Category Archives: Government

Feb 03 2016
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Economy, Government, Politics

Our feet of clay in a cold place

The hole we're in

The hole we’re in

If hell freezes over in New Brunswick, it doesn’t actually solidify until Canada Day 2016, when the sun warms us just enough to let us know that we owe, we owe, and, so, off to work we continue to go.

July 1st is when the Brian Gallant government has decided to impose a two-percentage-point bump in the harmonized sales tax – from 13 to 15 per cent. His second budget makes his reasoning clear. As Finance Minister Roger Melanson explained in his speech on Tuesday, “When we completed our review of the books, it was clear that there would be no way to lay the foundation we need without an HST increase or significant cuts to education and health care. . .New Brunswickers made it clear that they do not want deep cuts in education or health care.”

For years, here, raising the HST has been a bedevilling proposition for every political party. Only more controversial has been a full-court embrace of shale gas development and highway tolls. Times have changed.

In this budget, the Grits have neatly embraced the fiscal fix that former Prime Minister Paul Martin imposed in 1991 to balance the federal books at that time. Indeed, rip a page from the old Red Book, and you will find the 33-year-old Mr. Gallant holding the hands of the old, Grit guard.

Still, he’s not wrong; he’s just late. And so were his federal predecessors, when Ottawa’s brain trusts dropped the federal (GST) portion of the HST one point to six per cent, and again in 2008 to five per cent, leaving N.B.’s HST at 13 per cent.

Consider where this province might be today had successive provincial governments – those under Messrs. Shawn Graham, David Alward, and Gallant – possessed the political courage to hike the HST two points back then and applied its proceeds to economic diversification, innovation and . . .oh yes. . .the humungous, horrific deficit and debt we now so cheerfully enjoy.

Why, just for fun, we might even conduct a work-back of lost revenues, lost opportunities and truly myopic public policy and service.

The Gallant government now claims that its hike to the provincial portion of the HST will net a total of some $300 million over the last nine months of the current fiscal year. Had it introduced such a measure when it rode into office back in 2014, it would now have in the bank a total of $800 million with which to cover New Brunswick’s pernicious and perennial deficit and chomp a commanding chunk out of its multi-billion-dollar long-term debt. What’s more, through appropriate tax rebates to middle- and low-income earners it would have done so with nary an argument.

Now, had former premier David Alward pursued a similar course while he was in Freddy Beach, those savings, today, might actually amount to a budgetary surplus.

As it is, despite the Gallant government’s efforts to balance the books, the annual deficit in New Brunswick this fiscal year is likely to amount to something close to $300 million, as the long-term debt rises to $13.4 billion. That’s nearly $18,000 for every man, woman and child of less than 750,000 benighted, underemployed, anxious souls in this province.

Higher consumption taxes were never the way out of this mess; they were, in the minds of thoughtful people, a means to an end, the point of a spear. That end remains building a more durable, innovative, productive economy without having to constantly check the balance in the public bank account.

Will we do this now, before our hell truly freezes over?

Feb 03 2016
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Democracy, Government, Politics

Vision becomes us

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There have been times in the storied history of the Atlantic region when meaningless, self-destructive, icy battles over trade, skills and labour mobility between and among the provinces have almost melted away under the warming sun of common sense. But those times have been rare.

Prior to Confederation, a century-and-a-half ago, Maritime political leaders gathered in Charlottetown, originally to consider establishing a united, regional economy. Then, of course, certain Upper Canadians, led by John A. Macdonald, crashed the party and rewrote the agenda. Suddenly, the urgent conversation was about creating a bi-coastal nation (without, at that time, a railway to connect is disparate bits).

How’s that for vision?

How’s ours on the East Coast in the second decade of the 21st Century?

We might just remember an almost-concerted effort to forge closer, more efficacious economic ties, leading to some sort of durable political union among Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island in the mid-1960s. But as the counter-argument went at the time, “Where would we put the capital?”

Twenty years later, the debate flared again. This time, though, the political class in this part of Canada had no appetite for the concepts of either economic or political union; for they had become too complacent, too inculcated in the status quo thanks to decades of federal government welfare (transfers) to prop up their perpetually underperforming public accounts.

