Last Updated Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:12:18 EDT
CBC News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced plans to reinstate the regional weather office in Gander, N.L., during a visit there Wednesday.
"Newfoundlanders and Labradorians deserve better than to be told to expect five centimetres of snow, only to wake up to 10 times that amount," he said, to loud applause.
"The education of the province's youngsters shouldn't suffer because schools close their doors for storms that fail to materialize."
Harper pledged to restore forecasting services at the weather office in central Newfoundland in December, during the campaign leading up to January's federal election that gave him a minority government.
The Liberal government of Jean Chrétien enraged many in Newfoundland and Labrador when it moved most forecasting services for the province to Nova Scotia a few years ago.
Only a small meteorological station remained in Gander as the Liberals consolidated 14 forecasting centres across the country into five.
Since then, municipal politicians, business leaders and fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador have complained constantly about the quality of forecasts that overestimated the impact of some approaching storms and – more often – underestimated the heft of others.
"I think it's a great victory," St. John's Mayor Andy Wells told CBC News in an interview Wednesday morning.
"We are very weather-dependent in this province ...You can have four seasons in half an hour in Newfoundland, our weather is so changeable."
He said air travel in particular has suffered from the lack of in-time, immediate forecasts.
Coastal Labrador and other remote areas are serviced by small planes, whose safety is heavily dependent on accurate forecasts, Wells said. Occasionally, even large commercial flights have been cancelled when Nova Scotia-based forecasters incorrectly predicted bad weather.
'Safety is the biggest concern': mayor
If full services are reinstated, at least 20 federal jobs will be returned to Gander, said Gander Mayor Claude Elliott.
"Safety is the biggest concern," he told CBC News.
"I think we need that brought back so we can be more accurate because the weather changes so much in this province that you have to be here to witness it."
Pat Dwyer, who spearheaded a union-backed petition to reinstate the Gander weather office, attended Harper's announcement.
He told CBC News he was led to believe the reinstatement of forecasting services will be phased in.
Harper himself signed PSAC petition
The Public Service Alliance of Canada put its weight behind Dwyer's petition on the weather services, which collected about 125,000 signatures.
One of those who signed it was Harper himself.
"When Stephen Harper signed this petition, he knew very clearly, and he understood very well, that the weather office here in Gander is in three components," said Dwyer.
"We're talking about public forecasting, marine forecasting, and aviation forecasting ... We did discuss we were looking for all three components, and he signed stating he supported all three components."
Premier Danny Williams joined Harper at the announcement in Gander, and will also meet with him during the St. John's leg of the prime minister's visit. The future of the East Coast fishery is on the agenda.
