Monthly Archives: December 2018

Some kind of wonderful

Given the torrent of nonsense that masquerades as rational debate these days, it’s a miracle that anything useful ever gets done.

After all, when some random troll requires only a Twitter account to convince an alarming number of otherwise reasonable people that a certain U.S. president, who habitually equates lying with statecraft, is a breath of fresh air in a “post-truth” world, it’s tempting to flee the public square and hunker down for the coming dark age.

Still, despite evidence to the contrary, all is not lost: Not everyone is either running for cover or gorging on low-hanging fruit from the tree of absurdity. Consider a couple of recent and nearby examples.

Decades ago, Moncton’s burgermeisters decided, in their wisdom, to approve the construction of a causeway to join their city with communities on the other side of the Petitcodiac River. It seemed like a good idea at the time: Commuters would love the faster traffic; businesses would appreciate the more reliable and timely delivery of goods for sale. What could go wrong?

Within scant years, the answer was plain to see. The river – once home to dozens of aquatic species, and a recreational fishery worth, according to estimates, as much as $75 million a year – had become a muddy, silt-choked parody of its former self.

Following a quick stop with her family in the 1980s to observe the Petitcodiac’s world-famous tidal bore – historically, a meter-high wall of surf that ran twice a day – American humorist Erma Bombeck stood on the river’s banks and watched a meagre ripple wend its way toward the head pond. “What the heck?” she quipped. “I retain more water than that.”

Over the years, attitudes about the river cleaved and hardened. For one camp – notably, those who had purchased property along the waterway and who, therefore, had skin in the real estate game – the status quo was just fine. For another more progressively minded cohort, the Petitcodiac’s sorry condition was economically embarrassing and environmentally shameful. Tear down the fixed link, this group insisted, and let the water flow the way nature intended.

By the mid-2000s, you could illuminate the dark side of the moon with the degree of daylight that shone between these two factions – thanks, in part, to the use of social media (what else?) as handy platforms for off-the-cuff fulminations.

Then, something happened – something extraordinary.

People actually started talking to one another. In coffee shops and council rooms, they exchanged ideas – real, considered (gasp!) ideas. Eventually, a consensus began to take shape.

What if members of the community compromised? Environmental and economic assessments were clear. Replace a portion of the causeway with a partial bridge that would allow the river to recover. Bank-side properties wouldn’t be negatively affected. If anything, their values would increase.

That was two years ago. Today, with the provincial and federal governments contributing about half, each, to the cost of the $62 million project, the renewal is underway. As for the fish, they’re back, and so is the tidal bore. Since 2013, surfers have come from as far away as California to ride the wave. Thousands gather along the banks to cheer. As for motor traffic, it, too, still flows.

If there is a lesson in all of this, it is not as rare as many might lament.

Would Halifax’s state-of-the-art Central Library, which opened in 2014, have stood a ghost of chance without the spirit of multi-sectoral cooperation – from community groups and educational institutions to businesses and municipal planning officials?

In fact, according to the library’s website, the effort involved “five large public meetings (while) staff and architects met with a number of special focus groups to ensure that (they) heard the voices of a wide cross-section of customers and citizens: African Nova Scotians, cultural organizations, persons with disabilities, First Nations, new Canadians, the literacy and learning community, parents and young children, and teens.”

Of course, the new library never was, and is not now, everyone’s cup of tea. But as a product of rational debate, collaboration and cooperation, it is pretty convincing proof that, despite the nonsense regularly issuing from the meme merchants among us, useful things actually do get done.

Call that wondrous in this fractious age. On the other hand, the finest miracles are still the ones we work together.

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An Atlantic Canadian field guide to surviving recessions

The one thing Atlantic Canadians manage better than almost anything else is recession.

When the economic wind blows cold, we throw another log into the wood stove and cinch our collars.

When our spending money runs short, we whip out a tin of beans and tighten our belts.

When others across the country tremble at the mere thought of stock markets circling the drain, we cast a rueful eye to the storm clouds gathering on the near horizon and mutter, “Yeah, what else you got?”

Of course, we’ve had plenty of practice. Recessions – or weathering them – are kind of our thing. After all, two consecutive quarters of what experts call “negative growth” is, relatively speaking, a permanent way of life along the East Coast. It’s certainly no reason to panic.

But just tell that to the chattering class.

In times of yore, when the mighty wanted to know the shape of things to come, they would instruct an augur to read the entrails of a small animal. Today, they’re more likely to consult an economist.

Are we, in the western world, barrelling toward another recession?

Yup, says Martin Feldstein, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and a professor at Harvard University. “Ten years after the Great Recession’s onset, another long, deep downturn may soon roil the U.S. economy,” he wrote in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Maybe or maybe not, thinks The Toronto Star’s David Olive, who wrote this fall, “The Canadian financial system is among the world’s most stable. . .

But that is small comfort for Canadians. The global financial system is intimately interconnected. . .At all times, the world’s 300 or so biggest banks, including Canada’s Big Six, have enormous short-term loans outstanding to each other. Which means that the failure of just one giant financial institution could bring them all down.”

Anyone ready for a second helping of entrails?

Never mind. Here are some hard-won – if not exactly failsafe – tips for surviving the next recession in Atlantic Canada:

Avoid obvious and precarious flights of fancy. I once worked for a guy in the United States who truly believed that starting a magazine in the middle of a downturn was a grand idea. After all, there’d be no competition. Advertisers would surely flock to his venture, begging to spend their marketing budgets. The lesson learned? Don’t start a magazine in the middle of a downturn.

Still, don’t be afraid to embrace the big, wide world. If we have jobs, we should do everything we can to keep them. But if we don’t, because, well, we just don’t roll that way, we ought to double-down on our enterprising instincts. Is there a promising, new revenue stream just waiting for our particular talents and experiences? Are there two or three or even four? Indeed, when the world finally comes up for air again, our bank accounts will thank us.

Be pennywise, but not essentially miserly. It’s important to know the difference, which is sound advice even when good times roll. Ask ourselves whether the dollar we’re planning to spend will vanish like rain on a sun-caked riverbed, or germinate the seeds of new growth. We might take a course that will upgrade our suite of professional skills. But, unless the world’s supply of wicker suddenly dries up, we should ensure that course is not applied basket weaving.

Finally, float like a boat. If history teaches anything about Atlantic Canada it’s that periodic highs and lows in the regional economy are like Fundy tides: They come, they go, and there’s nothing we can do about them.

So, we throw another log on the fire. We crack open a tin of beans. We wait for the light.

Meanwhile, we manage.

We always do.

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