Now, when the rest of Canada reflects on us, it conjures a region of people wise in the ways of the sea, determined to give the shirts off our backs, willing to throw down a kitchen party. This, it seems, is the stereotype we gladly proffer in return for free money from other parts of the country. As long as Ontario and Quebec can laugh their rumps off at our expense, we court jesters can count on a cheque in the mail.

Again, how’s that vision thing going for us?

Each year or so, Atlantic Canada’s provincial premiers and their mandarins gather in capital cities around the region to consider how best to work together, how marvellously they may transform their tiny economies into what they have recently termed a “global force” of growth. At the same time, they just can’t seem to figure out how to rationalize the rules concerning the transfer of honeybees and booze across their provincial borders.

This small collection of principalities remains one of the most economically divided of any in the developed world. We make it virtually impossible, in this region, for university students to transfer their credits from one institution to another; for skilled tradesmen and women to find meaningful work if they choose to leave the jurisdiction in which they received their accreditations; for doctors, lawyers and veterinarians to move between provinces without first obtaining professional papers proving that the practices of law and medicine are, somehow, locally relevant and compliant.

Certainly, each Atlantic province must develop its own vision for economic and social security, And, indisputably, each jurisdiction should maintain the right and responsibility to protect and preserve its cultural heterogeneity.

But do these priorities obviate the common sense in pursuing the stock of our common story along the East Coast?

Should we continue to ignore the fact that the tales and travails that unite us are richer than those that currently divide us?

Shouldn’t this propel us to write the next chapter of a region that embraces its constituents as members of the same extended family of social, economic and political players?

All we need is the vision.

Once again, always again, let’s have that now.

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Feb 01 2016
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Economy, Employment, Energy, Government, Politics

The palaver over pipelines

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In fact, he does looks like the kind of fellow who could tell the nation’s provinces, leading mayors and other assorted high-profile camera moths to, in effect, knock it off – and even get away with it.

On his worst day, New Brunswick MP and Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc presents and comports himself like Hollywood’s latest incarnation of an emerging mafia Don – though, an uncharacteristically friendly version of the cinematic phenotype.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I quite like his latest declaration to the press about the most recent, and utterly mindless, fracas over pipelines in this increasingly God-forsaken land of ours.

In the aftermath of some 80 mayors from Quebec, and that province’s premier, declaring their opposition to the proposed Energy East pipeline traversing their respective territories en route to tidewater facilities in Saint John, Mr. LeBlanc had this to say to local newspaper reporters this week:

“We’re prepared to deal with the tough issues and recognize that the (federal) government has an important responsibility to help get natural resources to market. The whole country has benefitted from the Alberta resource economy, so I think it would be helpful that everybody lower the tone, allow the regulatory and review process to run its course and then the government will have to make a difficult decision.”

He’s not kidding.

Gosh, what shall we do with all that Alberta oil and gas? Truck it just so that poor roads and driver inattention may slam it into a government-built tourism kiosk somewhere outside of Thunder Bay? Rail it just so that poor tracks and conductor inattention conspire to blow up another small town in the middle of Great White North Country?

Or shall we finally recognize that as long as we need fossil fuels to power our domestic and export economies, the safest, cleanest delivery system is still the lowly pipeline – properly built, scrupulously regulated and strenuously monitored by officials of the Departments of Natural Resources and those of Environment Canada?

Still, even the logical choice is fraught with political peril. And Mr. LeBlanc knows this perhaps better than anyone outside the Prime Minister’s Office.

Any delay in the construction and activation of eastern and western pipelines automatically aggravates the Conservative west, whose political agents in Ottawa are prepared to make hay with their talking points about the hegemony of the Liberal east.

Conversely, anything other than rigorous, proof-providing research showing that pipelines are, indeed, the safest technologies currently available for transporting evidently toxic materials over long distances is sure to inflame the environmental lobby and their confederates at the municipal level of government.

Tough issues, indeed, with which the federal government seems determined to deal. Ultimately, Mr. LeBlanc says, it’s Ottawa’s choice to make. And that choice, he insists, “will be based on the information that comes from the robust independent review (underway). It won’t be based on someone’s news conference. I’ve always thought that the government decision should be based on evidence, on science, on environmental analysis, on expert opinion.”

Of course, I take one issue with this declaration: It already is.

