The Equal Opportunity program in the Canadian province of New Brunswick was created to ensure equal services would be provided to citizens in all parts of the province regardless of the wealth in the area.
Prior to the implementation of this program, New Brunswick's health and education systems were governed and funded by county governments. The result was far superior social systems in cities and other rich areas.
Liberal Louis Robichaud had grown up in a poor, rural community on New Brunswick's east coast and set out to change this when he became Premier in 1960.
Under Equal Opportunity, county governments were dissolved and the province assumed responsibility for education and health care.
Famous quotes containing the words equal, opportunity and/or program:
“We are such docile creatures, normally, that it takes a virus to jolt us out of life’s routine. A couple of days in a fever bed are, in a sense, health-giving; the change in body temperature, the change in pulse rate, and the change of scene have a restorative effect on the system equal to the hell they raise.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“Successful socialism depends on the perfectibility of man. Unless all, or nearly all, men are high-minded and clear-sighted, it is bound to be a rotten failure in any but a physical sense. Even through it is altruism, socialism means materialism. You can guarantee the things of the body to every one, but you cannot guarantee the things of the spirit to every one; you can guarantee only that the opportunity to seek them shall not be denied to any one who chooses to seek them.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“In the Corner Store, near the village center, hangs a large sign reading: ‘After 40 years of credit business, we have closed our book of Sorrow.’”
—For the State of Maine, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)