The Cape Breton Development Corporation, or DEVCO, was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 federal government Crown corporation. It ceased operation on December 31, 2009, after being amalgamated with Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation

Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation

Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation is a Canadian federal Crown corporation which promotes and coordinates economic development throughout Cape Breton Island and adjacent areas in the eastern Nova Scotia town of Mulgrave....

 (ECBC).

DEVCO was organized primarily into two divisions: a community economic development organization, and the coal division.

From March 30, 1968 until November 23, 2001, DEVCO's coal division operated Canada's largest underground coal mines, located in eastern Cape Breton County

Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia

Cape Breton County, officially, County Cape Breton, is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island.Taking its name from Cape Breton, the most easterly point of the island which was called after the Bretons of Brittany, this municipality has what is probably the oldest...

, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

. Following decommissioning of its mines, DEVCO sold all non-mining surface assets to the private sector on December 18, 2001, including the Devco Railway

Devco Railway

The Devco Railway was a Canadian railway. Devco Railway operated as an unincorporated department within the Coal Division of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, also known as DEVCO; as such there is no formally incorporated entity named "Devco Railway"...

 and is presently remediating its mine sites.

Creation of DEVCO

In 1965, the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation

Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation

The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation was a Canadian coal mining and steel manufacturing company.Incorporated in 1928 and operational in 1930, DOSCO was predated by the British Empire Steel Corporation which was a merger of the Dominion Coal Company, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company and the...

, or DOSCO (then a subsidiary of the Hawker-Siddley Group) announced that its mines had only 15 years of production left and concluded that the expense of opening new underground mines in the Sydney Coal Field would be too expensive. The company made its intentions clear that it would be exiting the coal mining business within months.

In response to a vast public outcry in industrial Cape Breton County, the minority government

Minority government

A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...

 of Prime Minister Lester Pearson announced J.R. Donald would head a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Cape Breton coal industry, with hearings held in 1965 and 1966. The Donald Commission recommended that a federal Crown corporation be established to acquire and manage DOSCO's coal operations, with the aim being to slowly wean the Sydney area economy off the coal industry.

"Future planning should be based on the assumption that the Sydney mines will not operate beyond 1981."

On July 7, 1967 the Cape Breton Development Corporation, or DEVCO, was established to operate the mines in the interim, while phasing them out throughout the 1970s and, at the same time, develop new economic opportunities for the surrounding communities. On March 30, 1968 DEVCO expropriated DOSCO's coal mines and the Sydney and Louisburg Railway

Sydney and Louisburg Railway

The Sydney and Louisburg Railway is a historic Canadian railway. Built to transport coal from various mines to the ports of Sydney and Louisbourg, the S&L operated in the eastern part of Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia...

, settling for a payment of $12 million. At the same time, the Government of Nova Scotia took over the operation of DOSCO's integrated steel mill

Steel mill

A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel.Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. It is produced in a two-stage process. First, iron ore is reduced or smelted with coke and limestone in a blast furnace, producing molten iron which is either cast into pig iron or...

 in Sydney, renaming the operation Sydney Steel Corporation

Sydney Steel Corporation

Sydney Steel Corporation was a Crown corporation in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.-Steel comes to Sydney:An integrated steel mill was established on the southeast side of Sydney Harbour in the Whitney Pier neighbourhood of Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1901 by American investors...

, or SYSCO.

Early operation, planning for retraction

DEVCO had several operating divisions, including its Coal Division, as well as economic development divisions, intended to help the Industrial Cape Breton area diversify its economy from an over-reliance on the coal and steel industries.

Initially, DEVCO focused on operating the coal mines throughout the Sydney Coal Field that it had inherited from DOSCO, while attempting to invest in other initiatives such as establishing a post-secondary education institution in the area (what would become the University College of Cape Breton, now Cape Breton University

Cape Breton University

Cape Breton University , formerly the "University College of Cape Breton" , is a Canadian university in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality....