According to a recent piece in the Financial Times, “Moving oil and gas by pipeline was 4.5 times safer than moving the same volume the same distance by rail in the decade ended in 2013 in Canada, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute public policy think-tank.”

By all means, Mr. LeBlanc, complete your analysis, ensure that it is correct and then let’s get this oil flowing in the safest, most economically expedient means possible.

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Jan 27 2016
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Government, Municipal Affairs

Altogether now

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Imagining that Moncton (“The Hub City”), Saint John (“The Port City”) and Fredericton (“Freddy Beach”) have it within their independent wheelhouses of determination to come together as one, driving urban force for New Brunswick is a little like conjuring the offspring of a duck-billed platypus and a giraffe.

Still, that doesn’t stop municipal mothers and fathers from occasionally musing about the good ideas that such a miracle of nature might produce. What say you, the apparent mayor for life of the province’s capital city, nestled along the flood plains of the mighty St. John River?

“We’re a small province and as I have always said, I don’t consider Saint John and Moncton to be the competition, and I don’t think they think any differently. It makes no sense to pull 25 jobs out of Saint John and move them to Fredericton or pull them out of Fredericton and move them to Moncton. It doesn’t do anyone any good. So, we need to make sure that we have our own little pockets to nurture.”

Those words from Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside, courtesy of some nice reporting by the Saint John Telegraph-Journal’s John Chilibeck, amount to some of the funniest observations to issue from a local public official in many a tidal bore.

Really, Your Honour, wouldn’t it be more genuine to admit, despite your evidently good wishes, that none of the province’s major cities are at all prepared to join hands and screech kumabya at the top of their municipal voices simply because such a display of solidarity runs counter to time-tethered, shop-worn approaches to municipal development?

After all, the thing about having one’s own little pocket to nurture is that it naturally invites competition, especially when you’re counting on two other levels of government to help finance your commercial and economic aspirations.

Just as soon as Fredericton scores a big deal in the IT sector, Moncton whines about the fact that, infrastructure-wise, it’s a far “smarter” city than its “bland” and “white-bread” rival to the northwest. Dude, so not fair!

Just as soon as Saint John snags a deal with the feds to do. . .oh. . .anything, actually. . .Fredericton throws itself down on the tiles and pitches a fit. Mama, where’s my soother?

Still, Mayor Woodside may yet be in possession of a kernel of imagination on this matter. It may be possible, in fact, to forge a tri-city social and economic development agreement – one that leverages the strengths of each community for the benefit of all.

A multilateral agreement on infrastructure spending that keeps the highways and byways among these municipalities in the best shape possible (girded by a concerted and collective effort to negotiate with the provincial and federal governments) might be a productive start.

An all-city development board that spends its time examining ways to reduce the costs that each city shares in duplication, and explore ways to goose economic opportunity across the southern, urban swath of the province might also provide a sense of communitarian purpose.

Apart from this, though, the Sea Dogs and the Wildcats will forever battle for the sentiments of their respective fans. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s inevitable. Within this context, though, we might still grow closer together.

So, what shall the new capital conglomerate be called? Greater Hubportbeach? Greater Portbeachhub? Greater Beachubport (pronounced: beech-a-pore)? I like the ring of that last one, if only because it drops an unnecessary consonant. You’re welcome, burgermeisters.

Dear me, can Maritime union be far behind?

What a miracle of nature that would be.

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Jan 27 2016
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Business, Culture, Government, Society

Where the barrel hits the road

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We New Brunswickers are enormously adept at imagining the worst possible future for ourselves.

And why not?

After all, we endure among the most deleterious financial predicaments in the nation (a $500-million annual deficit on a long-term debt approaching $13 billion in a province that supports barely 750,000 souls).

Our economy teeters between states of mere sustainability and outright failure, especially outside the small cities that do manage to keep the overall employment rate at a steady, if still shameful, 8.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, our poverty rates are rising; our income inequality gap is widening; our energetic, educated children continue to leave in droves, though, likely, not to Alberta, any longer.

Our entrepreneurial start-ups are suffering; our fiscal relationship with the federal government hangs in limbo; oil prices are down; food prices are up; and everywhere malaise hangs like a funk over the body politic, whose members believe that almost nothing issuing from the mouths of provincial and federal politicians is even remotely trustworthy, let alone hopeful.

