Category Archives: Politics

Dec 29 2015
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Demographics, Economy, Politics

A hand-out by any other name

Who says I'm not happy?

Premier Brian Gallant’s decision to ask the newly elected Liberal government of Justin Trudeau to pony up new money for seniors’ care in this province is a bold move. But it could also be a very bad one.

In his end-of-the-year interview with the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, Mr. Gallant welcomed an $80-million-plus increase to New Brunswick in federal transfers next year. “I am very happy to hear that we are going to have the transfer conversation,” he said, sounding almost dismissive.

Still, he continued, “I have always made it very clear that we need extra support from the federal government because of our aging population. . .New Brunswick is facing an aging population that is more significant than almost any other province in the country. Therefore, the federal government has an opportunity to test run what programs will work to overcome those challenges.”

This is the tried-and-true “canary in the coalmine” argument that one level of government, fiscally subservient to another, routinely makes when it can’t quite figure out how to address the economic and demographic realities it faces.

Newfoundland and Labrador now faces an annual deficit of $2-billion, which dwarfs New Brunswick’s by a factor of four. Canada’s western provinces, reeling under a spot price for oil that barely nudges the $36-per-barrel mark, are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Do these jurisdictions – whose populations are, by the way, also aging – deserve any less consideration from Ottawa than does New Brunswick?

Yet, Mr. Gallant, all of 33 years old, persists. This province, he says, could and should become a test lab for federal programs (read: handouts) over and above the Canada Health Transfer that will putatively teach legislators at all levels of government across this great, aging nation how to properly care for old folks in their senescence, in the sunset of their years.

It sounds great, but it feels wrong and for a variety of reasons.

Presently, even the smartest, most perspicacious New Brunswick bureaucrats can’t tell you exactly when, how or why the province’s aging population will compromise the ship of state in these harbours we call home. Some say, doom has already descended. Others insist we have several years before we notice a deleterious difference in our standards of living. Still others declare, optimistically, that septuagenarian baby boomers represent an untapped resource – a resource whose potential is yet to be fully plumbed.

What’s missing in all of this is real, credible research that would justify a broad, multi-million-dollar ask from the feds to address a problem New Brunswick hasn’t actually parsed with any degree of social-policy, let alone scientific, rigour. It feels panicky, precipitous and, in the end, disastrously misaligned.

There’s also something distressingly infantilizing about all of this.

Shall the rest of Canada care for the elderly in New Brunswick over and above the degree they already do simply because an actuarial table over at Statistics Canada shows that the population here is getting older?

Again, how many of these people live below the poverty line? How many live well above it? Answer these questions, and then, perhaps, have a useful, evidence-based chat with Ottawa.

Fundamentally, no government anywhere in this nation has money to burn. Our grown kids can’t find the sort of work we once hoped they would. They can’t locate affordable, high-quality childcare. They can no longer expect to be better off, more prosperous or happier than their parents.

Building the base for their futures seems, to me, a better use of public money than securing the dwindling years of people like me.

Trust me, I ain’t near rich enough to afford a government-backed handout to myself.

 

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Dec 04 2015
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Energy, Politics, Science

How goes the battle for truth?

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In the language of triumphalism that always graces a newly elected leader’s   speech to an international audience, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared, last week, that “Canada is back”. On the subject of climate change, he insisted, there can be no “laggards”.

The lightly veiled insinuation, of course, was that this once great nation has been brought to its knees, over the past 10 years, by a cynical and zealous crop of intellectual poseurs masquerading as legislators, and, through them, by an especially virulent form of “sciencitis”.

This particular malady is not new. It periodically sweeps across various bodies politic, persuading anyone who will listen that evidence is simply a matter of opinion; that research is a poor substitute for good, old common sense; and that standing in the middle of the tracks as a locomotive bears down on you is a perfectly reasonable posture given that the engineer behind the stick will surely hit the brakes before he turns you into an unrecognizable smudge.

