Union leader says they only have job commitment from feds for next few months
There are fears today that three quarters of the jobs at the Canadian Firearms Centre in Miramichi will be lost based on the new changes announced by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

Yesterday, Day announced a slew of changes to the program, including the abolition of the long-gun registry.

"For us that means there may be a loss of 150 jobs out of 200 jobs," said Lise Thibodeau regional representative for the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Thibodeau said they also have no information on how the transfer of the registry to the administration of the RCMP will affect the workers.

"It's really hard for everyone because we don't know exactly what to expect and when," said Thibodeau.

Day said yesterday there would be no job losses but he didn't rule out job loss in the future.

"We are going to work with employees in the future to see what it means as the system moves to the RCMP and we are going to do that as carefully and sensitively and as sensibly as possible," he said. "We will see what the final results are in the weeks and the months ahead."

PSAC Local 60001 president Jo-Anne Dawson said they have no information beyond that, which is discouraging.

"We only got a commitment for the next few months but there's no commitment beyond that," she said. "These are real people that work at these jobs that are supporting their families and that are helping out in the community. Obviously, if we're making money we're spending it in the community and it's just kind of sad that people have to wait like this," Dawson said.

But, it's not just the gun registry employees who are worried about what's coming. Eddy Li owns the Cunard Restaurant that's in walking distance of the gun registry and a favourite lunch spot among registry employees.

"They give us business so I would hate to lose those customers," Li said.

Bill Fraser, who owns a convenience store in downtown Chatham near the registry building, says any job losses could hurt the downtown economy. "It affects everybody in the region," he said.

Miramichi Mayor John McKay said he'll look to the federal government to honour the commitment they made during the recent federal election of no job losses at the registry or to replace the losses with other positions.

"We've done the lobbying, I'm just assuming they're going to keep their word," McKay said of the Conservative government.

The mayor said he expects Miramichi MP Charles Hubbard to remind them of their commitments and hopes Premier Bernard Lord will continue to lobby for the jobs to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as he did in the past.

One of the reasons the gun registry was set up in Miramichi was to offset the economic losses that came with the closure of CFB Chatham in 1994. But, McKay says Miramichi never recovered from that loss, that the "heart was torn right out of Miramichi.

"We're hoping that Mr. Harper will do an honourable thing and stop the job hemorrhaging that has been going on under the federal government," he said.

The city of Miramichi has requested a meeting with the federal government to see what can be done to offset any job losses.

Brian Donovan, executive director for Enterprise Miramichi, said his group and the mayor have submitted proposals to the federal government for potential federal jobs to locate in Miramichi, but they have yet to receive a response.

"We have 400 people that have already gone through the security clearances," he said.

Miramichi Liberal MP Charles Hubbard speculated there are federal jobs that could replace any job losses at the gun registry.

"We would hope that they would honour their word," Hubbard said of the Tory promise to replace jobs lost at the registry.

"We have a well-trained workforce, probably more than half of them are bilingual. They've worked for government, they know technology and so there is lots of opportunity to do something if the will is there to do it."