Granted.

But, what if, for one glittering moment, we imagined the best possible future for ourselves? Again, why not? What, exactly, do we have to lose?

Only this: our shopworn certainty in the specious value of whining constantly about how others, elsewhere in Canada, have calumniously wrecked our various lots in life.

Imagine, for a moment, a small province of a vast nation that, overnight, stops grieving over past sleights and starts examining the ways and means, within its own borders, through which it may become a world-beating center of excellence for the founts, modes and foundations of durable enterprise.

How, indeed, would that future appear?

It might begin with a full-court social compact on the crucial importance of early childhood education, universally accessible across New Brunswick and fully integrated into the public school system. The objectives would be nothing less than full literacy in both English and French languages, regardless of family resources and geographic location.

Paying for this might involve nothing more than identifying underused bricks and mortar in individual communities at which to install highly skilled teachers and cutting-edge pedagogical techniques and technologies.

At this point, do we actually need to build new schools?

A superbly literate student body matriculating into any one of New Brunswick’s magnificent institutes of higher education might then find any avenue of opportunity on which to travel. Imbued with the benefits that first-class language studies purchases for critical thinking, this province’s youth would find more opportunities than challenges: In business, marketing, global finance, engineering, the arts, and sciences.

If, then, New Brunswick’s universities convened, in the most collegial ways, their administrative characters and charters to establish a joint bureau of educational innovation that dismantled barriers to student mobility between institutions, the likelihood of retaining brain power in this part of the country would rise precipitously, if only because the labour pool of intelligent, educated, breathlessly hungry young people would remain focused on the lands and coasts and towns and cities from which they came.

Imagine that, for a moment.

Imagine the best possible future for New Brunswick: An incubator of ideas; a center of private and venture capital to commercialize those ideas; a durable and long-term vector, thanks to our innovation, for compellingly reducing the province’s deficit and debt; the ways and means to build our future without regard for the past that has, for far too long, persuaded us that we can’t, and won’t, do much about our chances in the great, grey world.

Imagine, for once, that we are enormously adept at hope.

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Jan 26 2016
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Business, Economy, Government, Politics

Debt does not become us

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Is New Brunswick officially a black hole?

In cosmology, the phenomenon generally refers to a gravity well that’s so dense, so impenetrable that not even photons escape its event horizon.

Here’s what Canada’s national debt clock says about our particular partner in Confederation: $12.8 billion in arrears to domestic and international creditors, which translates into more than $17,000 for every man, woman and child in New Brunswick. (Add that to your mortgages John and Jane Doe if, that is, you’re lucky enough to have them).

The right-leaning Fraser Institute likes to portray this province as one of Canada’s weaker sisters. I, in turn, like to portray the Fraser Institute as a bunch of fatuous blowhards. But, alas, not this time. This time, they appear to be right on the money, which they keep in their big, fat billfolds.

Still, consider their latest analysis: “The growth in government debt over the past eight years reversed a positive trend from the mid-1990s to late-2000s when Canada’s federal and provincial governments made considerable progress in reducing their debt burdens. After a period of debt reduction, combined federal and provincial debt reached a low of $833.8 billion in 2007/08.

“However, the economic recession in 2008/09, combined with the significant increases in government spending that took place in 2009/10, meant that every government fell into deficit in either 2008/09 or 2009/10. This started Canada’s governments down their current path of persistent deficits and growing debt. The trend has largely persisted since then and will likely continue in 2015/16 through the upcoming round of federal and provincial budgets.

“Total debt in 2015/16 is estimated to be just shy of $1.3 trillion. This growth in combined federal and provincial debt has not been limited to just a few jurisdictions. The federal and every provincial government increased their debt levels between 2007/08 and 2015/16.”

In New Brunswick, for example, the provincial government now pays $685 million a year to service its long-term debt. That’s money that does not go to improve and expand health care, public education, city streets, and cultural venues. It’s a giant’s share of a shrinking pie that does not feed the poor, educate the illiterate, invest in private-sector innovation, bolster entrepreneurial diversity, or keep our universities and colleges vibrant, relevant places where our children might purchase a real sense of hope in this region.

