Don't Bother Going West, Young Man

Conservative MP Brian Jean has apparently gotten into trouble for proposing that the federal government in some way assist Atlantic Canadians seeking to move west for work.

A number of Liberals have objected rather vociferously:

New Brunswick MP Jean-Claude d'Amours called Jean's suggestion "unacceptable," and “unbelievable,” and said East-coasters are not “cattle to be herded from one part of the country to another.”

Nova Scotia MP Geoff Regan said the suggestion was insulting.

New Brunswick MP Andy Scott said Atlantic Canadians need investment in their local economies, not bus fares out West.

Peter McKay quickly denied the Tories had any plans to help Maritimers move.

I am glad my immigrant ancestors are not alive to hear all this. Apparently they, in coming to Canada to seek a better life, were just being suckers. They should have stayed put and demanded that the better life come to them. Ideally straight through their front door, bearing a government cheque.

I am glad Laurier, too, is not alive to hear this. His own Liberal party now believes the opening of the Prairies, as a “home for all the world’s people,” must have been a mistake. It was insulting all those people to help them leave their homes in Eastern Europe, Eastern Canada and elsewhere. It is presumably equally “unacceptable” to take new immigrants now. Unless new Canadians are second-class citizens.

Liberals, and Canadians, are today apparently made of a very different and finer stuff than those who built Canada. It is no doubt much more dignified to stay where you were born and live on government subsidies. Your fellow citizens owe you that.

Even if they themselves have moved to make a living. The fools.

A lot of Atlantic Canadians have moved, of course. They are the ones we should admire. If others want so badly to stay—then things must be quite pleasant enough for them in Atlantic Canada. It would seem to follow that no special government subsidies are required.

But riddle me this: how is it that, while the Canadian Atlantic provinces have been depressed for generations, New England, standing in about the same situation as regards the rest of the US, has long been, and still is, thriving? America, which has no program of subsidies to remedy regional disparities? America, where people are prepared to move West at the drop of a cowboy hat?

Might the difference be those very government subsidies?