Tag Archives: Brian Gallant

Feb 24 2015
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Economy, Energy, Politics

Dear potash, you may now kiss the bride

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Until recently, Potash and shale gas in New Brunswick have gone together like a horse and carriage if not, precisely, love and marriage.

But are we now witnessing from the sidelines of a new provincial Jobs Board – more concerned with marrying this region’s disparate economic opportunities than allowing their pervasive separations to widen – the opening gambit of some type of betrothal in the natural resources sector?

Politically, Liberal Premier Brian Gallant’s stern insistence on slapping a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing was a smart move. His Tory predecessors had utterly bungled the file with the predictable result of having neutralized any chance of engendering informed debate, let alone winning hearts and minds on either side of the controversial issue.

Those opposed to the practice of exploding rock deep beneath the ground to extract natural gas, potentially poisoning drinking water, relied on Internet research (some compelling good, some stunningly bad) to reinforce their intractability.

Those who supported the practice, believing that it could be safe as long as regulations in this province were tougher and more reliable than any found in the developed world, remained bewildered by the road blocks and burning police cruisers at Rexton, N.B., in the summer and fall of 2013.

And, as usual in these sort of contretemps, never the twain would meet.

Economically, though, Mr. Gallant’s “wait-and-see” policy regarding shale gas development (Is it benign? Can a social license be negotiated with affected communities? What’s the long-term, dollars-and-cents impact on the province’s finances?) is running down the clock.

The debt clock, that is: hundreds-of-millions of dollars in annual deficits; a $12-billion long-term debt that no degree of public-sector austerity will settle without robust, private-sector economic growth.

So, it comes as no surprise that the Grit government is now talking boldly about vastly expanding potash mining in the province.

In an exclusive for Brunswick News Inc., Adam Huras reports this week that the Province “will issue a request for proposals. . .to explore a massive stretch of land in southern New Brunswick it believes could be home to the province’s next potash mine.”

The area in question reportedly incorporates more than 24,000 hectares (240 million square meters) of land less than an hour’s drive north of Saint John.

Question: What do potash mining operations here use to power their facilities? Answer: hydraulically fracked shale gas.

Another question: Why? Another answer: Because it’s reliable, plentiful and, frankly, cheaper than any alternative.

Now, when a provincial government raises the possibility of opening up its public pocketbook to help finance a major expansion of a demonstrably successful resource industry in order to create good, sustainable, long-term jobs, the long bet appreciates that said government must also understand the importance of the fuel supply said resource industry deploys to justify embroidering its business plan.

It also stands to reason that Mr. Gallant’s cabinet and Jobs Board recognize that any move, on government’s part, to so convincingly enlarge a sector that depends on shale gas will goose opinion about the energy supply (for and against) in the public square, regardless of any moratorium.

Inevitably, that means a conversation – one that ended, unproductively, when the Grit team took office last fall.

Naturally, the talking points from the premier’s office, over the next few days, will tow the party line. No, we haven’t changed our minds, they will say. Yes, we believe there exist legitimate questions about the safety of hydraulic fracturing. Of course, until we know the truth, we will not act precipitously.

Still, that’s what every marriage broker says when he or she is conducting their due diligence.

Will the groom behave honorably? Will the bride comport herself in the best interests of her extended family and community?

How deliciously ironic that those who signed the first divorce papers might now officiate at the new wedding?

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Feb 22 2015
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Business, Economy

Is it a whole new ball game for N.B.?

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When a government seeks a home run in the early innings of its time at bat, it helps to have a couple of heavy hitters warming up in the dugout.

Last week, New Brunswick’s Grit Premier Brian Gallant announced his appointments of three all-stars in the field of economic and business development to help shepherd the province’s new Jobs Board secretariat.

According to the premier, Jacques Pinet (as the group’s new chief executive officer), Susan Holt (as the new chief of business relationships) and David Campbell (as the new chief economist of New Brunswick) “will work to set the conditions for growth so that we can help our province’s businesses and entrepreneurs create jobs which will, in turn, help improve our finances. . .These individuals each join government with a strong and diverse background in the private sector.”

For their part, the individuals in question appear as fired up about their new positions and the promise of making a difference as do their bosses Gallant and Economic Development Minister Rick Doucet, who jointly chair the Jobs Board.

