THIS GIRL’S GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD TO CAPE BRETON TO LIVE, WORK

TARA COLLUM | Contributing columnist

My Aunt Pearl left New Brunswick for Toronto in search of better job opportunities. She found factory work and a job bagging sugar at the Red Path refinery.

My dad followed in her footsteps, leaving his home province for adventures in Montreal and Scarborough before eventually settling in Muskoka.

The same path from the Maritimes to Ontario was so well established it was immortalized in the 1970 Canadian film classic, Goin’ Down the Road. Two best friends from Nova Scotia, in search of fame or fortune, travel to Toronto — “The Big Smoke.” In a memorable scene they go to the Sam the Record Man, on Yonge Street, to browse in the country and western section. The high cost of living makes it difficult to make ends meet and (spoiler alert) at last they decide to move out west.

Sam the Record Man is long gone, though the iconic spinning records have recently found a new home in the downtown; and Toronto is even more faded as a migratory hotspot.

You never know what life in Canada will bring you these days, in our not yet post-pandemic times.

I have done a reverse of Goin’ Down the Road and I am now living and working in Cape Breton as of last week.

Jobs are not the for-life engagements they used to be. Many jobs and even multiple career switches are common in the new gig economy.

With new flexibility provided by working from home, many people decided to leave the big city all together. Life in a condo high in the sky isn’t as fun when all the bars, restaurants, and patios are closed. The change in vibe helped to depopulate the urban core, and a great migration is in swing as some city dwellers across Canada are searching for the peace and quiet of wide-open spaces and affordable home ownership and life beyond the convenience of walkable amenities.

The population growth of Toronto isn’t what is was, and the city saw a massive exodus with more than 60,000 T.O. residents relocating, according to latest statistics.

While smaller cities around the Golden Horseshoe area are booming, the flight from urban areas is making the housing market more of a problem for everyone elsewhere. Locals are in danger of being priced out of the market in their own hometowns.

I know that not everyone has the means or flexibility to pick up and move their life out of province, but I’m grateful for the opportunity.

What is Nova Scotia like? One thing I noticed is people offer directions; if you look lost, you don’t need to ask first.

It is very difficult to feel like you are in a different place when travelling, at first, until you get far from the airport. All airports tend to feel the same. When I left the Halifax airport, night was falling, and out the bus window it looked much like Ontario.

But in the daytime, I can tell I have arrived in the Maritimes. The forest, the mountain, the streams, the lake. And one day I’ll see the ocean. I’ve seen it in Florida, but never the north Atlantic.

This can be a time of reset. And not in the “Great Reset” way, whatever that is supposed to mean. While some people find COVID an occasion to assemble as many big rigs as possible, and blare their horns loudly in protest, the pandemic era while a great hardship is also a time to look out for one another. And put our collective public health as a first priority.

Especially if the real estate market is too overheated, it’s perfectly fine to rent. It doesn’t have to be an adult milestone to be a homeowner. If jobs are no longer permanent, why should location be anyway?

Things don’t have to fall back to the same order, if they ever return to what normal used to be. If we continue to have the flexibility of working from home it will cut down on transportation costs, and hopefully make strides for a less car-dependent society. And it now seems sensible and polite to wear masks when we’re sick, instead of coughing and sneezing our germs all over everything and everybody.

Instead of dwelling on how unfair the obstacles in our path, we can look for a positive solution.

There is a famous quote from Winston Churchill that can help guide us in any situation: “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”