Jody Hickey, an insulator who is also a singer/songwriter. After graduating from high school at age 17, Hickey said he chose what he describes as “the Cape Breton lifestyle,” moving away and coming back. He first headed to Toronto where he worked a variety of jobs from landscaping to construction, whatever he could find. At age 29 he first headed out West and began working in the oilfields, surveying, pipelining, service rig work, maintenance work.
He said he wants people to understand what those working out West are going through, of the banks having parking lots full of repossessed vehicles due to the lack of work and loss of relationships. He said word has spread about the heartache of people dropping off their pets at the SPCA out there as they are losing their homes and just can’t take care of them anymore. He said then there’s the alarming statistics of the suicide rate in Alberta, up 30 per cent this past year.