In fact, we’ve all been circling the drain for some time in this province. So have Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. We’ve all been living on borrowed time and money. It’s merely a cold comfort to be reminded that so has the rest of the country.

“Canadian governments (including local governments) collectively spent an estimated $60.8 billion on interest payments in 2014/15,” the Fraser Institute’s analysis concludes. “That works out to 8.1 per cent of their total revenue that year. To put the amount spent on interest payments in perspective, it is more than what is spent on pension benefits through the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans ($50.9 billion), and approximately equal to Canada’s total public spending on primary and secondary education ($62.2 billion, as of 2012/13, the last year for which we have finalized data).”

Ouch, indeed!

Of course, New Brunswick has a way out of this black hole, this gravity well. Embrace, for once, the idea of community. Reject the partisan bickering that keeps good notions on the lonely blueprints of policy wonks.

Recognize that New Brunswick must prepare for a new event horizon, where imagination escapes pessimism at the speed of optimism every time.

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Dec 02 2015
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Business, Economy, Government, Politics

Don’t fear the reaper

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Sooner or later, the horseman with the scythe was always coming to New Brunswick, brandishing his blade to cut down the high and low among us. Still, who knew he would materialize in the form of a 33-year-old lawyer-cum-politician from a Sleepy Hollow known as Shediac Bridge?

Premier Brian Gallant, and his operatives in government, are deadly serious about reducing the province’s annual spending load by $600 million, hoping, in turn, to replenish the public accounts and avoid structural bankruptcy before bond-holders on Wall and Bay Streets get wise to the fact that we haven’t known, for years, what we’ve been doing (economically and fiscally, at least) to Canada’s picture-perfect province.

We know now; and it boils down to this: With a $600-million deficit, a $12-billion debt, a population tipping 750,000 on a good day, and an out-migration rate that rivals historical exoduses in almost biblical terms, we simply can’t afford ourselves. Under these circumstances, who could?

Of course, we may know this, deep in our East Coast bones, but do we accept the consequences of our perennial profligacy? Do we actually “get” the fact that we are the authors of our own misfortune? After all, to paraphrase the inimitable Bob Dylan, the hour is late and all along the watchtower, princes keep the view. . .Outside in the distance a wildcat does growl. Two riders are approaching, and the wind begins to howl.

That’s winter for you in southeastern New Brunswick; but one of the riders who now visits us is an all-season, equal-opportunity reaper and nothing, it seems, will distract him from his appointed rounds.

Here’s the latest on the issue from the editorial desk of the CBC last week:

“The New Brunswick government is proposing a long list of cuts, measures to boost revenue and ways to overhaul the delivery of government services to eliminate the province’s $600-million structural deficit. Health Minister Victor Boudreau, the minister responsible for the strategic program review, announced the report at a news conference on Friday.”

Specifically, the minister said, “We want to provide for more opportunity for New Brunswickers to comment on the report. But it is not necessary (to conduct)another round of public consultation, like I did before.”

That’s code for: “Yeah, we’ve talked to New Brunswickers till we’ve gone blue in the face; so, dear citizens, deploy the public porto-potty of open opinion, or. . .well, vacate the pot forthwith.”

Here’s what’s heading towards the political abattoir over the next few months: The idea that drivers get to ride the roads in this province for free (some form of tolls for casual and industrial wheel-men and women are practically inevitable); the notion that smokers and drinkers will be saved from another hike in the cost of their so-called vices (of course, we’d quit, if we didn’t understand how valuable our shekels are to the provincial economy); and the long-standing, utterly absurd protest against a prudent hike in the Harmonized Sales Tax.

As for this last measure, a two per cent increase (from 13 to 15 per cent), accompanied by reasonable exemptions for low-income New Brunswickers, would generate an additional $250-million a year for this province.

Regardless, the horseman comes, brandishing the tools of his trade.

Now, it remains for us to duck his scythe by building the innovative, inventive, productive private sector that will prevent us from ever again laying down our heads on the chopping blocks of economic necessity. 

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Nov 29 2015
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Economy, Government

Let’s not race to the bottom

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How fare the whipping posts of the East Coast’s civil services? Just fine, thank you very much, if you happen to believe Finn Poschmann, the relatively new president and CEO of the venerable Atlantic Provinces Economic Council.