“The time is right to change the way we approach economic development and job creation in New Brunswick,” said Pinet, a Moncton lawyer and former senior executive of Assumption Life. “It is clear the status quo is not working. Jobs Board represents a fresh opportunity to re-invigorate our economy. I am honoured to be part of these efforts.”

Added Holt, the former chief executive officer of the New Brunswick Business Council, “New Brunswick has a history of entrepreneurship and innovation. I am looking forward to working with our business community to unleash their ideas and establish the kind of environment that will lead to job creation and prosperity in today’s economy.”

In fact, said Campbell, an economic development consultant and researcher, “Together, Opportunities NB and Jobs Board will help the government better co-ordinate and evaluate job creation efforts. Diversifying the economy, developing the workforce and making strategic investments in infrastructure are all examples of the way we can work towards the common goal of job creation.”

To say that these folks have their work cut out for them vastly understates the case.

The province’s fiscal morass of rolling annual deficits amounting to hundreds-of-millions of dollars a year on a longterm, structural debt of some $2 billion reflects an even more worrying combination of conditions that have, for years, conspired to undermine economic capacity in the province.

The labour force is dwindling, strategic infrastructure for business development is only just keeping pace with the rest of the developed world, and innovation, commercialization and productivity rates haven’t budged convincingly since the turn of the century.

As the national unemployment rate continues to drop (to 6.6 per cent last month), New Brunswick’s remains stuck in the 10 per cent range (though, this is likely the most optimistic number a statistician will average, as the actual, seasonally adjusted, rate in many parts of the province is closer to 18 per cent, especially among young, employable people).

I know Pinet only by reputation. I know Holt only slightly better. But I’ve been a friend and colleague of Campbell’s for years and he is – as is I imagine each of his new colleagues – the right person for the right job at the right time.

He is certainly correct when he writes, as he did recently, on his blog, “If we don’t find a way to get the province’s economy back to at least a moderate level of economic growth no amount of fiscal austerity will be enough to bring balance to the province’s books.”

That sounds like a cue if there ever was one.

Dear Messrs. Campbell and Pinet – dear Ms. Holt – your time at bat is drawing near. Let’s see how you hit it out of the park.

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Feb 11 2015
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Government

When less means more, at least politically

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New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant has decided to chop his annual salary by 15 per cent this year. His fellow cabineteers – all 12 of them – have agreed (if that is the right word) to follow suit, each taking pay cuts of ten per cent.

Sure, these are symbolic gestures at a time when the province struggles with structurally high yearly deficits and a long-term debt of some $12 billion.

But what’s wrong with that?

No, these voluntary rollbacks won’t rescue New Brunswick from fiscal quicksand. And, no, they won’t put money back into the pockets of hard-working men and women who run businesses, struggle to make their payrolls and watch their limited financial resources fail to meet their own, and others’, expectations.

But, we have to start somewhere. And where better to begin more visibly than right at the top of the public sector, where ministers of the Crown hold the keys – in more ways than merely symbolic – to everyone’s safety deposit box?

Besides, when was the last time you witnessed a private-sector fat cat, having seen the communitarian light, announce that he (or she) will gladly undergo self-administered liposuction in order to protect at least the appearance of fairness and equity in his or her corner of the corporate steppe?

I didn’t think so.

On the other hand, it does happen, if rarely.

Writing in the February 9 edition of The New Yorker magazine, financial columnist James Surowiecki, reported, “It’s no secret that the years since the Great Recession have been hard on American workers. Though unemployment has finally dipped below six per cent, real wages for most have barely budged since 2007. Indeed, the whole century so far has been tough: wages haven’t grown much since 2000.

“So it was big news when, last month, Aetna’s C.E.O., Mark Bertolini, announced that the company’s lowest-paid workers would get a substantial raise – from twelve to sixteen dollars an hour, in some cases – as well as improved medical coverage.” Indeed, “Bertolini didn’t stop there. He said that it was not ‘fair’ for employees of a Fortune 50 company to be struggling to make ends meet. He explicitly linked the decision to the broader debate about inequality, mentioning that he had given copies of Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-first Century’ to all his top executives. ‘Companies are not just money-making machines,’ he told me last week. ‘For the good of the social order, these are the kinds of investments we should be willing to make.’”

So, perhaps, the better question is: When was the last time you heard a corporate fat cat talk like a progressive reformer?

The case of Mark Bertolini may only be the exception that proves the rule.

