Monthly Archives: March 2014

Mar 05 2014
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Demographics, Economy, Society

Fat and poor: What’s not to love about the East Coast?

Evidence of Atlantic Canadian exceptionalism mounts with each day that passes. Judging from the headlines, our position within Confederation has never been more secure, our role never more crucial.

Do we serve the rest of Canada as both the butt of their jokes and the source of their ire? Of course we do, and with brio, mister.

Merely consider the following from the Globe and Mail, Canada’s self-assured, self-identifying “national” newspaper, the other day:

“The number of obese Canadians has tripled since the mid-1980s, a phenomenon driven by a sharp rise in the number of extremely overweight adults whose health complications are expected to place a heavy burden on the health-care system.”

And where, pray tell, will we find the highest rate of corpulence in Canada?

“(The) burden is not spread evenly, with the highest proportion of obese adults in the Atlantic provinces and the lowest in wealthy and healthy British Columbia, according to a new study that predicts the country’s weight problem is only going to get worse, especially in the fattest provinces.”

What’s worse, the piece goes on to say, “the study warns that, if the trend continues, more than one in five Canadians will be obese by 2019. In five provinces – Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Manitoba – there will be more adults who are overweight and obese than adults who tip the scales at a healthy weight that same year.”

Oddly, there’s no explanation for why Prince Edward Island, alone among East Coast provinces, is missing from the list. It’s conceivable that with a smaller population than Metro Moncton’s, the Island failed to impress itself as a province upon the study’s authors, one of whom is, herself, a resident of Atlantic Canada.

“We have a growing number of these people (overweight and obese) and we haven’t really sorted out the treatment. ” Laurie Twells, a prof in the faculty of medicine at Memorial University in St. John’s. “We’re not actually curing it (obesity). We haven’t managed to help people lose weight and keep it off, other than through something like bariatric surgery.”

Now, as other research links obesity with straightened socio-economic circumstances, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Atlantic Canada is not only home to the nation’s highest proportion of fat people; it’s also home to the highest proportion of poor ones.

According to Statistics Canada’s The Daily a year ago, “the income gap between the top one per cent and the rest of filers has widened over time. In 1982, the median income of the top one per cent of filers was $191,600. This was seven times higher than the median income of $28,000 for the other 99 per cent of filers. By 2010, the median income of the top one per cent of filers increased to $283,400, about 10 times higher than the median income of $28,400 for the rest. The income of top filers was increasingly dependent on their jobs, rather than on investments.”

Meanwhile, “in 2010, four provinces – Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia – accounted for 92 per cent of the 254,700 people in the top 1 per cent.

Ontario had 110,300, followed by Alberta with 52,200, Quebec at 42,600 and British Columbia with 29,500. Between 1990 and 2010, Alberta’s share of the top 1 per cent of filers doubled from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, while Ontario’s proportion fell from 51 per cent to 43 per cent.”

The only reason why no Atlantic province gets a mention is that the incidence of conspicuous wealth in the region is so rare, it’s statistically insignificant.

On the other hand, reported the Globe last year, “new data shows the share of individual income that comes from government transfers is highest in the Atlantic provinces. Three of those provinces. . .receive slightly more transfers than the total taxes they pay. The main factors appear to be higher unemployment in Atlantic Canada – but also an older population.”

Uh, no kidding Sherlock.

To be sure, though, we along the seabound East Coast might yet salvage some dignity. A new Scotiabank poll finds that Atlantic Canadian small business owners are more inclined than their counterparts elsewhere in the country to work until they drop.

That, too, makes us special among our countrymen.

Still, who’s complaining? As long as it keeps our minds off the junk food.

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Mar 04 2014
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Municipal Affairs

Jolting Moncton’s priorities to life

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The fact that Moncton city council even maintains a list of priorities to pursue in its effort to better the community it serves speaks volumes about the worthy preoccupation with thoughtful civic planning around here. After all, few municipalities of comparable size spend much energy crafting “to-dos” and even less time fulfilling them. 

Still, there is something broadly disappointing about an ersatz action plan (the existence of which came to light in the Moncton Times & Transcript last week) whose number one standard operating procedure is to “continue to foster a culture of fiscal responsibility.” Really? As opposed to what?

Had the vow been to spend money like this was our last day on Earth – to go into cosmic hock building a fleeting, terrestrial version of Paradise because the only debt collector is the Grim Reaper, himself, and he’s got bigger fish to fry – well. . .at least that would have been interesting. Irresponsible, but interesting.

What, exactly, is intriguing about a promise to keep our fiscal noses from running? Who and what is that supposed to inspire?

When I check my personal Ten Commandments, affixed via post-it note to my bathroom mirror, before my daily, morning ablutions, I do not see inscribed there, “Thou shalt not rob Peter to pay Paul. . .not today, anyway.”

Nowhere do I encounter admonitions to cut back on $4-a-cup cappuccinos or to switch to a cheaper, less talented hair dresser because, after all, a penny saved is a penny earned and that’s exactly what’s written on my calling card.

No, what I see staring back at me from my looking glass are phrases like “Go Big or Go Home!” and “Shock and Awe is a Way of Life!” and “Be Amazing!”

Okay, so maybe they’re not affixed to my bathroom mirror (who does that anyway?). But, over the years and with the help of boardofwisdom.com’s inspirational quotes page, I have made a small collection of various motivational squibs, none of which, I hasten to point out, has anything to do with maintaining a healthy bank account.

