"The vision of a crowd of sailors landing on shore on pay day after being out at sea for months and months...... and the town where they land has nothing but taverns in it"
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Thing is, Bob Rae's NDP mess wasn't that big a break from the past.
Consider this.
There was a 1970's machine tool company in, I think it was, Mississauga that did not want to deal with having unionized employees, but got organized anyway. The owners of the company decided to go out of business rather than be subject to a union.
The provincial government forced the company back into business. That's right. The Liberal government forced to owners to put their capital at risk and reopen. I don't know if the company is still in business today.
Ummmmm.... something is definitely wrong with your story. The Progressive Conservatives were the party in power from 1943 to 1985 so either your story happened under a PC government or the timing is off - in 1985 David Peterson became the first Liberal premier since Harry Nixon in 1943. For your information, Bill Davis was the premier from 1971 to 1985. You have raised a curious story so if you can find more detail, I suggest you dig it out and post it.
And yes, the guvmint of Bob Rae was indeed a very bad thing. Greg Weston's article in the Ottawa Sun is just a mild hint at how bad it was.