But, in the New Brunswick government’s case, they, too, seem to have figured out that a public gesture can go a long way – that they’d better be prepared to demonstrate a little personal austerity in the assemblies of decision-making before they start chopping frontline workers’ wages and salaries and raising taxes, as they most surely will.

Apart from anything else, it’s a move they can make without engendering a shred of controversy. (Take that Tory opposition). Fundamentally, though, it stands as a statement of principle – a guiding norm for the tough years ahead.

Sacrifice, it connotes, is no sacrifice at all as long as something durably good causally results: a healthier public balance sheet; a smarter, leaner, nimbler government sector and, by extension, civil service; a province, whose citizens, businesses and institutions are, for once, united in joint service to one another and not divided by the absurd venalities of intra-regional entitlements and juvenile, extraordinarily costly, preoccupations with local oneupmanship.

Governments rarely lead the way, point to the horizon. But when they do – and do it convincingly – their efforts can produce remarkable effects.

Their symbolic gestures, especially the good ones, tend to etch a path of memory in the popular imagination, where reality finally takes root.

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Feb 03 2015
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Government, Politics

Is it in Gallant we trust. . .or just the “Life of Brian”? 

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It is not entirely clear to me what Premier Brian Gallant was thinking as he composed his first State of the Province address and chose, last week, to launch with a quote from the 13th-century Catholic friar, Francis of Assisi (a.k.a., Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone).

But if grabbing attention by conflating the secular woes of the current age in New Brunswick with those of pre-Renaissance Italy was his endgame, the Grit honcho may have been on to something – even if that something amounted to enduring irrelevance amongst the body politic.

“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible,” he began, parroting the buono parola of the late, great saint and animal lover (take care, Mr. Premier; moose fences could, again, become an election issue, fours years hence).

For those who subscribe to the power of magical thinking, it was a truly awesome  overture. For the rest of us who don’t, it was a truly brilliant distraction.

After all, in the other words of the original Franciscan monk, “It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look,” because, presumably, “If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.”

Of course, if He does, then he has never looked better.

Standing before an elbows-to-elbows crowd of maybe 1,000 gawkers (read: citizens), the young premier was GQ-ready in composure and presentation. Reportedly, he even memorized his speech, so as to appear. . .well, authentic.

“Decisions are going to be made to put our finances in order,” he said. “We have tough choices before us. . .It can be made by 13 people in a cabinet room, or they can be made with 750,000 people working together.”

What’s more, he said, “We have to have the resolve to tackle these challenges once and for all, I can tell you that our government has the political will and has the resolve to take these challenges on.”

Yes, he said, “We need to get people out of our hospitals.”

Yes, he affirmed, “The (provincial government) program review is purely pragmatic.” (In other words, civil servants: no hard feelings).

And yes he declared, “We have to get away from the status quo. . .When we have our finances in order, we can focus on the kind of things we need to do to help make our province the best place to raise a family. If we want to achieve these. . .things, the status quo is not an option. . .To move forward, away from the status quo, we need to make some tough decisions.”

As for his reliance on St. Frank (no, not you McKenna), he said, “That quote (by F. Assisi) sums up what New Brunswick has to do, in my opinion. . .Do what’s necessary. Then do what’s possible. Then, suddenly, we are doing and accomplishing things we never thought possible. . .I think New Brunswickers are ready for tough choices.”

Does he now?

Faith, folks, is a many-splendored marvel.

It can move people to extraordinary feats and exemplary behaviour.

Or, it can persuade erstwhile able-minded individuals to abandon their reason to the big-rock candy mountain of redemption through sacrifice.

Even St. Francis might agree: the devil is in the details.

It’s not enough that the premier delivers homilies. That’s what election campaigns are for.

And the time has passed for a 750,000-member consultation team. If anything, we New Brunswickers have proven over the past 18 years that we really don’t play well together in our various sandboxes of privilege and entitlement.

The time now is for a true, bullet-by-bullet strategy to rescue the province from its dangerous fiscal morass, taking careful consideration of the long-term investments that actually contribute to sustained and durable prosperity (early and public-school education comes to mind).

We don’t need a preacher, delivering sermons as a trendy, Sunday-morning vicar might. We need a secular democrat possessed of a clear-eyed vision for the next 25 years of public administration.

In the end, he will not be remembered for his magical oratory. He might even be reviled by many who once believed in him.

