An Inconvenient Truth Which The Feminists Can't Stand

In the end, Carl Urquhart, a Progressive Conservative MLA for York, was forced to apologize. The poorly-worded Facebook comment, that sparked the controversy, read as follows:
"Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future"

Who would say that this isn't truth? After all, it's been just days since the recent study by the C.D. Howe Institute predicted quite a bleak future for the four Atlantic provinces. Among the grim projections - declining workforce, stagnant (or declining) population, rapid population aging and, as result - a serious economic hardship.

Even under their most optimistic scenario, old age dependency ratio is expected to surpass 40% which means - for every senior citizen, there will be just slightly more than 2 people in the workforce. Under a pessimistic scenario, Atlantic Canada is on the path to becoming one big retirement home, with mere 1.5 people in the workforce per senior citizen.

So, technically Carl Urquhart was right. Unless we reverse the trend and bring the fertility rate back to 2.1 children per woman or better - New Brunswick will either become a huge retirement home or it will become New anything but Brunswick. Except - the comment sure was poorly worded, which led to an outcry from some of his opponents:

"To suggest to New Brunswick's young women that their only role in society and their only contribution to the New Brunswick economy is to have babies is demeaning and outdated thinking which flies in the face of everything this government and previous governments have done to promote equality for women," MacAlpine-Stiles said.

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Apparently Ms. MacAlpine-Stiles believes that placing "women" and "more babies" in one sentence automatically means that the author sees no other role for women in the society, beside motherhood. Interestingly, Ms. MacAlpine-Stiles' own example shows just the opposite - that having children doesn't prevent one from having a career. If anything, she could have used the statement to encourage the young generation to follow her example... But, apparently, when ideology gets on the way, common sense must step aside.

And another thing: among the proposals which didn't become part of the NB Liberal tax reform program, were also tax breaks for families with children - such as matching the Child Exemption Amount and the Universal Child Care Benefit, that are offered on the federal level. I wonder if any of our MLAs will remind Ms. MacAlpine-Stiles and her fellow NB Liberals of that.