Let’s see the ideas

It came and went without much notice.

Lt. Gov. Mayann Francis read the government’s Speech from the Throne Nov. 22.

I wasn’t there and didn’t see much footage of the event, but reading the document isn’t earth-moving - though dignified and appropriate, befitting the lieutenant governor’s office and the government’s responsibilities.

The government’s aims include educating to compete, environmental protection, improved roads and infrastructure, safer, healthier communities and shorter wait times. Warm and fuzzy stuff, mostly.

Detail is generally sparse, particularly on real job creation. There was mention of current and future aero-space, petrol industry and tech jobs and the like; little about the 1,100 rail car manufacturing positions lost at Trenton, or those 400 jobs at Canard Poultry, the more than 600 chocolatier situations at Moirs. The loss of those decades-old jobs tears at the guts of our industrial capacity as a province and society. Each of those loses affects further jobs and community stability.

We have to ask, where are these eventually well-educated nippers going to work? Won’t the environment be more pristine because no one will work or live here anymore? Won’t there be fewer roads and less infrastructure after we lose more people? How can communities be safer and healthier when there will be fewer working folks left? Will shorter wait times be due to fewer people available to form a lineup?

With the requisite negativity out of the way, the nuggets: education improvements will include attention to maths and literacy, measures to curb tuition fees and continued training and skills development for workers, with an emphasis on trades.

In environmental issues, standards, winds and tides, and coastline protection feature highly.

In roads and infrastructure, broadband internet will be in place by 2009; the main highway artery from Yarmouth to Sydney will be twinned by 2020. Private partnerships will help provide new roads and public facilities. Becoming the Atlantic Gateway to Canada recognizes Halifax and other Nova Scotia ports’ as a link to inland centres.

More police on the streets by early next year and tighter legislation will help make communities safer, and a new family pharmacare program will add to collective health. Shorter wait times are anticipated with guarantees, more long-term beds and healthier lifestyle awareness. Expansions at the Valley Regional - and other facilities - as well as more equipment will help.

On top of this: better deals from the Canada-Nova Scotia Accord and the revisited offshore resources Crown share.

Meanwhile, in the week of the Legislature’s opening, the Opposition NDP seems to be going berserk, with all manner of announcements – from the place of nurse practitioners in the health care system to buses reentering traffic faster to student loans that leave young people with mortgage-sized encumbrances on their futures. It’s like election time.

Well past the point where they hoped the other, once-deemed “mainstream” parties would steal and implement their ideas, the NDP seems intent on winning the next election and bringing them in themselves.