HALIFAX - A satirical suggesting Nova Scotians living in Calgary suffer from a fictional medical condition is just one example of the myriad ways provinces in the region are trying to lure skilled expatriates home.
But for Atlantic Canadians who've made the move to places like oil-rich Alberta, such campaigns are met with a critical question: What is there to come back to?
The Nova Scotia website, for example, extols the good life back home - from reconnecting with families to the sound of the ocean lapping the shores - while offering links to job postings and promising a "growing number of opportunities."
However, Mike Gillis, originally from Antigonish, N.S., and now working as a plumber in Calgary, says he's looked for opportunities in his home province and they just weren't there.
"When you're trying to get ahead and trying to make a life for yourself and your family, Calgary is definitely a place where it seems easier," says Gillis, 32, who moved to Banff, Alta., a decade ago and then to Calgary in 2000.
"In Calgary there are a lot of opportunities, but in Nova Scotia . . . there's a fair number of plumbers and I don't really see the opportunities to further myself."
Nova Scotia is busy handing out incentives to attract financial services firms and information technology companies to the province. Recent successes include BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion's plan to build a technical support centre near Halifax, employing 1,200 people.
Gillis says that's good for workers already experienced in those fields, but it doesn't help people in other industries or those who don't have the option to retrain.
"In Calgary, anything that you want to do you can do," he says. "In Nova Scotia you can work there but you're more directed down certain roads."
The Atlantic provinces are desperate to attract new workers and stop people in the region from leaving.
Census figures for 2006 released last month suggest they're having trouble as the population across Atlantic Canada was virtually unchanged since 2001, dipping by about 1,000 people.
And despite unemployment rates above the national average, the provinces are facing a shortage of skilled workers, particularly in the trades.
In New Brunswick, the government has created a population growth secretariat, part of its plan to make the province self-sufficient within 20 years.
Initiatives include a new website with job postings and a program to match workers with employers, all the while reminding ex-New Brunswickers about the life they've been missing.
Newfoundland and Labrador, which is focusing on developing infrastructure to promote business, won't be counting on nostalgia to bring people back.
Human Resources Minister Shawn Skinner says Newfoundlanders already know what they've left behind - they just need good paying jobs.
"Anybody who's left Newfoundland and Labrador doesn't need to be told about the quality of life; they know what we've got here," says Skinner.
For example, when a mine in the central Newfoundland community of Baie Verte was recruiting workers recently, Skinner says dozens of miners eagerly returned from Alberta.
"They're out there now with good jobs, making good money - not as much as they were making in Alberta but good money, and now they have a quality of life."
David Chaundy, a senior economist with the Halifax-based Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, notes that there have been success stories in the region, especially in so-called knowledge-based industries.
But he says it's a long-term process that presents enormous challenges for the region, especially to ensure any new jobs actually stay.
"You have to realize that we are competing for labour in a market that's global and so you have to make sure you provide compensation and career opportunities that attract people," he says.
"It's not just people looking for a job or a higher paying job. Sometimes they're looking for career progression."
Chaundy adds that another obstacle is scale.
"When we've got fairly small economies compared to a bigger one that's growing more rapidly, opportunities for advancement are much stronger in those (larger) labour markets," he says.
There are more people in the city of Calgary, for example, than in the entire province of Nova Scotia, and Chaundy says smaller populations can't support as broad a range of opportunities and industries.
That's what's keeping Tara Power, originally from Truro, N.S., from moving home nearly 20 years after she first moved away for school.
Power, 38, now works as a clinical psychologist at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary, and she says there just isn't work for her in regions with smaller populations.
"I can't get work in my field - I'm pretty specialized," says Power, who participated in a Nova Scotia government focus group about how to attract workers.
"There just aren't positions like that (in Nova Scotia)."
She has other friends in Calgary from Atlantic Canada who've tried to move home, even if it meant a lower pay cheque, without any luck.
"I have been terribly homesick," she says, adding that it could be years before she'll be able to return and scoop up one of a small handful of jobs that might fit her qualifications.
"I really, really hope that I can build a big enough name that I might be able to cobble something together in five or 10 years in Halifax."
