Historical background to "Finch's Complaint" by Stan Rogers

[BrainGlutton]

Not sure whether to post this in CS or GQ – it’s based on a song, but my question is historical. Mods, move if you think appropriate.

Canadian folksinger Stan Rogers released an album in 1976, Fogarty’s Cove, mainly about working-class life in Nova Scotia. The last track on which is a spoken recitation, “Finch’s Complaint.” It begins thus – http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~sshorlin/finch.html:

Tom Finch turned to the waitress and said, "Bring me another Alpine.
I’ll have one more before I go to tell Marie the news.
Well boys, we’re for it this time. The plant is closed for good.
Regan broke his promise, and we’re through.
We’re working men with no work left to do.

For years I though he meant Ronald Reagan, until I looked up the lyrics, and the spelling is different; besides, Reagan was not president until 1981. (I did not acquire the album until several years later.) I looked up “Regan” on the Wikipedia and found an article on a Gerald Regan who was premier of Nova Scotia from 1970 to 1978. The article states – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Regan:

As premier, Regan supported industrialization and the development of offshore gas and oil. His first government amended the province’s labour code to prevent courts from issuing injunctions to prevent picketing in labour disputes, and the office of the provincial ombudsman was established. In its second term, the Regan government nationalized the Nova Scotia Light and Power electrical utility, and consolidated electricity supply under the Nova Scotia Power Corporation. A massive plan for the development of tidal power in the Bay of Fundy was also announced.

So what was Regan’s “broken promise”? How would these pro-industrial policies have resulted in the factory layoffs of which Finch complains?

[BrainGlutton]

Nobody knows?

[Gorsnak]

I don’t think it is supposed to refer to any specific event. I’ve always assumed that “the plant” was a fish processing plant that was shut down as part of the general decline of the east coast fisheries, and “Regan’s promise” is just some nebulous promise of economic securty.