New Brunswick Is Aging And Fading

Here's the grim statistics from the 2008 economic report, attached to the recent provincial budget.

New Brunswick's population continues to age. The median age reached 41.4 - almost 2.5 years older than the national average. One in seven New Brunswickers is aged 65 and over - with many more to join them in a few years time. Meanwhile, the natural increase fell to all-time low of 139, a consequence of 136 more deaths and 112 fewer births.

The report didn't mention the number of abortions that took place in New Brunswick during the past year. It will take a couple more years until the exact numbers for the 2007 are available, but the estimates are that there were about 400 hospital abortions and about 600 abortions performed in the Morguentaler's abortuary in Fredericton - about a thousand in total. At least 95% of them - with no medical condition whatsoever and with no psychological conditions (such as rape, incest etc) either.

And of course, there's no way a fiscal report would mention New Brunswick's feminists and other radical pro-abortion groups to whom unrestricted abortions through 9 months of pregnancy isn't enough; they want abortions to be available in every walk-in clinic - and paid for by the taxpayers. Obviously, there's nothing in the report about Morguentaller & Co suing the province to get all those abortions performed in the abortuary in Fredericton (that couldn't pass as medically necessary under the watered-down conditions set by the provincial government) paid by the province.

The budget itself promises a complete overhaul of the provincial tax system. It's expected that in April, the government will table a "green paper" that will outline the options for tax reforms. The paper would then be studied by the committee over the summer with the report due sometime this fall, so the actual tax reform is unlikely to take place before the next budget.

Obviously, implementing a punitive taxation on abortion clinics would be too much to expect from a centrist, "fiscally responsible" government. But at the very least the provincial government could bring in a few tax breaks for families with children, as well as a few incentives for families to have one more child.