The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor In 1989, an American filmmaker named Michael Moore rose to prominence thanks to a documentary that profiled the devastation wrought by corporate downsizing. Roger & Me followed Moore as he attempted to interview automobile CEO Roger Smith about his cutting of 30,000 jobs in Flint, Michigan, and its impact on the city. Now Niki Ashton hopes Moore will make a sequel of sorts. Perhaps it could be titled Tito & Me after Tito Martins, CEO of Vale, the nickel juggernaut poised to slash 500 to 600 jobs in Thompson. Last week, the northern Manitoba MP released a letter she sent to Moore asking him to profile Thompson, whose nickel smelter and refinery are due to close by 2015. It's part of Ashton's campaign to somehow force Vale to keep the smelter and refinery operating even as the company cites a lack of feed and too-strict federal pollution rules. "We wanted to share our story with you," Ashton tells Moore. "It is a story of how foreign ownership and corporate welfare are on course to devastate a community, and region. We are fighting to break the silence and have our story heard. We are fighting to reverse the plan of devastating job loss and the shipping away of value-added jobs from our area. We are fighting not only for our community but for communities like ours." See 'MP...' on pg. 11 Continued from pg. 6 The letter praises Moore, as controversial a figure as there is in filmmaking today, for his "great work" to "profile the struggles of working people." "The way you have shared so many stories and created such an impact inspired us to share our story," Ashton writes. "We believe that you could understand our story. And we hope that it may be shared with as many as possible." Defender Millions of filmgoers view the heavyset, left-leaning Moore as a ball-capped defender of the little guy against powerful corporate and government interests. But many others see him as deceitful, accusing him of using invalid facts and dishonest editing to mould reality into his preferred image. Love him or hate him, Moore, who also directed the anti-gun Bowling for Columbine and the anti-Bush Fahrenheit 9/11, has a vast, dedicated following, particularly among small-l liberals. But it is not at all clear how Moore, if he is even interested in Thompson, could possibly influence business decisions made by a private, multibillion-dollar corporation like Vale. For all the buzz that surrounded Roger & Me, it did nothing to bring those shuttered auto plants back to life. In a similar vein, Fahrenheit 9/11 Ð whose stated purpose was to make George W. Bush a one-term president Ð not only failed in that regard, but may have helped Bush win re-election by mobilizing his supporters. Back in Thompson, Ashton has repeatedly painted the pending closures as somehow related to the 2007 takeover of nickel giant Inco by nickel behemoth Vale, which is based in Brazil. Yet a 2005 Winnipeg Free Press article noted that Thompson would only process ore from Newfoundland and Labrador, as it is now, until a new smelter was built there. That smelter is set for completion in early 2013. Ashton has also cited Vale's pre-purchase pledge to maintain Canadian jobs, implying that it was nothing but an empty promise. But just because Vale may be slashing jobs in Thompson does not mean its overall Canadian workforce will decline. Indeed the company has committed $10 billion to its Canadian operations and says more underground mining jobs may open up in Thompson. A stunt? For Wally Daudrich, the Conservative who will challenge Ashton in the next election, the invitation to Moore is nothing more than a stunt. He dismissed Moore as "a foreign citizen that takes radical environmental extremist views that would kill our mining industry." Asked what damage could come of Moore accepting Ashton's request, Daudrich said "the harm in it is that the NDP, especially our present MP, say and do things only to win votes rather than act [with] substance and form." "What he would do is provide the optics for the NDP to make it look like they're actually doing something when they're not," he said. Daudrich also found irony in Ashton's criticizing Vale's ownership as foreign while simultaneously asking a foreign citizen, the American Moore, to join her campaign. The Reminder contacted Moore's representatives for comment but did not hear back as of press time Monday.
