If it makes no sense to you that a province could have both a modest surplus and a massively increased debt load in the same year, then you understand this situation perfectly. Don Cayo on what he calls nothing more than a shameful charade.
AIMS president Don Cayo writes in 1999, "the Prairie Provinces don’t know much about the state of their health care systems and the efficacy of the policies their governments have recently adopted. But we really don’t know anything about ours."
In 1999, AIMS President Don Cayo writes, "I want tax cuts. I want important services maintained at - or brought back up to – a decent level. I want mountainous debts reduced so many more tax dollars can start funding services and stop paying interest. And I want it all now! I admit I’m dreaming – at least the part about wanting it all now."
In this article for the Monton Times & Transcript and the Halifax Daily News in 1999, Fred McMahon writes, "Count on it - no matter how badly Nova Scotia messes up the offshore, companies will bid for exploration rights where there's money to be made, and politicians will take credit for it."
In April of 1999 Don Cayo writes "Some government people in New Brunswick are trying to claim responsibility for the "good" news in a report published just over a week ago by AIMS, the think-tank I run. And some people in the Nova Scotia government are trying to duck responsibility for "bad" news in the same report."
You may think of Mississippi as a desperately poor U.S. state, and it is. On almost all measures of prosperity and economic success, it ranks at the bottom or very near the bottom of all U.S. states. Canadians' after tax income is lower than Mississippians. Of course, we have superior schools and health care, among many other things, but if Mississippi continues to get richer, and Canada poorer, that too may change. Rich Mississippians will find it easier to fund these services than poor Canadians.
The age of wooden ships and iron men was an age of gold for the powerful economies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. But, iron ships took to the sea, and our ship-building industry rotted away. We hung on to the old, and failed the new. Like most myths, this is part fable and part truth - but it's oh, so relevant today. We still hang on to the old - at huge expense - and fail the new. Fr5ed McMahon in the The Moncton Times and Transcript and the Halifax Daily News, 1999.
The coal curtain is being swept away in Cape Breton, and maybe soon the steel wall - Cape Breton's subsidized steel industry - will come tumbling down. This should be a time of jubilee in Cape Breton, an occasion to pop champagne corks, not cry over split milk. Fred McMahon, 1999