As a son of Industrial Cape Breton who was born there with fellow “boomers” almost 75 yrs ago, I found this movie resonated with the all too common experience of loss of employment for the main breadwinner as the steel and coal industry cycled from full shifts to shut downs under the tyranny of capitalism and brought into stark relief the morality of the extent to which displaced workers may have to go to provide for their families.
Most of my pre high school years were lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Anne’s and much of my school, spiritual, and social life revolved around this parish.The connection of the community to the Church in the movie and the closeness of the parish priest to the life of the people was reminiscent of my experience.
My dad was an electrical engineer who worked for the Dominion Coal Company and the successor public Cape Breton Development Corporation. We lived in a mixed economic neighbourhood in Glace Bay and a few “pit heads” along the coast were visible from the backyard. The relationship he had with the miners was mutually appreciative. He had a “pit bag” with a miner’s headgear and made trips underground to engineer and maintain the electrical motors and equipment upon which mining the “black gold” depends. My brother and I frequently spent what seemed to be hours in the car in the parking lot of one of the collieries on a weekend or during “miner’s vacation” in the summer as Dad needed to stop to check some electrical equipment. We were not discouraged by this experience as we are both now retired after careers as electrical engineers.
While I was studying prior to graduation from Nova Scotia Technical College, I was employed by Public Works Canada as part of a crew of surveyors who “staked out” roads and parking lots for the visitors to the Fortress Louisbourg National Historic Site. The movie displayed a bit of this impressive historic restoration that was constructed by coal miners displaced from the mines. This model of public works of national importance becoming employment for displaced workers, even those who had to be retrained, is an excellent option for support that has seemingly been forgotten. My trip to Louisbourg from Sydney was along the highway that is a few kilometers inland from Little Lorraine but the excellent cinematography of the movie captured the centrality of making a living on the sea that is so much a part of life in Canada’s Ocean Playground, and the opportunities for illegal enterprise based on a coastline with thousands of coves and boats of all sizes and purposes in and out of the harbours. During the days of “Prohibition” in the United States “rum runners” supported themselves addressing the thirst of the Republic to the South and today a visit to the coastal towns of the Maritimes reveals the wealth of some “respected families” who engaged in this “trade”. The "libertarian" view of not taking personal or social responsibility for the choices of others that may be detrimental to their health, particularly if it would threaten your sincere efforts to improve the lot of those close to you was brought into conflict with the long standing ethic of miners and “socialists” that we are our keepers of our brothers and sisters and the equitable distribution of the wealth of work is essential. This movie “moves” us to ponder the paradox of “progress” that we have to confront, particularly returning to an economy that prioritizes returns for the shareholder over sustaining families and communities. “Little Lorraine” creatively and dramatically with excellent acting clarifies the future decisions we will need to make as AI displaces the workers of today.
