A recent poll in the Calgary Herald found that managing the red-hot economy is the central issue for Alberta residents (I can’t link you need a password):
Managing Alberta’s red-hot economy is emerging as the central issue for residents — eclipsing both health care and education — as provincial Tories prepare to choose their next leader, a new poll suggests. One in 10 Albertans now lists the “booming economy” as the most important issue facing the province, according to a Leger Marketing survey. When combined with a series of growth-related worries, nearly 40 per cent of respondents expressed concern with Alberta’s ability to cope with issues such as staff shortages, growing inflation and rising housing costs. Other challenges listed as top concerns include: the labour shortage (eight per cent); inflation (five per cent); infrastructure (five per cent); and population growth (one per cent). Combined, they outweigh health care, cited by 24 per cent of respondents as Alberta’s leading issue.
Ironically, the flipside in New Brunswick is not true. Managing our tepid economy and trying to get things back on the rail is not the #1 issue for New Brunswick. We, predictably, like to fall back on ‘health care’ et. al. as our area of concern.
Maybe it’s not that bad a model. We sit back and stew and suck money out of Alberta. Let them deal with ‘growth’ and all its problems. Maybe Lord was onto something. If we can enshrine a very lucrative Equalization package, we can sit back and let the dollars roll in.
Maybe Lord was right and I was wrong!
Food for thought.
Although, I have this nagging issue. On the CBC this morning there was a story set in rural Newfoundland about how the whole community is depressed and morbid. A woman was passionately insisting that Newfoundlanders need more pride or some such thing (it was secondary in my sensory perception, my primary concern at the time was a client briefing I was working on).
Something tells me that shedding people and bulking up on Equalization won’t do much for our collective self-esteem.
Food for thought – but don’t overeat. We are already the most ‘obese’ population in Canada.