It’s now official.
My brother told me last week he has received a job offer in the US and he will be taking it. His family of six will be packing up and leaving for greener pastures.
This means they are all gone. My sister, my older brother and my younger brother. All highly educated. All highly skilled. All gone.
I’m the only Campbell of this clan who was able to find employment that would keep me and my family here.
For me and thousands of New Brunswickers, the issue of out-migration is intensely personal.
No more overnight sleepovers in January at 30 below out the Renous highway.
No more fishing trips to the Sevogle. Or the Dungarven or the Cains.
No more crazy four-wheeling in my brother’s pickup on dirt roads to the middle of nowhere.
No more Christmas dinners with 15+ people running around.
It’s interesting to hear politicians talk when you have this as the backdrop.
It only emboldens my resentment at a government that would boldly brag about spending almost every new penny on health care and ignoring the fact that more and more of our family members are throwing up their hands and leaving.
I will vote – only one I realize – for any politician to state that they will stop the madness. They will increase health care spending but at a reasonable and rational rate.
But the politician that says they will not sacrifice another generation of New Brunswickers on the alter of health care, will get my support wholeheartedly.
It won’t help my Virginia-based sister or my soon-to-be Nevada-based brother but maybe my kids will have more options.