As for the rest of us, let us judge him by the actions he took to rebuild this economy – not by his saintly words.

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Jan 20 2015
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Economy, Politics

Walking the low wire in fine and familiar balance

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A first-term premier in this corner of Canada can sometimes thrill the thralls, who newly elected him, by successfully negotiating the tightrope of regional politics, with or without a net.

To this end, New Brunswick’s young and inarguably energetic Brian Gallant practiced his equipoise in St. John’s earlier this week, alongside his counterparts at the annual Council of Atlantic “elected-men-in-suits”.

Did our fearless leader make it to the end of the line – strung merely inches above the ground, and, therefore, posing little risk to future career opportunities – or did he fall awkwardly to his knees?

As usual, this yearly gabfest among East Coast premiers promised more photo opportunity than perspicacity.

Still, it was incumbent on this bunch to, at least, appear effective. Hence, we are obliged to observe the Council’s official policy statement, issued Monday (helpfully provided by the Prince Edward Island government’s official website, among others):

“Atlantic Premiers are working together to improve the competitiveness of the region’s economy through actions to strengthen our workforce, harmonize and streamline regulations, ensure open transmission and transportation of energy, and provide more efficient and cost-effective services to Atlantic Canadians.

“The private sector is a key driver of job creation and economic growth across the region. Premiers announced today the Atlantic Red Tape Reduction Partnership. This partnership will identify business regulations and administrative processes that can be harmonized and streamlined to create a more competitive economic environment across Atlantic Canada.

“A competitive Atlantic economy depends on people having the right skills for the right job. Premiers extended the successful Atlantic Workforce Partnership for a further three years to continue harmonizing apprenticeship certification in 10 trades, and strengthen immigrant recruitment and retention in Atlantic Canada. This focus on demographic growth and skills enhancement builds on Atlantic Premiers’ commitment to increase the competitiveness of the region.

“Atlantic Premiers confirmed common priorities, including stable, adequate and predictable fiscal arrangements, Labour Market Development Agreements, immigration and energy.”

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

It’s not as if any of this is invigorating or even novel.

For at least a generation, Atlantic Canada’s premiers have barked madly about “closer cooperation” on what should be shared initiatives in the region – immigration, trade and labour mobility, procurement, social transfers from Ottawa, and federal-provincial protocols governing natural resources development.

And, this year they came together long enough to, as the St. John’s Telegram reported, “support the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador in pursuing a resolution to the ongoing dispute with the federal government over a proposed. . .package of fisheries-sector funding, tied to the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).”

Still, as the newspaper noted, “taking questions on the heels of the latest meeting of the Council of Atlantic Premiers, Stephen McNeil (N.S.) Robert Ghiz (P.E.I.) and Brian Gallant – with Newfoundland and Labrador premier Paul Davis beside them – stopped short. . .of offering full and unfettered support for the province’s position in the dispute.

The premiers generally restricted themselves to expressing support for the province’s ability to seek a correction to perceived wrongs.”

But, of course, what would we expect them to say?

Historically, as group, the Atlantic premiers’ collective interest in forging closer economic ties among them, as a bulwark against Ottawa’s policy of regional divide-and-conquer since Confederation, has evolved only glacially.

Each province has nourished its own, private interests with the feds even as each has nurtured its own, private grievances.

That’s how our rooked system has worked and continues to work in the second decade of the 21st Century. This is our fine and familiar balance – one to which all parts of the country have become inured.

And yet, at least, Mr. Gallant – who apparently enjoys being quoted – told the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, prior to the Council’s assembly, “It is a very good time to focus on our priorities vis a vis the federal government. Certainly, we hope that not only the federal government will take note but all of the political parties that will be vying for the support of Canadians during the next few months will listen as well.”

All of which is to say that New Brunswick’s premier can properly step off that tightrope without fear of bruising his knees – for now.

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Jan 12 2015
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Economy, Government

New Brunswick’s future: an axe, a prayer and good wireless

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Asking the hoi polloi what the political elites must do to keep the status quo from dissolving before the eyes of the common man and woman is standard strategy for first-term governments in the early stages of what they dread will be a crushing disappointment to everyone, including themselves.

Still, New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant (four months old in electoral years) does it with such earnest panache, you can almost believe the words that issue from his  near-perfect mouth.

Almost.

“We need all New Brunswickers to participate with their ideas, suggestions and concerns so we can have a dialogue about how we are going to get our finances in order in this province,” he told a press conference in Fredericton last week.

