Quote:
Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
Actually, no.. most people DON'T enjoy living in the Maritimes, which is why Nova Scotia's biggest export is educated children. I'm one of them; there was little in the way of lucrative work so I left Halifax shortly after getting my computing science degree.
I'm tired of Albertans calling my family lazy. My uncle works part-time as a maintenance man at an old-age residence and takes every odd job that he can find; zamboni driver, makes Christmas wreaths in his basement, and when his hands were good he was doing welding jobs on the side. Another is school bus driver who works every evening doing small plumbing repairs. My mother works as a manager of a call center, working from 6am to 6pm 6 days a week (most of which is off-the-clock to avoid labour law issues). None of them have a gross income over $30,000. Which is why they don't pay as much into taxes. My family work far, far, far, far harder for their money than I do working a 9 to 5er managing a team of coders and soon to be making six figures.
It's a bad dynamic. All of my friends that I went to university with; they have almost all moved off to various corners of the planet looking for greener pastures. I've lost contact with most of them, but some I see at Christmas when a number of us go back to visit our parents. Those that didn't make it through university are pretty much the only ones that stayed. The government there keeps saying they want to build a "Knowledge Based Economy" but that is impossible when all the knowledge gets up and leaves as soon as they get their degree. But we really have no choice. If you have ever been to Nova Scotia you'd see that people wouldn't want to leave this place unless they really had to. You have to work your tail off to make even half of what you can make in Ontario or Alberta.
So this constant insinuation that my parents and friends who have stayed there are sitting back in their Lazyboys with their feet up waiting for hard-working Albertans to send them a cheque is just insulting.
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Maybe I missed something in the article, but who calls them lazy? People pointing out that Atlantic canada is the net benefit of transfers or do not contribute in federal taxes per capita vs most other provinces, aren't calling them lazy, they are simply stating facts.
The FACT is maritimers get a free ride. Not to say they are lazy, just that their lifestyle is subsidized.
To me, the moral of the story is that Canada has an internal policy of artificially propping up certian Canadians. They may like that ... or not, and may want to work hard, or not, but regardless its just true.