This was the former Conservative Government of Canada’s approach to “public outreach”. Under Stephen Harper, climate science was, at best, a theoretical construct that handy, populist rhetoric could deconstruct in an instant; Environment Canada was a nest of liberal bugs, better swatted than tolerated; and Statistics Canada was a den of uncooperative eggheads who needed to be curtailed, abused and, in the end, fired.

Still, on a trip to Europe in advance of the Paris climate change conference, Mr. Trudeau was unequivocal about the intent of his government: It will look nothing like that of his predecessor’s.

Specifically, he instructed, “Indigenous peoples have known for thousands of years how to care for our planet. . .The rest of us have a lot to learn. . .Canadians) want to know that what they’re doing fits into a bigger picture, because there is no point in bending over backwards if your neighbour or your government is not also doing its part to ensure that we all have the maximum impact together.”

He added: “Every single one of us can and should be much more conscious of the ways we can act to reduce our carbon footprint. . .By working together, we will deliver real benefits for our environment while also strengthening our economy, including the creation of more middle class jobs.”

The words are nice, even credible. And yet, the devil is in the details and the details remain demonic.

In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, federally funded science initiatives have been eliminated over the past decade with systematic efficiency.

Virtually nothing remains of Fisheries and Oceans, the National Research Council or the Department of Environment in this craggy corner of the Steppe. Where once this region’s scientists and researchers contributed to the national policy agenda, they now perform perfunctory duties teaching their fellow bureaucrats the difference between a green and a blue bag on garbage day. That is the truth of the battle among those who have decided to stick around.

Recent reports from university scholars of my acquaintance suggest that, over the past 15 years, no fewer than 10,000 top-flight thinkers on everything from fluid dynamics to environmental engineering in this region have fled to friendlier and more remunerative locales around the world. They aren’t coming back and their ilk won’t be replaced anytime soon.

So is, as Mr. Trudeau says, “Canada back” as he attempts to sign on to a new climate deal with the rest of world?

Let us attend to the laggards in our own public policy.

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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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Climate, Politics, Weather

Has spring sprung early?

Permanent winter for a Moncton events centre?

It has begun; that time of the year when Stockholm syndrome grips a goodly number Canadian citizens. The signs are evident and everywhere.

Faces change from warm and friendly to feverish and intensely cheerful. Backs bow, arms curl into chests, legs shift from side to side, heads bob up and down and to and fro. And then, as sure as Jack Frost is a minor demon with a major purchase on the souls of northern climes, the speaking in all-but-frozen tongues commences.

“Isn’t it great to see winter back once again? Why, I’m invigorated. I just can’t wait to pull out the old snow shoes, stay up till three o’clock in the morning shoveling ice from the intake valves of my natural gas furnace. I mean, it just doesn’t get any better than this. . .Am I right, brother? No, really, am I right, am I right, am I right? Heeeeeee haaaaaaaw!”

To be clear, Stockholm syndrome is that condition which one source defines thusly: “It’s a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.”

It’s odd, perhaps, but to my knowledge, there’s no such thing as “San Jose syndrome” or “Florida Keys syndrome” or, heaven forbid, “Tahiti syndrome”. I guess the captives in those toasty, sunny locales are too busy sipping pina coladas to worry overmuch about the indignities they suffer at the warm hands of their captors’ beach-side massage therapists.

Poor saps. They know not what they’re missing in the “Arctic Riviera”: windburn, frostbite, couch-potatoitis, scrabble-mindlessness, cribbage-rot, and three-penny poker parlour games.

Up here in the Great White North, we know how to throw down a kitchen party when the mercury dips below the freezing point of iridium.

Now, naturally, the weather auguries declare that this winter will be one of the mildest and wettest on record in Southeastern New Brunswick. That simply means we take our card games outside as we rake the leaves of autumn in January. Oh what fun can we imagine in that eventuality?

We shall build great columns of maple keys, where once spirals of ice might have stood.

We shall garnish our hats with dead flowers from the garden, where once frozen carrots might have graced the noses of our snowmen in the sub-zero.