“In the next few months, we will have a very open dialogue that will be fruitful. . .I am asking all New Brunswickers to give us their two cents, to give us their ideas, suggestions and concerns so we can come up with the best policies to help us get our finances in shape. . .Everything is on the table.”

Oh really, Mr. Gallant?

How do you feel about the HST?

A two-percentage-point hike in the consumption tax of this province would reap roughly $65 million a year for New Brunswick’s public coffers. Over your four-year mandate, that would amount to $260 million – plenty of good scratch to justify a moratorium (a word with which I am sure you are familiar) on hikes to personal, business, corporate and property taxes.

And yet, messing with the HST has proven to be political suicide across this great, self-aware, enlightened country of ours, ever since Paul Martin proved it could be done at great expense to his own and his party’s career. Sure, he managed to balance the national accounts in the mid-1990s – a feat for which Canadians never forgave him – but not before “reform-minded” barracudas from the west successfully labelled him a card-carrying “tax-and-spender”. The mud stuck and, of course, the rest is history.

So, then, if not the HST, how about highway tolls?

As you, yourself, have said, New Brunswick is fairly brimming with roads and thoroughfares – from the southeast to the southwest, from the north to the netherlands of moose country, where anyone who owns an ATV or snowmobile happily careens to his or her little parcel of pastoral heaven at whim.

Meanwhile, Mainers, Quebecers, Prince Edward Islanders, and Nova Scotians merrily trundle along our corridors, paid with local tax dollars, to points beyond our borders with nary a concern for such esoterica as infrastructure, stopping only to take in a view, gobble a piece of homemade blueberry pie, belch, and be on their way.

But just try to raise the possibility of tolling these folks.

It looks good on paper, sure. Still, remember what happened the last time this option carried serious weight in government.

“Finance Minister Blaine Higgs is acknowledging that putting tolls on provincial highways is an idea he is examining as the New Brunswick government tries to dig itself out of an $820-million deficit,” the CBC reported back in 2011.

“Higgs was urged to consider the imposition of highway tolls at a pre-budget meeting in Fredericton. . .The finance minister said many people have indicated during the pre-budget consultations and surveys that they are willing to pay highway tolls as a way to whittle down the province’s substantial deficit. And he conceded the policy is ‘something that is of interest.’”

What happened to Higgs? What happened to his boss, David Alward?

Enough said.

Perhaps, then, the solution to New Brunswick’s fiscal problem lies squarely on the cutting edge of the agenda.

Eliminate hospital services; curtail educational programs; fire the province’s civil servants; give everyone who remains an axe, a cord of wood, a holy bible, and a prayer, and send them off into the fine woodlands they so evidently cherish, there to build new, pioneer lives for themselves, all over again.

And when the hoi polloi, crushingly disappointed by Mr. Gallant’s earnestly failed efforts to keep their status quo plumply intact, come mewling, perhaps the besieged premier might finally say:

“Yeah. . .log cabins don’t come equipped with Netflix. Read your damn social contract, for a change.”

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Jan 02 2015
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Economy, Energy, Politics

Shale gas greets new catchwords in 2015

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There is, as Ecclesiastics declares, nothing new under the sun; there is only the same, old trend, fashion or fad, freshly washed, dried, dressed, shod and shoved, once again, onto the super-highway of human history and told to survive if, indeed, it dares.

And, so, welcome to 2015 my dear “social licence to operate”. May we call you “social licence”? It’s shorter and that might be good for your image. Lord knows you’re going to need all the help you can get this year.

Actually, as shibboleths go, this is not a bad one. It’s not especially jargony. It seems reasonably comprehensible. In fact, New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant is confident enough in his own understanding of the term, he’s started to deploy it as invocation whenever he talks about the on-again, off-again shale gas industry in the province (which is now off again).

“There shall be no drilling,” he says (or in words to that effect) until the companies responsible for hydraulic fracturing obtain the appropriate amount of social licence to proceed.

To which Corridor Resources’ CEO Steve Moran recently shrugged: “Huh?”

His actual words to CBC News were: “Even the premier when he was asked didn’t really have an answer in terms of what that means.”

Tory Opposition Leader Bruce Fitch concurred, as Premier Gallant attempted to clarify his position, telling the CBC, “We’ll certainly do the best we can to get the pulse, and the sense of New Brunswickers on whether any of these operations. . .have a social license.”

