[someone123]

I think it's less about population per se and more about structural costs relative to the tax base. In theory, newcomers should be more economically productive on average and moving to places where the service costs are lower so over time maybe the structural issues in NS will improve.

There is an aspect of economic competitiveness in Canada and anywhere that workers and capital can move to. The tax rates in NS encourage people to spend their working years paying income tax somewhere else then move to NS in retirement when their taxable income is lower and they use more provincial services. NS is stuck dealing with this, good or bad (maybe the right answer is higher taxes and services across the board but it's not happening in Western Canada), and should be responsive to this overall environment. I think the way this has worked out in the past is that NS is a relatively nice place to live so people just put up with lower disposable incomes, much like BC vs. Alberta.