Under these conditions (say around March 14), the Stockholm syndrome will veer observably sideways.

“Isn’t it great to see spring back once again and so early this year? Why, I’m invigorated. I just can’t wait to pull out the old roots, stay up till three o’clock in the morning shoveling dirt into the new planting beds. I mean, it just doesn’t get any better than this. . .Am I right, brother? No, really, am I right, am I right, am I right? Heeeeeee haaaaaaaw!”

Over the past ten years, New Brunswick has endured federal faces that were both warm and friendly, both feverish and intensely cheerful. In the process, it has suffered the fools of office it elected to Ottawa.

Now, there are new gardeners in town, just in time for winter’s blanket of moody musing and discontent to fall. Now, though, there are new promises to keep, new vistas to explore.

Yes, it is great to see that political spring has sprung in Canada again after such a long political ice age of bleak despair for many.

Still, let’s remember in this new, ostensibly enlightened era that we, the people, are the captors of our own democracy; not the captives.

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Nov 29 2015
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Politics

Following the yellow-brick road

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Brian Gallant represents the best qualities a provincial premier as this time in Canada requires – and, also, the worst.

The good news is that New Brunswick’s head honcho is young, energetic, smart, genuinely interested in the welfare of the people he represents and, most importantly, unafraid of pollsters, opposition critics, and various members of the voting public who might shake his hand and spit bitterly on the sidewalk as he moves on to press somebody else’s flesh.

The bad news is that New Brunswick’s head honcho is young, energetic, smart, genuinely interested in the welfare of the people he represents and unafraid of pollsters, opposition critics, and various members of the voting public who might shake his hand and. . .well, you get the point.

Of course, few told Mr. Gallant how to respond to the prevarications and predations of public life as he was growing up in southeastern New Brunswick. (He is the scion of working men and women who sometimes found quotidian existence so difficult, so monetarily unrewarding, that they moved more times than the pre-teen Mr. Gallant had put in years on Planet Earth).

Still, no one had to tell the future premier anything; he figured it out all by himself. The solution, he reckoned through high school, university and law school, was to cut down every extreme and find a safe landing pad in the middle of the road, where traffic passes easily both to the right and the left. As long as you don’t step off the yellow line, you won’t get run over; you will survive.

These qualities of mind and character have served him extraordinarily well as the premiers and territorial leaders of Canada prepare gathered with the feds in Ottawa on Monday to articulate a national position on climate-change policy. This pow-wow on, inarguably, the most global of all global issues, will demonstrate how, for the first time in seven years, regional leaders and national ones come to meet each other’s minds, all at once over coffee and rubber chicken, over. . .well, anything. . .but especially global warming. And Mr. Gallant had an important role to play in the proceedings. Clearly, this 33-year-old premier was animated.

“It’s important for all of us to work together – we’re going to send a strong message to the international community,” he said earlier this week, at the denouement of his appearance in the federal court of public opinion.

That message, we might hope, is about cutting carbon emissions, reducing greenhouse gases, building a self-sufficient energy future, and generally saving the planet from corporatist rapacity.

But, no; for Mr. Gallant, there remains a middle road in all of this. Here, in this place (where we once used to be; and some of us still are), it is entirely possible to imagine a pipeline full of Alberta bitumen sluicing into New Brunswick for refining and processing, even while we reject the clean-energy potentialities of wind, tidal and situated solar.

A pipeline, apparently, will keep our kids at home, educate them and make them remarkable citizens.

A wind turbine, on the other hand, will simply give them headaches and justify their complaints about how tough life is, living in Mum and Dad’s basement, watching Game of Thrones on Netflix.

Playing both sides against the middle is a tough calling. What Mr. Gallant must finally realize is that he, like any decent man or woman in a position of real power, must chart the lonely, hardscrabble course away from the yellow line, and into the brutal, responsible lanes of real leadership.

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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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Oct 17 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The age of high anxiety

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In electoral politics, the mood inexorably swings between fear and hope. Rarely do voters declare that they feel merely okay about the traffic of ideas that whizz past them on the left and right sides of the ideological divide.

