FREDERICTON – For many families across New Brunswick, having a family member working in another province is a harsh reality.
But it’s a particularly bitter reality this time of the year. Many New Brunswick families have to celebrate the holiday season apart from their loved ones.
“I haven’t seen him since August 15. This is the longest I’ve ever gone not seeing my brother,” said Stephanie Mead of Fredericton.
Mead’s brother, Matt, will not be home for Christmas this year. He worked as a mechanic in New Brunswick for ten years but was offered a job in Alberta over the summer.
The job paid triple what his N.B. job paid.
He took it, having to leave his family behind.
“I took it for granted. I went to pick up the phone to call him because he had been my mechanic forever to do an oil change and then I was like, ‘Oh yeah. He’s out west,'” she said.
The small, close family have never spent Christmas apart. Now they’re having to adjust to the distance.
“I actually had to do Christmas gifts this year by sending an e-transfer, rather than giving him gifts,” she said.
“There’s not really a price you can put on not having your family around.”
Thousands are going through the same this Christmas.
Becky Ganong has five siblings. Three of them won’t be home for Christmas this year. Her two brothers, a sister, uncle and her father have all spent time working out west.
“I feel like half of them are out there right now or somewhere else – it’s not really Christmas,” she said.
Ganong is now used to family reunions being half the size they once were. But she see the appeal. Ganong works a minimum wage job.
But she’s also seen what it can do to relationships.
“When I was younger I saw what it did to my parents, from what I could tell – they were kind of growing apart when my dad was out there,” she said.
Mead says decision makers need to step up.
“Actually have someone who has had someone go out, and knows it, and do everything you can to bring them back,” she said. “Make it appealing to be here again.”
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