Poor Nova Scotia
Skyscrapers from Lower Water Street.
I'm waiting, right now, to hear Bush release his economic stimulus package for the United States in a couple hours and passing the time catching up on local news. It's not that I don't follow what's happening everyday, but sometimes I need to sit down and compile it together in terms of my own future strategies. In the short form, the move to Toronto is back on the table and nigh certain. Our trip to Korea is uncertain, and likely postponed, but that frees us up to grab 2008 by the horns and go for the gold.
What gold? There's not much around here, it seems. That's the news. While the U.S. is on the brink of economic collapse, I think Canada might be able to weather it but it's not going to be pretty. And, if you're starting out from a have-not position, it's going to be ugly as sin.
The big news today, in Nova Scotia, is health care. Rodney MacDonald has announced he's accepting a report with 103 recommendations on how to shape the future of health care in Nova Scotia over the next three years. The cure, says MacDonald, is not so much about improving it, but learning how to better deal with the inevitable shortfalls.
The Herald is describing Nova Scotia's health care as near collapse. The Daily News also offers up its prognosis along with a column by David Rodenhiser.
It certainly does not give one hope that things will get better and no one is satisfied with the status quo now. I don't know if the grass is greener on the other side of the St. Lawrence, but the waiting lines are shorter, it seems.
At least education should be taken care of in the future. It seems there's a glut of new teacher. Getting back to health care, however, the same problem exists there. There's plenty of nurses graduating but the province won't hire them. It doesn't stop them from pretending there's a shortage, though, as that's a more convenient excuse.
Even cabbies are thinking of going on strike, though being a media guy professionally, I'm more keen to watch what happens with the looming strike at the Toronto Star or if the financial trouble besetting Quebecor World bubbles over to affect Quebecor's other holdings, namely SunMedia and the Toronto Sun (cut all the reporters you need to but hands off the Sunshine Girls.)
So we're thinking again about moving up to the big smoke. Maybe we'll hang on long enough to see if Canada's New Government's tax cuts give us a better starting platform come April... though by then, it sounds like they could be Canada's Former Government but nothing's carved in stone.
Perhaps we should go up next month. Ontario has announced that they're granting a new statutory holiday in February. In Nova Scotia? Nope. Premier says we're too poor to afford a day off. Canada's Ocean Playground already has the fewest holidays of any Canadian province and I suppose it makes little sense to celebrate Family Day in a place where it's damn near unaffordable to start one.
Labels: economic collapse, education, health care, Nova Scotia
