We are the canary in the coal mine folks.
Elderly population, no steady or high wage work, high taxes, chronically underfunded by our provincial government, no family doctors, ambulances not running or available for hours at a time. 2 year waiting times to get mental health. The first responders here can't even get mental healthcare, after seeing people getting scraped off highways. The city is broke and fighting/suing the mainland provincial government every few years so that the bills get paid.
This is the story of a lot of rural Canada as well. The gap between the successful economies of Vancouver and Toronto and the stagnation of the rest of rural Canada keeps getting bigger and bigger. In my province of BC I've watched both the BC Liberals and BC NDP try and fail to address the core systemic issues of the secular decline in forestry. I don't think anyone really has the answer right now.
Without a doubt in my mind this is the future of rural Northern Alberta and BC once the oil and gas sector becomes unviable (which will happen at some point).
I noticed in an article earlier this year that the BC government in partnership with the Feds are building fibre all up the coast that is gonna connect very small, many of them indigenous, communities with high quality fibre internet connections. This isn't in itself a solution to anything, but providing funding for infrastructure is one of those things that the Feds are good at, and "increasing connectivity and education" is a reasonably good thing for the BC government to do when they're basically out of other ideas about how to improve the local rural economy. Maybe some policies like this would help in the rural Atlantic as well.
There hasn't been a lot of talk of rural Canada in this election so far. I noticed the NDP put forward a special 'Northern Ontario' platform which is probably because Northern Ontarian Charlie Angus is the #2 guy in the Fed Party. If the NDP accordingly does well in Northern Ontario maybe we'll see other parties follow suit, recognizing that the sort of promises that play well in the 905 may be a lot less relevant in rural Canada.
Federal government blame here from me falls on it being all Liberal here, in and out of government since 1980, a 4 year shot for a PC seat and NDP seat back in the 80s and 90s. All Liberal otherwise. 40 years of Liberals for most of what is now the one riding. 1 in 3 kids here are in poverty, drug addicts roam around and hustle in plain sight, there is no funding for any services.
I understand where you're coming from. After all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity isn't it?
What are your neighbours thinking? Are they as fed up as you or sticking with the status quo?
Have the Green and NDP candidates been visible at all or offered any novel local policies or are they placeholder candidates with zero expectations?