Here’s one: “Never tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” Here’s another: “I do it because I can, I can because I want to, I want to because you said I couldn’t.” And there’s this: “Everything is okay in the end, if it’s not ok then it’s not the end.”

Perhaps most disappointing is how far down on city council’s list “reinforcing Moncton’s position as a sports and entertainment hub” appears. It’s number 11, just below the commitment to “launch Magnetic Hill Zoo’s 5-year plan” and just above a rather amorphous declaration to “support and promote arts, culture and heritage/incent public art with an emphasis on the downtown.”

Other priorities, chronicled in order, include stimulating economic growth (2), fixing public transit (3), creating a Tourism Marketing Fund (4), promoting “business-friendly services and processes”, ie., cutting red tape (5), developing the downtown area (6), pursuing “environmental stewardship” (7), welcome immigrants (8), and “invest in parks and trails” (9). Way down at the bottom in 16th place is “promote affordable housing/assist in poverty reduction”, below the one about enhancing “democracy in our local government” (14), which one might persuasively argue should head the entire crop of promises and imprecations.

On the “capital projects” side of the ledger, the top priority is, again, tethered to cash flow – or, at least, the desperate fear of running short of the stuff, as implied by the wording, “reduce Moncton’s infrastructure deficit.” Building a “downtown multi-purpose sports and entertainment centre” is number two on that particular list.

And this is, of course, the problem with this sort of exercise. It’s both exhausting and dispiriting. Worse, it’s futile.

“Reinforcing Moncton’s position as a sports and entertainment hub” is exactly on par with “developing the downtown area” and vice versa. Anyone who demurs has evidently never spent any time on Main Street during one of these summer extravaganzas.

In fact, most, if not all, of Moncton’s priorities are horizontal, interconnected and self-reinforcing – as they should be in any healthy community.

Ranking them distorts an overarching municipal vision, which is just as injurious to thoughtful civic planning as is a self-imposed injunction to follow the money, above all else and come what may.

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Mar 03 2014
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Business, Economy

Flying the costly skies in Atlantic Canada

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It’s one of those questions for the ages – right up there with “Why is the sky blue?” and “How is it that Rob Ford is still alive?”

Why does it cost so much more to fly from Halifax to St. John’s than it does to fly from Halifax to Toronto?

Given the distances and the presumed cost of fuel, it seems counterintuitive. More than that. To at least one regional newspaper, it seems downright scandalous, especially in this penny-pinching, expense-scrutinizing age of so-called government accountability.

“A list of travel and hospitality expenses claimed by Liberal members of Parliament . . .show Gerry Byrne spent $21,470.22 and Judy Foote tallied $22,131.68 and Yvonne Jones claimed $24,590.22 from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2013,” the Corner Brook Western Star’s lead editorial last Wednesday observed.

Are these excessive? The editorialist does not venture an opinion. He or she does, however, declare “The cost of air travel to and from Newfoundland is excessive and the cost for Labradorians to fly anywhere is outrageous.

“If any partisan pencil pushers are inclined to pick through the expenses of Liberal MPs looking for political ammunition, maybe they could also mount an investigation into why it costs almost as much to fly to St. john’s from this region as it does to fly from Halifax to Vancouver.”

I, for one, am glad he or she asked. I happen to have an answer. Sort of.

A while ago, bugged to near distraction by this conundrum, I did a little digging. According to Monette Pasher, executive director of the Atlantic Canada Airports Association, “Pricing is often a result of market demand and competition. . .There are over ten flights a day offered from Moncton to Toronto by three air carriers. From Moncton to Halifax there are four flights a day offered by one carrier.”

What’s more, she said, the cost competitiveness issue is not restricted to Atlantic Canada; it’s actually a national problem, though it may be more prevalent along the East Coast. Here, she noted, “U.S. airports are in close proximity. . .You see the low-cost carriers in the U.S. and they are setting up services at the border to attract Canadians who will travel for cheaper fares.”

In fact, according to her estimates, this country is losing five million Canadian passengers to the U.S. every year. That equates to $1.3 billion in lost Canadian GDP and $200 million in lost tax revenue.

For Atlantic Canada, the issue is clearly a personal economic concern. “While we have a relatively modest population base of 2.3 million people, we welcome over five million visitors to our region every year, which makes tourism an important sector in the economic generator in Atlantic Canada,” Keith Collins and David Innes, the CEOs of the St. John’s International Airport and Fredericton International Airport, respectively, told Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications not long ago.

“Our 14 airports move more than 6.5 million passengers per year, which is three times the total population of the region. That number has grown by an average of five per cent annually since 2002. We are not only moving passengers and cargo in and out of Atlantic Canada; we are enabling the growth of our local economies. Our airports together generate over $2.6 billion in economic activity every year, supporting just under 17,000 person years of employment and over $500 million in wages alone.”

There may be solutions, however. “The maritime airports have worked together with Air Canada’s business sales team to develop a more convenient approach to business travel in the region,” Ms. Pasher reported. “In 2012, they created the Halifax Commuter Flight Pass, which allows for consistent pricing for air travel between many Maritime cities and Halifax.

“You can select one traveller or business and it will give you options and cost for packages. This gives a business traveller a set cost to travel by air between a number of Atlantic Canada cities and Halifax. It works out to $245 for a one way flight credit for a single traveller.”

Not bad. Still, my travel consultant just booked me on a Moncton-Toronto return for three-hundred bucks, taxes in.

The fact is, until more competition crowds the costly skies, we’re stuck paying through the nose for regional air travel. And, unlike Mr. Byrne and company, we can’t pass along the cost to the taxpayers as, well. . .they would be us.

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