The government knew it had to provide better services for people. It wanted to make Newfoundland more modern. People all over the new province wanted changes too. They wanted to be able to make a better living. They wanted more and better services in their communities.

Some people who lived in small, isolated communities wanted to move. They wanted the government to help them do this. Some of them wrote to the government to ask for help.² Some people asked the welfare officer in their district what could be done to help them move. Often these requests for help came from families or groups of people. There seems to have been little problem with this at first. Then the government decided to ask whole communities to agree on whether they would stay or move. This was when the trouble started.

In Newfoundland today, some people get angry or upset when they hear the word resettlement. They have bad memories of a time when people who had lived together all their lives could not get along with each other because of resettlement. They remember the pressure to move. Neighbours and families disagreed over this. There were angry words. Sometimes, husbands and wives could not agree about whether to stay or go. But the main problem was that the government was getting into decisions which people felt should be their own.

In the 1950s, the government of Newfoundland had to make many decisions about where to put services. They had to decide where to put electricity, roads, schools and hospitals. It was very expensive to bring better services to some communities. Many people lived without water and sewage systems, without doctors or telephones. Some places had trouble getting teachers. Some years there were children who could not go to school because there was no one to teach them. The needs of the people were great. As always, the money to meet those needs was not as great.

There was also another problem. Many people were not able to make a living from their work. They had to depend on public relief³ for parts of the year. A lot of people were poor year after year. They did not have enough money to repair or improve their houses or boats. Sometimes when fishing gear wore out, people could not repair it. This put their whole way of life in danger.