I am convinced and have been for a long time that workforce availability will likely be the primary enabler of economic development for at least the foreseeable future.
I remember when I was a kid growing up in Montreal groceries would be delivered by bicycle to people's homes from orders given to the local grocery store over the phone. The idea that both products and services (think Healthcare, dentistry, Education) could be provided this way seems to be a natural fit for NB towns. Amazon and Skip certainly are doing it. Instead of having centralized hubs of medical services providing ALL healthcare, why not have roaming clinics that travel through towns and setup shop a couple days a week to see people, like the ice-cream/food trucks? This would provide much needed relief to the hospital waiting rooms and collect more data on the state of health in the province. I agree NB would benefit from moving away from modelling itself after large cities and use a more decentralized approach that keeps the small town economies going.
In a country as large and sparsely populated as Canada, it's a shame that we have not seen more investments in fields like telehealth. Investments in infrastructure are just as necessary now as they were in the early days of Confederation if want to see all of Canada grow and prosper. As a lifelong resident of rural NS, I worry that the lack of meaningful input 'from the front lines', and that the ongoing centralization of power in our political capitals will result in the deaths of many rural communities throughout Canada.
I remember when I was a kid growing up in Montreal groceries would be delivered by bicycle to people's homes from orders given to the local grocery store over the phone. The idea that both products and services (think Healthcare, dentistry, Education) could be provided this way seems to be a natural fit for NB towns. Amazon and Skip certainly are doing it. Instead of having centralized hubs of medical services providing ALL healthcare, why not have roaming clinics that travel through towns and setup shop a couple days a week to see people, like the ice-cream/food trucks? This would provide much needed relief to the hospital waiting rooms and collect more data on the state of health in the province. I agree NB would benefit from moving away from modelling itself after large cities and use a more decentralized approach that keeps the small town economies going.
In a country as large and sparsely populated as Canada, it's a shame that we have not seen more investments in fields like telehealth. Investments in infrastructure are just as necessary now as they were in the early days of Confederation if want to see all of Canada grow and prosper. As a lifelong resident of rural NS, I worry that the lack of meaningful input 'from the front lines', and that the ongoing centralization of power in our political capitals will result in the deaths of many rural communities throughout Canada.