In his latest email missive he declares that the widening income gap between private sector workers and public ones is becoming economically structural. Specifically, he says, “One way to look at it is to compare wage growth across the board versus government health services and general provincial government services. Let’s go back 15 years and look at a two Nova Scotia neighbours. One is a mid-level manager in the private sector and the other works for the provincial government. Both make $60,000 including benefits.

“Over the past 15 years, using an average all-industry sector hourly compensation measure that includes employer-paid benefits, the manager would have seen his paycheck grow by 3.2 per cent annually. For the government worker, the annual salary bump would have been 4.5 per cent per year.

“Taken over 15 years, the hypothetical $60,000 goes to $97,000 for our manager – but his neighbour, the government worker, is now earning $116,000.  There are perfectly good reasons for differences in pay levels: age, experience, occupation, level of education. These factors go a long way toward explaining the public sector wage premium. Yet the growing wage gap covers the cost of a nice new car payment, permanently, and it only gets bigger.”

He adds: “The numbers are about the same for Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick (not so for Newfoundland and Labrador, where the private sector has done better). Someone has to pay for the difference, and that is a tough job when the population level is stagnant, and so is income growth.”

He concludes: “Holding the line on public sector compensation is one thing. . .Provinces will need to keep a very keen eye on spending – and on public sector headcounts.”

On the face of it, the argument makes sense. After all, why should one class of employees do better than another just because it’s lucky enough to occupy a sector that’s been largely protected from the depredations of market capitalism lo these many years?

The answer is, of course, buried in the question, itself.

Have public sector unions abused their power at the expense of public services? Indubitably, they have. Have various bargaining units thrown their own members under the bus in order to secure a more perfect negotiating position for their narrow objectives? Naturally; that’s only human gamesmanship at play.

The larger issue, though, is whether a good job in one sector of the economy is seamlessly comparable to one in another. If, for example, the private sector fails to produce income growth, does it follow that the public sector should track that descent in kind?

After all, we presume that we – all of us in all sectors of the economy – pay taxes to secure the best, smartest, most innovative people to public service. (Whether or not that particular strategy has been working out for us lately is arguable). What we need to realize is that demonizing one segment of working society is an utterly fruitless distraction from the broader purpose of building productivity, sustainable employment and, yes, happiness in our communities and homes – in our private enterprises.

Who cares whether civil servants in this region are better equipped to weather the storms of market capitalism than are the rest of us?

Let us all race to the top, and leave the whipping posts behind.

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Oct 19 2015
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Democracy, Government, Politics

Heroes of our own lives

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Tens of millions of people on this third rock from the sun, this only place in the universe where free will is at least possible, live under the yoke of tyranny. Those who do not, share one thing in common: Periodically, they get to vote.

Today, Canadians get to vote for the government they believe will, on balance, reflect their values, protect their civil rights and deliver a minimum standard of social equity and fairness.

Is the system here in the Great White North perfect?

One of Britain’s great prime ministers, Winston Churchill, is alleged to have said: “Many forms of gov­ern­ment have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pre­tends that democ­racy is. . .all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democ­racy is the worst form of gov­ern­ment except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Canada’s system is, by and large, Winston’s. Again, is it perfect?

We might prefer some form of proportional representation, in which pluralities of votes in individual constituencies truly represent the will of the people. We might expect those we elect to advocate our interests vigorously and without fear of back-benching themselves into political oblivion. We might want partisan bickering to dissolve, replaced by cross-party negotiation on the most important issues that concern Canadians: jobs, education, health care.

To quote an artist, “we don’t always get what we want, but sometimes we get what we need”.

So, then, what do we need?

Is it a government that panders to an ideologically calcified segment of our society, or one that listens to everyone?

Is it a government that prescribes political fixes for problems that don’t actually exist, or one that recognizes trials and tribulations as they emerge in the towns and cities where people actually live, raise families, work and die?

Is it a government that, in the end, believes in, and cherishes, the people it purports to represent, or one that rests contemptuously on its talking points?

These are the big questions that politicians are forbidden to answer, the queries that even their advocates and factotums are unequipped to address. These are the quandaries only we, the people, are permitted by our democracy, to resolve. We get to vote.