Over the past decade, or so, fear has become the predominant emotion in the public square, where we gather as fellow citizens. In fact, these days, we seem to be afraid of just about everything.

Criminals and “evil-doers” stalk us at every turn, or so we are told as certain parties agitate for more prisons and longer jail times. Meanwhile, international terrorists are ready to infiltrate our communities, schools and public institutions, which is why, presumably, some national leaders are happy to crack down on refugees as never before.

Even more easily terrifies us.

When not scared by our own shadows in New Brunswick, we tremble at the prospect of getting old and not having enough money to cover our geriatric care. Where will we go? How shall we live? Who will look after us?

Then there are the kids, who, frankly, are not all right. Will they ever learn to read and write in a public education system that fails them year after year? What sort of jobs can they expect? How will they pay the bills?

Speaking of stiff duties, what are we to do about New Brunswick’s multi-million-dollar annual deficit and multi-billion-dollar structural debt? Despite repeated attempts to chisel down these burdens, the last couple of governments have made precious little progress in recent years.

On the other hand, a certain degree of economic stagnation is par for the course in this province.

According to a CBC news report about a year ago, “A report card comparing the economic performance of all 10 provinces with each other and 16 advanced countries puts New Brunswick at the bottom of the pack. New Brunswick finishes last among the provinces and second last overall in the report by the Conference Board of Canada, which measures the economic performance of the provinces against countries for the first time. New Brunswick was given an overall grade of D and was ranked ahead of only France in the list of 26 provincial and national economies that were examined.”

Specifically, the Board said, “The sluggish U.S. recovery has hurt export demand and both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have also had very weak domestic economies in recent years. These two eastern provinces have been burdened by excess production capacity, as they have not benefited from the boom in commodity demand over the past decade like Alberta and Saskatchewan.”

Now, of course, Alberta’s economy is in the dumpster thanks to weakening commodity prices and demand, which will, in turn, malevolently affect prospects of a new oil pipeline into this province, where we have already abandoned any plans we might have nursed for building an environmentally responsible shale gas industry.

Indeed, considering all the threats to fret about in this region of Canada, it’s tempting to concede that things don’t change, except for the worse.

Still, a morose attitude is as habit-forming as fear is self-perpetuating. These are what stop us from remembering that for every Great Depression there is a Great Recovery. We must only search for solutions to our shared problems – even those that have become especially entrenched thanks to the partisan mumbo-jumbo that has cluttered the path of progress.

If the mood swings in electoral politics, as it surely will on Monday, we are long past due for a new age of high hopes in New Brunswick.

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Oct 17 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The NDP vies for Atlantic touchdown

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Theirs may be a Hail Mary pass, mere days before the federal election, but you’ve got to hand it to the New Democrats: if nothing less, they are determined to go down fighting.

Just as some polls show Justin Trudeau effectively eating Thomas Mulcair’s lunch, last week the NDP announced its platform tailor-made for Atlantic Canada. It included a surprising number of goodies calculated to warm the cockles of regional hearts.

There’s a bit more money for regional development initiatives. There’s a promise to spent $512 million over the next four years on cities and downs for things like road and bridge repairs. Mr. Mulcair, et.al., also want to establish 50,000 childcare spots, costing parents a measly $15 a day. What’s more, the former socialist party intends to retain door-to-door mail delivery – something its arch-nemesis, the Conservative government in Ottawa, has announced it will dismantle across the country.

Whether any of this will actually persuade enough voters in Atlantic Canada to throw their hats into the ring with the NDP is an open question. In recent days, throughout Canada, sentiments have been shifting.

According to a recent CTV news report, “The latest nightly tracking by Nanos Research shows the Liberals emerging with a lead in the national election race, with the Conservatives holding steady and the NDP continuing to slide.”

Apparently, voters were asked, “If a federal election were held today, please rank your top two current local voting preferences.”

