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Old Posted May 4, 2012, 2:38 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Vancouver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PoscStudent View Post
Hasn't the NDPs base of support been in Halifax for a number of years? Is the government taking that for granted in the hopes of keeping their rural support, or do they actually think this is a good idea?
They have lots of support in Halifax but the premier is from a small town and a couple of the moves are directly to the rural districts of rural NDP MLAs. I was hoping that this would be a more "urban" government but that doesn't seem to be how it is panning out.

I don't know much about it, but there were a couple of struggling small town mills recently. The one in the premier's hometown got a bailout. As far as I know the other got nothing and closed down. Somebody else can probably say more about this story.

The pork barrel politics are awful and a big reason why NS is uncompetitive in a lot of ways. A big percentage of the NS provincial debt is literally handouts to rural industry. On top of the debt itself this has had the undesirable effect of keep a large, unproductive rural population on life support. In other provinces those populations relocated to the cities decades ago. I would not be surprised if the urban/rural split alone is enough to account for the difference in average wealth in Atlantic Canada and other regions.
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