In recent years, New Brunswickers have been voting in droves. They’ve lined up at local Lions Centres, at kiosks in malls, at “hole-in-the-wall” outposts in small-town locations. In other words, we, and only we, get to (and do) vote.

The question is no longer how we vote today, but that we do. Those who choose to stay home and watch the latest episode of “Game of Thrones”, rather than engage in the “live-action-role-play” of their own existence on this benighted planet, are cheating themselves – and the rest of us.

Like it or not, we are all in this together. That’s what it means to belong to a democracy; and, surely, we belong to it as much as it belongs to us. For, if we don’t exercise our right to choose how we live and work, we abrogate our power to determine how our children live and work. We abandon them in the most irresponsible ways imaginable.

We become the heroes of our own lives simply by acknowledging that no one is coming to rescue us from inequity and despair – no one, that is, except us.

We vote to change the world. We vote to change the only universe we know. We vote to become better than we’ve ever been before.

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Sep 24 2015
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Business, Economy, Government

Starting up our start-up dreams

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When tech entrepreneurs hunt for locations in which to launch their enterprises, they typically follow a checklist. It goes a little like this:

Does a community offer a “business-friendly environment” (low cost, high technology infrastructure, state-of-the-art telecommunications networks, regulatory simplicity)?

Does it provide convenient, engaging and diverse educational, cultural and recreational opportunities (after all, these folks are motivated by the lure of the near-mythical “work-life” balance)?

Most of all, perhaps, does it labour hard to become a magnet for venture capital investors?

In most significant ways, Moncton scores high on the scale.

Business-friendly environment? Check.

Extra-curricular amenities? Check.

Private venture? Well. . .we’ll get back to you on that.

According to Shane Dingman, The Globe and Mail’s technology reporter, in a piece he wrote for that newspaper earlier this year, “The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s annual funding report (shows) the total venture dollars invested declined in 2014 to around $1.9-billion on 379 deals, compared with 2013’s $2-billion on 452 deals. The average dollar amount per deal, however, rose from $4.4-million in 2013 to $5-million.

“That’s still a far cry from the more than $48-billion (U.S.) in venture capital that accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP estimates was invested in U.S. companies in 2014. But observers are confident that gap will shrink.

The Globe compiled 21 examples of the largest venture funding announcements in Canadian technology over the last 18 months.”

Among other things, he reports, “The list reveals a growing number of big-dollar deals among medium-sized startups – a change for a sector that has historically focused on mostly seed, or early-stage financing. Those 21 companies collected more than $784-million (the massive $100-million funding of Ottawa’s fast growing e-commerce provider Shopify in December, 2013, and the $60-million raised by Vancouver social media dashboard maker Hootsuite in September, 2013, make up a significant chunk of that total).”

Moncton, with all of its economic and social advantages, stands to gain, but only when its tech buzz truly catalyzes a critical mass of venture investors from across Canada and around the world.

Again, the advantages here are clear, according to the City’s tale of the tape: “In 2014, KMPG ranked Moncton as the lowest cost location for business in Canada; Moncton is known as the hub of the Maritimes with more than 1.3 million people living within a 2.5-hour drive; with a 9.7 per cent population growth between 2006 and 2011, Moncton is the fastest growing Canadian urban centre East of Saskatoon and the fifth-fastest growing CMA in Canada; Moncton (has) added more than 25,000 jobs to its workforce since 1990; home sales in 2011 reached the fourth-highest level in history – there were twice as many houses sold in 2011 than a decade ago; with an average price of $166,476 in 2013, Moncton remains one of the most affordable housing markets in Canada; total value of building permits issued in 2011 reached $184 million, the second highest level in history; retail sales reached $2.1 billion in 2011, 17 per cent higher than the Canadian Cities’ average.”

Now, if we could only make that message viral around the nation, the continent and the world. Certainly, we are trying. But, as Ben Champoux, CEO of 3+, the tri-city area’s economic development agency, might say: Try harder.

Silicon Valley was once an orange grove; today, it’s a corridor of multi-billion-dollar venture investments in technology start-ups that have, in the past 25 years, changed the world.

Not for nothing, this New Brunswick jurisdiction enjoys the highest per capita income on the East Coast.

Moncton, what are you waiting for?

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