In fact, though, there’s no great mystery around the meaning of “social licence”. The mining industry has plumbed the nuances of its definition for years, or so says the Fraser Institute, an economic and public policy think tank with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal:

“The  social licence to operate (SLO) refers to the level of acceptance or approval by local communities and stakeholders of mining companies and their operations. The concept has evolved fairly recently from the broader and more established notion of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ and is based on the idea that mining companies need not only government permission [or permits] but also ‘social permission’ to conduct their business.

Indeed, the Institute states, “Increasingly, having an SLO is an essential part of operating within democratic jurisdictions, as without sufficient popular support it is unlikely that agencies from elected governments will willingly grant operational permits or licences. However, the need for and ultimate success of achieving an SLO relies to a large extent on functioning government and sound institutions. . .Many mining companies now consider gaining an SLO as an appropriate business expense that ultimately adds to the bottom line.”

If all this seems broadly familiar – just another way to renovate good, old “corporate social responsibility” (or CSR) and slap a “priced-to-sell” sticker on the front door – experts in these matters beg to differ (naturally).

“CSR is often too peripheral to the core business model, too much of a side-show, too far from providing real ‘shared value’,” writes John Morrison, executive director of the Institute for human rights and business, in a recent issue of the Guardian online. “Even more fundamental are the false dichotomies that CSR has set up. There’s the voluntary versus mandatory debate, companies that are ‘good at CSR’ are valued regardless of the impact of their core operations.”

What’s more, Morrison insists, “Social licence can never be self-awarded, it requires that an activity enjoys sufficient trust and legitimacy, and has the consent of those affected. Business cannot determine how much prevention or mitigation it should engage in to meet environmental or social risk – stakeholders and rights-holders have to be involved for thresholds of due diligence to be legitimate (sometimes even if these are clearly determined in law).”

Herein, of course, lies the rub.

Like its predecessor and memetic forebear CSR, social license, as a concept, is not especially difficult to comprehend or articulate.

What challenges policy makers, politicians, community representatives and industrial players, themselves, is making it work well or long enough to produce sufficient benefits to satisfy all competing competing interests at the table.

This is rendered all the more complicated by the fundamentally revokable nature of social licences. A company that meets its obligations in one area on any given day may not be deemed to have done the same elsewhere at another time.

Then what?

Under such circumstances, Premier Gallant’s shale-gas moratorium may be the lesser of two evils facing the industry in New Brunswick.

Then again, what else is new?

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Dec 30 2014
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Business, Government, Oil and Gas, Politics, Science

Oh, a-fracking we will not go. . .

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You have to hand it to him. If nothing else, New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant is a man of his word.

He galloped into office with a promise that, he believed, resonated with most voters: No more fracking, of any kind, until proof emerges that the process can be rendered safe and harmless to the environment (by which standard, we might all be wise to follow our children west to Alberta, where fantasies do, indeed, come true).

Then, a week before Christmas, he brought down the hammer.

“We have been clear from Day One that we will impose a moratorium until risks to the environment, health and water are understood,” Mr. Gallant told reporters in Fredericton, after he announced new amendments to the province’s oil and natural gas act that prohibit both water and propane-based fracking in the search for commercially exploitable shale gas.

The premier also made it clear that companies may continue to explore for resources. It’s just that they can no longer frack in their efforts to assess the potential of some 77-trillion cubic feet of onshore shale gas that is estimated to lie beneath the surface – which is a little like telling someone that he may own a car, just not the engine.

Still, Mr. Gallant allowed, “We’ll certainly always listen to businesses that may have concerns and try to mitigate some of the impacts if they (believe) them to be negative on their operations.”

Not surprisingly, the CEO of Corridor Resources had a few choice words to share. “We have always maintained that a moratorium is not necessary for an industry that has operated responsibly and safely in this province,” Steve Moran told the Saint John Telegraph-Journal on December 18. “Here is an industry that wants to create more jobs and they just basically shut it down. . .We expect that the government of New Brunswick should want to fully understand the potential rewards of allowing the industry to proceed, while ensuring the risks are manageable and acceptable.”

What’s more, he said, “The only certainty is that nobody will ever know the economic potential, should hydraulic fracturing no longer be permitted. To not allow the work to continue, would amount to a refusal by the government of New Brunswick to ask the question  of what the reward of pushing this resource might be. We would consider that a wasted opportunity for the people of New Brunswick.”