), tourism developments, industrial parks for non-coal/steel related manufacturing industries, and investing in small area businesses and community infrastructure projects to help unemployed coal miners and steel workers who had been laid off during the 1960s drawdown in production.

One of DEVCO's first tourism-related developments in the early 1970s was the Cape Breton Steam Railway, a joint project with the Sydney and Louisburg Railway Historical Society, which saw unused Devco Railway

Devco Railway

The Devco Railway was a Canadian railway. Devco Railway operated as an unincorporated department within the Coal Division of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, also known as DEVCO; as such there is no formally incorporated entity named "Devco Railway"...

 tracks between Glace Bay

Glace Bay, Nova Scotia

Glace Bay is a community in the eastern part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, Canada. It forms part of the general area referred to as Industrial Cape Breton....

 and Louisbourg

Louisbourg, Nova Scotia

Louisbourg is a community in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality.-History:The town's name was given by French military forces who founded the Fortress of Louisbourg and its fortified seaport on the southwest part of the harbour, in honour of Louis XV...

 used for operating a tourist railway, with coal-powered steam locomotives. The project ran until it proved to be uneconomic to operate by the late 1970s.

Overall, until 1973, DEVCO was more-or-less focused on continuing the operation of its former-DOSCO mines and railway, while providing new economic growth for the region.

Expansion, not retraction

The October 1973 Yom Kippur War

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...

 and the ensuing 1973 oil crisis

1973 oil crisis

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...

 led the federal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau

Pierre Trudeau

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...

 to re-examine all Canadian energy production, including the nationalization of Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 oil, as well as an expansion of DEVCO coal production, reversing the recommendation of the 1966 Donald Commission to phase out production and diversify the economy of Industrial Cape Breton. The Trudeau government sought to use its ownership of DEVCO to reverse Nova Scotia's reliance on the importation of foreign oil for generating electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

; approximately 70% of the province's electricity was generated by foreign oil by the late 1970s.

New mines were built and opened near New Waterford (Phalen and Lingan collieries) and on Boularderie Island

Boularderie Island

Boularderie Island is an island separating the Cabot Strait from Bras d'Or Lake on the eastern coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. It takes its name from Louis-Simon le Poupet de la Boularderie, who was granted the area as a concession from the King of France.At 40 km long and...

 (Prince colliery) starting in around 1972-1975. Devco Railway built a spur to serve the adjacent Phalen and Lingan mines, extending the line to serve Nova Scotia Power Incorporated's Lingan Generating Station which opened November 1, 1979.

During the early 1980s, the Devco Railway retired its diesels locomotives inherited from the Sydney and Louisburg Railway

Sydney and Louisburg Railway

The Sydney and Louisburg Railway is a historic Canadian railway. Built to transport coal from various mines to the ports of Sydney and Louisbourg, the S&L operated in the eastern part of Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia...

, which had purchased them second-hand during the early 1960s, and purchased a fleet of new diesel locomotives and coal hoppers, as well as building new locomotive shops at Victoria Junction, between Sydney and Glace Bay, and shut down the Glace Bay roundhouse and machine shops.

DEVCO also shut down a coal wash plant at Sydney Mines and built a large coal preparation and wash plant at Victoria Junction in its place, as well as new international shipping piers on Sydney Harbour, replacing the antiquated export piers inherited from DOSCO. With federal government financing, DEVCO was in expansion mode and with the high international prices for coal, sought to produce more Cape Breton coal for export than ever before.

Production problems and mine closures

By the late 1980s, production problems at DEVCO saw the last of the older mines inherited from DOSCO shut down, with production concentrated at Lingan, Phalen and Prince; the latter not receiving any rail service. The Point Aconi Generating Station was built by Nova Scotia Power Incorporated to receive coal from the Prince colliery directly by conveyor belt, however the Lingan and Phalen mines still hauled coal to the Victoria Junction preparation plant and then to the Lingan Generating Station.