The results gave the Grits a squeaker of a head start against the Tories (35.6 per cent support, versus 31 per cent, respectively). At the same time support for the NDP has broadly plunged.

Said the news report: “The NDP have slid by a significant margin in Quebec, from a high of 50 per cent support at the beginning of the campaign, down to 30.1 per cent in the latest poll. The NDP are now in a statistical tie with the Liberals in the province, who registered 28.1 per cent support in the latest tracking.

“The Bloc Quebecois and the Conservatives are also in a statistical tie for third, with the BQ at 20.4 per cent support and the Conservatives at 17.4 per cent in Quebec. Outside Quebec, the latest regional numbers show: The Liberals lead in Atlantic Canada, with 50.2 per cent support; the Conservatives lead in the Prairies, with 46.9 per cent support; the Liberals have 40.9 per cent support in Ontario, while the Conservatives are at 36.5 per cent support; in British Columbia, the Liberals are tracking at 34.7 per cent support, with the NDP at 30.0 per cent support.”

As Nik Nanos observed, “”The Mulcair brand is strong, and it’s very clear from the polling that he’s probably the most well-liked of the three federal leaders. The bad news is, Canadians don’t see him as prime minister.

Of course, this sort of shake up was bound to happen. The NDP, both federally and provincially, have provided Atlantic Canada with some of the region’s best policy ideas – both humane and sensible – in recent decades.

But attitudes about politics and politicians become easily calcified, and it doesn’t take much to undermine a promising showing in popular opinion. Sometimes it takes only a vague notion that, in the end, no amount of good intention, no number of worthy ideas, can eradicate the perception that the NDP has been and shall always be Canada’s “third” party (a rather absurd proposition, given that it was, until the election call, the nation’s Official Opposition).

Still, really, who wants to play on a team whose forwards can’t catch the ball?

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Oct 17 2015
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Business, Economy, Politics

Between a rock and the hard place

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Only at election time does the rhetoric about the Maritimes’ proud and noble traditions – and its resilient and inventive people – soar above the Parliament buildings like so much papal smoke.

If we are to believe the campaign propaganda issuing from the mouths of all party leaders, we East Coasters are a sturdy and discerning bunch – willing to strip the shirts from our backs for those in need, sure, but equally suspicious of political carpet-baggers and snake-oil salesmen, fresh off the plane from the Centre of the Universe, asking that we buy what they’re merchandising.

Good for us, they say, rightly so: Handle us with care.

Of course, at any time other than an election cycle, they call us defeatists, welfare bums, worthless leeches sucking the life-blood from the national economy thanks to our alleged addiction to seasonal employment disorder and the requisite tankers of money Employment Insurance generously supplies.

The truth is, as always, somewhat more nuanced. Perhaps that’s one reason why we Maritimers are having a hard time making up our minds about who should own the keys to the castle in Ottawa later this month.

Shall it be the current prime minister, whom the decidedly non-conservative Toronto Star political columnist, Heather Mallick, castigated (rather brutally, if funnily) in a recent issue of the broadly left-wing American journal, Harper’s Magazine?

“What a long, strange slide it has been for Canada since 2006, when Stephen Harper became prime minister,” she wrote. “You thought you saw the last of Richard Nixon when he helicoptered off the White House’s South Lawn. Wrong: the man had a clone. And that clone must have been watching a lot of Sarah Palin speeches. Harper is Nixon without the charm, he’s Nixon without the progressive social and environmental programs. If he wins re-election in October, Americans might want to consider a northern wall.”

Nixon without the charm? Come on Ms. Mallick. I was 13 years old in 1973, when the world learned of the egregious crimes engineered by his bunch of thugs and supplicants determined to upend the U.S. democracy. President Nixon was famous for being entirely charmless. If anything, Stephen Harper is “Tricky Dick” on a good day.

Still, mistrusting democratically elected boosters of the so-called status quo has become our. . .well, status quo.

Shall our next federal leader be Liberal Justin Trudeau, about whom his political opponents say is untried, untested, elitist, infantile, unschooled, irresponsible, and, maybe worst of all, a true believer in the national Grit track record in this country?

