell you that the men and women who started there, or spent some time there in the Courtenay Bay family, have now dispersed and brought the lessons they learned at the Bay to the other stations throughout NB Power. For that, all employees of NB Power, and all the members of the IBEW, can be grateful, and in spreading the knowledge, and more importantly, the values we all learned at Courtenay Bay, the station will continue to live on.

Welcoming new members to Local 37

Last night I was attending the Point Lepreau Unit meeting where I had the pleasure of watching as Unit Chairperson Don Dickson swore in Nick Reiker as a new member of Local 37. It's great that Nick is starting his career by participating in our union meetings -- it's a way to have real involvement in what goes on in the work place, and it always makes me happy to see new members participating.

New members are something we are going to see a lot more of, since the average age of our members in in the high forties. As more and more of our existing members retire each year, we are going to have to make sure that we welcome the new people who will be replacing them.

As a union, we need to make sure we invite these new members to participate and have a real say in the running of our union, in order to strengthen our organization with their energy and new ideas. We can also help these new members excel by looking out for them and teaching them how to be sucessful and safe on the job - after all, we're all in the IBEW family together.

It's important to talk to the media

Today I received a call out of the blue from Mike Cameron, a reporter for ATV news. He was doing a story about the energy hub, and whether or not the downturn in the economy would impact some of the big energy projects that were planned. He wanted to know if I would do an interview with him.

I know it can be a real problem for reporters to find people who are willing to talk to them -- people are generally nervous about reporters and concerned they will look bad or end up misquoted.

But when I receive calls like this, I look at them as real opportunities to get the Union's message out to the public. I'm always available for reporters and if I feel it's something we can weigh in on with credibility, I'll always do the interview -- in fact I'll go the extra mile to make myself available. If we're part of news story, we may get our message out to hundreds of thousands of people in Atlantic Canada, and if I can do a good job, it sends a positive image of the IBEW too, as a responsible union that engages in intelligent debate on the issues that are important to our communities.