[Northern Light]

I think its a valid point that the Maritimes are set up in a more decentralized fashion, one that was particularly suited to serving outports for fishing.

The result is not only a surplus of universities, but of elementary and high schools and hospitals, relative to population.

That's expensive, which in turn leads to a somewhat higher and less competitive tax regime.

It also reduces the natural incentive to urbanize to access public services, if those are sustained in small, isolated places.

To boost growth in cities like Halifax and St. John or even less populated Centres like Truro, Sydney, Moncton, etc. There is a need to cull the outports and reduce public service in far-flung areas.

This, of course, might be political suicide for a government of the day. But I think its inevitable.

Its essential for attracting and retaining local, Canadian/Immigrant youth.

You need those larger urban centres with greater nightlife, cultural and culinary amenities, as well as leading-edge post-secondary education and healthcare.

The impact would vary by province, but it could mean nixing more than 1/3 of elementary schools and hospitals.

But the result would support more advanced care being available in each province, a greater range of surgeries, more advanced education ( a New Brunswick medical school?) , and some savings government could put towards a more competitive tax situation.

If those issues could be addressed, I see no reason you couldn't get a Saint John to 250,000 in the medium term and HFX to 600,000 in the same time frame. Larger in the longer term.

The same issue is true for Newfoundland, where there is a crying need to scope the province back to 5-9 hub communities and nix a lot of the rest.

St. Johns, Cornerbrook, Gander, Goose Bay and a few others that make sense.

Then St. Johns can naturally grow to well over 500,000 and you get a second city of over 100,000 and that will really help economic performance.

There is a need to reduce reliance on resource industries for employment.

That doesn't mean scaling back on the industries themselves, but allowing modernization, which in turn reduces the relative employment level in that sector per unit of production.