BR PEI Throne Speech – CP

Source: The Canadian Press – Broadcast wire
Apr 6, 2016

HALIFAX – Canada’s smallest province and Atlantic Canada’s biggest city are both considering plans to boost population growth.

In its throne speech, Prince Edward Island’s Liberal government says it wants to increase the Island’s population to 150-thousand as early as the end of 2017 _ an overall target that would see an increase of just over 35-hundred people in that time.

According to provincial statistics, more people have left the Island since 2004 than have come to settle there.

As a result, the government says it will put in place a long-term strategy to repatriate, recruit and retain a skilled workforce over the next year.

Meanwhile, Halifax regional council began debating a proposed new economic plan that calls for it to increase its population by more than 50-thousand over the next five years.

Jim Randall, chair of island studies at U-P-E-I, says the persistent problem in the Atlantic provinces is a urban-rural divide along population lines.

Randall says any population strategy has to be linked to a broader economic strategy and governments know that.

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(The Canadian Press)

INDEX: NATIONAL ATLANTIC POLITICS