And, not incidentally, for Corridor, itself, which has over the past several years invested upwards of $500 million on the industry in this province.

Still, it’s not as if Mr. Gallant had left many options for himself. Breaking so fundamental a campaign promise in these early days of his term might have been politically suicidal (though, a strategist might argue that this is precisely when one wants throw one’s pledges under the bus; the public’s memory grows mighty short when economic development flowers from a broken word or two).

Mr. Gallant’s predecessor, Tory Premier David Alward faced a similar Faustian decision: raise the provincial portion of the HST, as every mainstream economist advised, or keep his campaign promise to maintain the status quo (note, of course, how well that worked out for him in the end).

Politics aside, it’s not clear, in any of this, what will constitute “safe” and environmentally benign fracking procedures. According to the premier, “Any decision on hydraulic fracturing will be based on peer-reviewed scientific evidence and follow recommendation of the Chief Medical Officer of Health.”

If the approach now involves reviewing the evidence of natural degradation from fracking in jurisdictions other than New Brunswick, how relevant is one state’s or province’s experiences to our own?

According to a New York Times investigation, published last month, in North Dakota “as the boom (in shale gas) really exploded, the number of reported spills, leaks, fires and blowouts has soared with an increase in spillage that outpaces the increase in oil production,” partly because “forgiveness remains embedded in the (state’s) Industrial Commission’s approach to an industry that has given North Dakota the fastest-growing economy and lowest jobless rate in the country.”

Four our part, the tolerances of New Brunswick’s own regulatory regime are not something we’re likely to test any time soon.

On that, we have Mr. Gallant’s word; and, so far, his word is good.

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Dec 16 2014
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Idiocracy, Municipal Affairs, Politics

Out of the mouths of babes as the wrecking ball swings

It is, perhaps, only natural to expect a fundamentally good economic-development idea in this province to fall prey to petty, partisan politics, posturing and breathtakingly vast buckets of bovine effluent.

Still, that doesn’t excuse the jaw-dropping imbecility that both the Grit-dominated Government of New Brunswick and the Tory-ruled Government of Canada seem determined to manufacture in their respective (and predictably doomed) efforts to win friends and influence people over yet another municipal turf war.

In this instance, the turf in question is a demolition zone where a mall once stood, and where a downtown, mixed-use sports and entertainment facility may one day occupy (if, course, our pols manage to get out of the way of their own wrecking balls to consensus).   

As it happens, I live not five minutes from the proposed site in Moncton’s west end; and as much fun as it is to show my grandkids how “Bob the Builder” likes razing the old almost as much as he enjoys raising the new, it’s a trial to explain to my IQ-enhanced three and five-year-old compatriots why the Hub City might not actually see a new, galvanizing civic centre in their good, old Poppy’s lifetime.

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Well, you see, boys, we have a member of parliament who likes to issue statements that sound suspiciously disingenuous from time to time: Why, of course, we’re all for a new downtown events centre. Why, you must know, this has been a singular preoccupation of mine and the Government of Canada’s,  for. . .oh. . .you know. . .forever, it seems. It’s just that we’ve been waiting for our friends in the New Brunswick government to get on board.

On the other hand, fellows, we have a new premier of the province who seems to have been asleep over the past year whilst in opposition, when all of the forward economic forecasting, cost analyses and return-on-investment calculations definitively stated that if such a facility were to be built in Moncton’s downtown, it would generate more than $12 million for the feds and $7 million for the province in sales tax on construction outlays, even before the blessed facility’s doors open for regular business.

Still, Premier Gallant is on record, saying: “We’re not simply going to continue a project because expectations were given by the previous government for the wrong reasons.”

To which Mr. Goguen has replied (recently, to the CBC), “The province has to sign in on this, so if they don’t put their share in, we don’t put our share in.” Quoting from the public broadcaster’s report last week, the minister added that “the only thing standing in the way of federal funding is for the provincial government to agree to pay its share of. . .six infrastructure projects (road, water and sewer). ‘So, yes, they (the projects) have been identified, they have been submitted, we studied them and we’re to the point where we’re waiting for the sign-off from the province.”

Meanwhile, the only progressive moves appear to involve the steady dismantling of the old Highfield Square property and adjacent structures, which is, of course, both necessary and to, certain young acquaintances of mine, absolutely awesome.

