Quote:
Originally Posted by spaustin
That's money that could go to other things, but it's tied up because of decades of mismanagement.
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Yeah, as you say, these problems go back decades. I don't necessarily think that NS has been much more reckless with spending than other provinces, but it has three big structural problems:
1) Large, not very productive rural population. This goes hand in hand with the horrible cycle of sinking money into rural areas to get rural votes.
2) Lack of population growth and immigration. Other provinces have lower debt-to-GDP ratios partly because they have "outgrown" their debt. The caveat here is that this growth isn't always sustainable.
3) Tiny scale of provincial government.
It's a bit of a pyramid scheme, but the easiest way to improve the province's bottom line would probably be to have more immigration/migration to Halifax. Unfortunately, NS has a very low immigration sponsorship quota and whenever immigration is brought up it gets derailed into a debate on how we can get people to move to Canso, which is very unlikely to happen.