The SYSCO steel mill stopped using DEVCO coal to produce coke

Coke (fuel)

Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous. While coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made.- History :...

 as a fuel for its blast furnaces in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, SYSCO had modernized by changing to an electric-arc process, smelting recycled metal.

Problems with flooding and roof-falls at the Lingan mine saw production cease in 1992, just months short of the colliery's 20-year design limit. The Phalen mine continued to be the only source of online traffic for the Devco Railway, however subsequent flooding and roof-falls at Phalen caused ever increasing production costs at a time of fiscal restraint by the federal government.

In mid 2008 DEVCO sponsored the new Industrial Research Chair in Mine Water Remediation & Management at Cape Breton University

Cape Breton University

Cape Breton University , formerly the "University College of Cape Breton" , is a Canadian university in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality....

 in order to assist in the mine closure

Mine closure

Mine closure is the period of time when the ore-extracting activities of a mine have ceased, and final decommissioning and mine reclamation are being completed. It is generally associated with reduced employment levels, which can have a significant negative impact on local economies...

 and to research in new environmentally friendly after uses of the mining legacy.

Layoffs and selling of assets

Faced with rising subsidies for DEVCO, the federal government announced it was getting out of the coal industry in January 1999 by mining out the rest of Phalen by the end of the year and attempting to sell the Prince colliery.

In September 1999, Phalen colliery closed for good, with 400 employees laid off and the only on-line traffic source for the Devco Railway severed. The Prince colliery continued with production, however coal was trucked from the mine to the Victoria Junction preparation plant, from which it was then taken by rail to the Lingan Generating Station. Devco Railway also began to be used for importing some coal from locations in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, with the international shipping piers beginning to be used in the reverse of their intended design.

On November 23, 2001, Prince colliery closed for good, after the federal government failed to entice any private sector investors to purchase the mine. DEVCO was out of the coal mining business, however for a period of approximately 1 month, it was in the coal importation business. The federal government moved swiftly to sell off assets, transferring the mine properties and mineral rights back to the provincial Department of Natural Resources. DEVCO subsequently decommissioned the Victoria Junction coal wash plant and began to immediately prepare remediation of the mine sites.

On December 18, 2001 DEVCO sold all surface assets, including the international shipping piers, railway track, railway rights-of-way, locomotives and rolling stock, and a coal storage facility and locomotive shops at Victoria Junction to 510845 New Brunswick Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera Inc.

Emera

Emera Incorporated is a Halifax, Nova Scotia based energy and services company with 570,000 customers.It operates three utility subsidiaries:* Nova Scotia Power* Bangor Hydro Electric Company* Saint Lucia Electricity Services Limited...

, the holding company which owns Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (Nova Scotia Power Corporation having been privatized in 1992).

Emera subsequently contracted the operation of its newly acquired DEVCO surface assets to Logistec Corporation. Logistec sub-contracted operation of the railway to the Société des chemins de fer du Québec, a Quebec-based railway holding company and short-line operating company. The new railway was called Sydney Coal Railway

Sydney Coal Railway

The Sydney Coal Railway is a Canadian short-line railway operating in the eastern part of Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia.SCR operates from the international coaling piers on Sydney Harbour in Sydney to the Lingan Generating Station, a coal-fired electrical generating station near New Waterford...

, although ownership of the track and other assets remains with Emera's subsidiary, 510845 New Brunswick Inc. Logistec operates the international piers, which handles coal imports from the United States and South America, while Sydney Coal Railway hauls the coal to the storage facility at Victoria Junction before transporting it to NSP's Lingan Generating Station.

Cessation of DEVCO

On December 31, 2009, DEVCO was amalgamated with Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation

Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation

Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation is a Canadian federal Crown corporation which promotes and coordinates economic development throughout Cape Breton Island and adjacent areas in the eastern Nova Scotia town of Mulgrave....

(ECBC).