There were many numbers in the news in Nova Scotia this past week – population counts, budget forecasts and the inflation rate among them. I have little to add on those stories. The drop in population was a predictable result of federal policy changes from two years ago. The projected deficit was up only slightly from September’s forecast, and the Consumer Price Index actually fell. But there were other numbers concerning doctors, nurses and natural gas that caught my attention, and are worth further examination. 

One set of numbers, regarding health care professionals, was actually in the aforementioned December forecast update from Nova Scotia Finance. That document is full of enlightening data, compiled by the diligent, fact-oriented public servants who strive to serve regardless of the party in power. That wasn’t what stood out, however. The discordant note was on page one, featuring a set of eye-popping claims about the recruitment of health care professionals. To wit:

  • New doctors coming to the province up 80 percent;
  • Nurse practitioners up 390 percent;
  • Registered nurses up 260 percent;

It looks like someone in the Houston administration may be flirting with Trump math, on display again this week when the  U.S. dictator wannabe boasted in a prime time TV address about performing a mathematical impossibility – cutting drug prices by 300, 500,700 or some such percent. 

No need to fact check Trump – Jimmy Kimmel and the other late night talk shows hosts are doing a good job of that, pointing out that reducing drug prices by more than 100 percent would mean the pharmacist giving money to customers along with the drugs.But it is important to turn a skeptical eye to those doctor and nurse numbers in the budget update, with the help of an independent source – the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). 

Before delving into the CIHI data, some caveats. Those numbers in the budget update don’t provide a basis of comparison – are the new doctor numbers up 80 percent because only five came to the province the month before last and nine came last month? Or is the number of nurse practitioners up 390 percent because they went from 75 many years ago to around 370 today? Who knows? The numbers may be technically true, but essentially meaningless. 

The other caution is that the CIHI numbers go only to 2024 – there may have been a stampede of doctors and nurses into Nova Scotia this year that will make those numbers true – and pigs may fly.

According to CIHI

Presumably the claims in the forecast document are presented to convince Nova Scotians that all of the money the Houston government is spending on health care – and overspending this year is expected to exceed $400-million- has led to that amazing and much-desired increase in the number of health care professionals. And data from CIHI does show there has been an increase in doctors and nurses since the Conservatives came to power, but nowhere near the numbers rolled out this week.

  • According to CIHI between 2021 and 2024 the number of doctors went from 2,736 to 2,888, an increase of 5.55 percent;
  • Between 2021 and 2024 the number of registered nurses increased from 10,218 to 11,574, a rise of 13.27 percent;
  • Between 2021 and 2024 the number of nurse practitioners went up 53.33 percent, going from 240 to 368.

But during that same three year-period of growth in doctors and nurses, the population of the province was also increasing – by eight percent. The result, according to CIHI, is a reduction in the number of physicians per/100,000 population, from 274 in 2021 to 268 in 2024. The larger population also means that the increase per 100,000 was only 4.12 percent for RNs and a 42.02 percent increase for nurse practitioners – impressive growth but a long way from 390 percent. 

Also of note is the fact that in April of 2025 Nova Scotia Health claimed a net gain of 187 doctors in fiscal year 2024-25. So it’s possible the downward trend in physicians per/100,000 population will be reversed when CIHI data for 2025 is released, likely next fall.It would be preferable if we could get reliable data from the province in the meantime, but based on the claims in the budget document, that seems unlikely.   

Hyping natural gas 

The natural gas numbers, which are not quite as far-fetched, came to us from Paris, France, where Premier Houston and a sizeable entourage attended the International Economic Forum of the Americas. The heft of the delegation – eight plus the Premier – was a numerical eye-opener as was a figure Houston tossed out while participating in a panel on “diverse energy futures.”  

In addition to trumpeting the potential of offshore wind and tidal power Houston declared that Nova Scotia has “incredible amounts of natural gas onshore and offshore.” He did not specify the “incredible amounts” of offshore natural gas – although recent estimates announced by the province put “known reserves” at a modest 3.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf). But he did put a number on the onshore: “We have probably 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas underfoot,” he told his Paris audience.

That 32 trillion cubic feet rang a bell. It likely comes from the 2017 Onshore Petroleum Atlas, a publication by the province which estimated there was 32 tcf (actually 31.87 tcf) of “potential” shale gas, mostly in the Windsor area. Of that potential, the Atlas estimated “recoverable potential,” through fracking, of 4.39 tcf.   

Rhetoric about “incredible amounts” aside, Nova Scotia is well down the pecking order for natural gas potential in Atlantic Canada. New Brunswick has 78 tcf of “technically recoverable” onshore natural gas, most of it handy to an existing operation near Sussex. And according to a 2023 estimate, Newfoundland and Labrador has four times Nova Scotia’s offshore gas potential, a fact that did not prevent the Newfoundland government’s latest call for bids from coming up empty. 

Yet the hype continues, a phenomenon I wrote about here, with the release of the Onshore Petroleum Atlas in early 2018. The piece argued that despite some media excitement the document actually showed there was less potential natural gas than had been estimated when a moratorium on fracking was introduced in 2013. At that time, it was estimated there was up to 69 tcf of potential shale gas in the Windsor Basin alone. So the 32 tcf estimate in the Atlas – the likely source of Houston’s rumination – present a weaker economic case for fracking than when the Liberals imposed the ban in 2013.

The political climate has changed for the worse since 2013. Houston’s government has lifted the fracking ban and In response to Trump, he and the rest of Canada’s first ministers have gone all in on resource development to boost exports or become more self-reliant. 

Houston raised the self-reliance issue with his Paris audience, pointing out that all of the natural gas now used in the province comes from the U.S. and “that’s not a great feeling in this moment.” He went on to suggest that the fracking ban, along with “special interest groups” are responsible for the failure to “develop our own.”  

That’s debatable on a couple of levels. First off, Nova Scotia did promote the Sable gas project but it came to an untimely end because some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies didn’t think the quantity of the resource was worth sticking around for. “Special interest groups” had no part in that business decision. 

The fracking ban may have been a factor in the lack of onshore gas development. But as reported in the Atlas, Nova Scotia also has some 0.69 tcf of natural gas recoverable through conventional methods. That’s about one-third the amount produced by the Sable project over its 18-year life, so it’s nothing to sneeze at. In addition, the Atlas reports another 1.41 tcf recoverable coal bed methane.

There certainly has been a Nova Scotia market for such quantities of non-fracked gas, for residential and commercial customers, as well as for power generation – with the latter demand growing as gas replaces coal-fired generation over the next couple years. Fossil fuel doubters might even support development of  those onshore resources if it meant re-imposing the fracking ban while eliminating the need for gas imported from the U.S. But as with the recruitment of doctors and nurses, before considering such a thing, Houston’s government would need to stop conning people with inflated numbers and visions of economic transformation through fossil fuels. 

There was another interesting set of numbers in the news this past week. Under the headline “Government satisfaction scores fall like winter snow as Canadians blanketed in cost-of-living challenges,” the Angus Reid Institute reported that every government in the country has seen a decline in its “performance index” since the start of the year. Houston’s government has experienced the second biggest drop, down 12 points or 30 percent.

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