“Can we go in there?”

Nope.

“How much longer will it take?”

No idea.

“Is it going to stay empty like that, or will they make a big snow fort in the winter?

Probably and probably not, in that order.

“So, then, why don’t they build something? Like a building or something.”

Good question, I muse. Hey, I venture, maybe you two should become Premier of New Brunswick or even Prime Minister of Canada some day. That way, you can make sure things get done for the benefit of an entire community, and not just a couple of narrow, vote-getting interests. You know what I mean?

A quick pause ensues as I toss one over my shoulder and grab the other one, sack-of-potatoes-like, at my hip, and head off to Grandma’s house, where sausages and maple syrup await the hungry inquisitors.

“What’s Premier of New Brunswick, Pops?”

“Yeah, Pops,” the spud bag joins in, “What’s Prime Minister of Canada?”

Exactly, men, exactly.

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Dec 09 2014
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Employment, Politics

Start singing a happy tune on jobs

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On the hit parade of promises political candidates make, number one with a bullet is always job creation. It’s also the first to fall off the charts once the aspirant to public office becomes the duly elected.

“Jobs, jobs, jobs,” contenders from all points on the partisan spectrum thunder righteously as if they, alone, know where the keys to the castle are buried. And, yet, when the expected employment fails to bloom, the mantra suddenly turns neo-conservative, like a tract plucked straight from the pages of an Ayn Rand manifesto: “Government doesn’t create jobs; the private sector creates jobs.”

Oh, so that’s how it works. Thanks for sharing. I’ve always wondered.

In fact, generations of politicians have relied on the sturdy “jobs and growth” agenda to get themselves elected for the single reason that it tends to generate happy results. At least, it produces better ones than almost any other platform, apart from the one candidates increasingly use to sling mud and rotten tomatoes at one another.

The irony, of course, is that job claims, vows, pledges or any other projection of the labour market’s condition are probably the least useful measure of a political candidate’s suitability for elected office.

No one individual controls the economic and commercial forces that usher cycles of recession and recovery. And unless a particular government is determined to spend a bunch of tax dollars hiring civil servants to push pencils and pile paper all day, publicly engineered job creation is a game of estimates, not certitudes.

This fact, alone, seems to have escaped the attention of both Liberal Premier Brian Gallant and interim Progressive Conservative Leader Bruce Fitch, who spent an inordinate amount of time last week hammering away at each other over the proper definition of job creation – specifically, whether the former has wasted no time breaking his first important campaign promise.

“I was very clear,” the premier told reporters outside the legislature on Thursday. “These are jobs that would be created through the mechanisms and the projects we would support. This isn’t talking about a net gain in jobs. There’s a big difference here.”

He was, of course, referring to the 5,000 jobs he had promised to generate in the first year of his mandate. Technically, he insisted, the province could still lose jobs, overall – just not the ones for which he is determined to be responsible.

For his part, Mr. Fitch wasn’t buying the distinction. “Absolutely, it’s a promise broken,” he said. “If it’s not a promise broken, it’s certainly a commitment that was made without the proper details, which is something the public should have been made aware of.”

Fiddle-faddle, Mr. Gallant rejoined: “I am surprised to see the questioning today, because the past government would use this argument all the time. They would say they were creating jobs and stand up in the legislature and say,’50 jobs were created there,’ but yet when it came to the economy, we’d have a net loss of jobs.”

Almost nothing is funnier to a fan of political blood sports than an utterly meaningless debate over an allegedly broken promise that was probably impossible to fulfill anyway.

Still, it’s exchanges like this – diversions and distractions – that lead people to conclude, not unjustifiably, that politicians actually enjoy wasting their time in public.

At least as important as the quantity of jobs the provincial economy produces is the quality of those positions. Are they full-time or part-time, seasonal? Are they salaried positions with benefits, or casual terms under contract? Do they require a high degree of skill and expertise to perform, or are they low-wage and disposable?

Rather than emphasize job numbers, government and opposition members might spend  their sojourn in Fredericton more productively by working together to build the economic capacity that breeds and keeps promising new start-ups, encourages existing, successful ventures to expand and export, and attracts investment for industrial and community economic development.

Given the apparently unfordable gulf between them on shale gas in this province, it is, perhaps, not too much to ask our elected representatives to, every so often, sing from the same song sheet.

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