Shall it be the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair, who is losing his base in Quebec as I write – the victim of his own hubris and arrogance?

Shall it be Elizabeth May, whose Green Party does a magnificent job of criticizing the mainstream parties in its sights, but seems to fail repeatedly in transforming popular opinion into votes?

Whatever the reasons are for our general, political lassitude in this part of country, we must shake ourselves awake, become who we must be: the heroes of our own lives.

It’s all very well to talk about New Brunswick’s emerging industrial clusters, technology centres of excellence, and innovative economic sectors, but none of it means much when the crucial resource needed to power these initiatives is vanishing.

As absurdly simple as it sounds, people, not governments, build long-term economic capacity. They launch businesses, invent new products and services, and employ relatives, friends, and strangers. They inspire others to become entrepreneurs, exporters, teachers, lawyers, doctors, and builders.

That’s not only at election time. It’s all the time

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Oct 17 2015
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Business, Economy, Politics

Brian Gallant’s big break?

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With his approval rating dropping into the political dumpster, the premier of New Brunswick needed a convincing win, one year into his mandate. He got it with BMM Testlabs’ announcement that, with the province’s help, the company will create 1,000 good jobs in Moncton, though not all at once.

Now, can Brian Gallant maintain the momentum the province evidently needs?

In a commentary the premier penned for this newspaper organization last month, he declared how pleased he was to have participated in the “biggest job announcement ever sponsored by government in New Brunswick’s history.”

The fact to which he referred was that the province had put real skin into the game – ultimately in the form of taxpayers’ dollars – not only to keep a satellite office of an international company in the environs around Moncton, but to help expand it: 200 well-paid positions each year over the next five.

To be clear, BMM Testlabs is an Aussie operation that makes its bones by making sure that gaming companies don’t run afoul of their particular jurisdictions’ rules and regulations. It maintains outposts in its home country, the U.S., South Africa, and, of course, Canada, among many others.

In other words, as a player in a government-regulated industry it needs and gets all the public-sector support it can handle. In fact, that is its global, strategic imperative. But, really, in this marketplace, whose isn’t?

Private companies and corporations troll the world for “business-friendly” jurisdictions – those that provide tax incentives, skills-development initiatives and various “move-in/move-up” allowances.

In fact, former Liberal Premier Frank McKenna made an unapologetic career out of the tactic in the late 1980s and through much of the 1990s – even going so far as to set up an international 1-800 line that connected directly to him. I actually dialed the number once in 1990 just to see if it worked. It did.

The conversation went a little like this:

Me: “Uh. . .Hullo, Mr. Premier. I was just phoning to determine whether this thing of yours was, well, real.”

McKenna: “It is. What can I help you with?”

Me: “Uuumm…do you have pop in a bottle?”

McKenna: “Why, in fact, in Sussex, I do.

Me: “Then you better let him out as mum wants him home for dinner.”

Click, and the dead-phone hum ensued.

I assume that when BMM and Opportunities New Brunswick got together, a childish prank like this was declared verboten. After all, says Mr. Gallant in his column, “Good government policy opens the door for job creation.”

Somehow, that goes to this: “We are supporting responsible resource development projects. We are excited about the thousands of jobs that could be created from major projects, such as the Energy East Pipeline, the LNG terminal in Saint John and the Sisson Mine. All of these projects have moved closer to reality under this government and we will continue to work to make them happen. If these projects go forward, nearly 10,000 jobs will be created at their peak.”

Before we, of course, descend to the infantile humor that such a claim requires (something about unicorns farting rainbows), let us just pause, for a moment, and consider the implications of Mr. Gallant’s broader claims.

BMM’s announcement is great news. But its determination to create jobs is not, necessarily, deterministic. Anything can happen (and often does) with domestic and offshore companies.

The idea is to keep every possibility in play, and never allow one big jobs announcement triumph over the long-term objective of building economic vigor and diversity – or, in truth, goose one particular premier’s poll numbers.

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