Post date: Apr 13, 2013 12:19:36 AM
Out migration continues to dog New Brunswick and, according to one migrant, the economy is "going to die" if things don't change.
According to CBC.ca:
Quispamsis family joins the New Brunswick exodus
New Brunswick's jobless rate is 10.5% and its population continues to decline
CBC News Posted: Apr 10, 2013 8:03 AM AT Last Updated: Apr 10, 2013 9:12 AM AT
A Quispamsis family is joining a growing number of New Brunswickers who are leaving the province to find work in other areas, particularly oil-rich Alberta.
Chantal Beam and her husband have quit searching for full-time jobs in New Brunswick and are moving to Alberta. The Beams are another example of the many workers who are leaving the province for jobs elsewhere.
Statistics Canada reported the province lost more than 3,600 people to interprovincial migration in 2012.
Beam’s husband has already left for a welding job in Edmonton and she refuses to stay behind in hopes that circumstances will change in New Brunswick.
“When I go to the gym, most of the wives there, their husbands are working out west, been living out west, or their husbands are home now because they're tired, they've been on the road for several years. And many families have split up,” she said.
The Beam family home has already been sold and many of their belongings have already been packed.
Beam and her son are planning to fly to Edmonton in early May.
New Brunswick has been beset by dismal economic and population news in recent months.
The province’s jobless rate has been stuck above 10 per cent since last July. In March, the unemployment rate increased to 10.5 per cent as the economy lost 2,100 jobs.
Further, Statistics Canada reported last month that New Brunswick had witnessed its largest fourth quarter drop in population since 1971. The population was down by 648 people at the end of 2012, bringing the total population down to 754,698, according to the national agency.
The province lost 701 people to other provinces, such as Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.
Quality of services a factor
The lack of jobs is not the only reason some people are leaving the province.
Beam said her family’s decision to pack up and move goes beyond their inability to find steady work.
She said it's also about public services available in New Brunswick. Beam said her six-year-old son Ethan has been languishing in school, due to lack of support for his autism.
Beam said the Alberta government offers many more services for autistic children, and she and her husband want to make sure he can access a better education.
“If we want to do that and help him progress with his autism, the best move for us is to go somewhere where it's booming,” she said.
The New Brunswick government has been forced to take a hard look at its spending priorities. The provincial government is forecasting a $478-million deficit in 2013-14.
Finance Minister Blaine Higgs announced in March he was raising personal and corporate income taxes and freezing health spending as a way to control the deficit.
‘Our economy is going to die’
The move to Alberta for the Beam family may not be permanent, however.
Beam said one day she hopes to return to Quispamsis. But she said New Brunswick has been a big disappointment for her and her family.
She said the province needs to change or it will run the risk of losing even more people.
“If they don't do something soon, I mean, there are empty houses here in Quispamsis. People are leaving,” she said.
“Our economy is going to die if people don't find work, get work.”
The Alward government has been talking specifically about keeping young people in the province in recent months.
Premier David Alward travelled to Alberta to meet oil executives and tour the oilsands earlier this year. He has been a vocal supporter of TransCanada Corp.’s proposal to build an oil pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick.
The pipeline could carry between 500,000 and 850,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the eastern refineries, according to the company.
The proposed pipeline project has the possibility of creating 2,000 jobs during the construction phase and a few hundred refining jobs after at the Irving Oil Ltd. refinery, according to some estimates.