I remember how ‘proud’ Premier McKenna was when New Brunswick’s GDP per capita exceeded Nova Scotia’s for the first time in decades back in the mid 1990s. Of course, since than Nova Scotia has reclaimed that lead by growing faster than New Brunswick six of the last eight years.
An now, I read that Nova Scotia’s unemployment rate has dropped below the Canadian average for the first time in recent history.Year-over-year comparisons released by Statistics Canada yesterday, Sept. 9, show Nova Scotia’s August unemployment rate has gone down to a historic low of 6.9 per cent, compared to a 7.1 per cent average for Canada. Now, they are using the ‘unadjusted’ rate. Nova Scotia still has a higher rate using the seasonally adjusted data.
However, New Brunswick’s unemployment rate is 9.2% well above both Nova Scotia and Canada as a whole.
There are two interesting points here. One, six years ago in August 1999, the unadjusted unemployment rate in New Brunswick was 8.1% – lower than Nova Scotia’s 8.4%. The second, and equally interesting point, is that just a few months ago, the Premier was bragging in the legislature about the record ‘low’ unemployment rate.
Getting our butts whipped by Nova Scotia is not much to brag about, in my opinion.