30 Mar The view from Halifax

When the Dexter Government’s throne speech revealed plans to decentralize a few hundred of the thousands of provincial government jobs in Halifax, AllNovaScotia.com put out a bulletin that read:

Bulletin II: Gov’t Jobs Leaving HRM

I wrote a Halifax friend and asked if that shouldn’t read:

Gov’t Jobs Move to Rural NS

My friend shot back with:

Gov’t Pandering To Rural NS

I think my friend was joking,* but you don’t have to scratch the skin of a Haligonian very deeply to discover the view that everything—everything—belongs in the provincial capital, with the possible exception of the Peggy’s Cove lighthouse and the Shambhala monastery at Red River.

This will have to serve as a placemarker, because I have no time to research the topic today, but I believe any fair-minded comparison would show that our federal and provincial governments concentrate jobs in their respective capitals to an unusual, even extreme, degree.

Such a comparison will show that a much smaller proportion of US Government jobs are located in the District of Columbia than are Canadian Government jobs located in Ottawa and Hull. One reason New Brunswick has three thriving population centres is that 50 years ago, Louis Robichaud made a conscious decision to spread provincial jobs around the province.

Contrary to popular peninsular belief, there is no natural law that says all things should flow to Halifax. More when I can get to it.

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* Actually, I think he was serious, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.