Tag Archives: New Brunswick

Nov 29 2013
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Demographics, Personal History

There’s still life in the old folks home

 

Leaves of grass for NB's labour market

The day passed like any other at this time of the year: under a darkening gloom that  heralds the inevitable arrival of the great, white death that is the Maritime winter.

If genies were real, and I employed one, I would move my birthday (yesterday), to a more cheerful month, such as May, which Milton observed lyrically “doth inspire mirth, and youth, and warm desire.”

There’s nothing especially youthful, mirthful or warm about November. And as the days get shorter, it so happens so do the years in this corner of the country.

A piece in the Telegraph-Journal yesterday suggests that New Brunswick is aging more rapidly than just about everywhere else in the nation. By Statistics Canada’s reckoning, 17.6 per cent of this province’s 750,000-strong population is age 65 or older. Nova Scotia’s populace is just fractionally more geriatric: 17.7 per cent of people there are upper sexagenarians.

Under the circumstances, If you came from Nova Scotia to live in New Brunswick (as I did) you now can’t help feeling as if you’ve merely switched rooms in the old folks home. “The four Atlantic provinces round out the top four spots in the country in terms of having the most seniors – all more than 17 per cent,” the T-J reports. “Alberta and the territories have the lowest percentages of seniors – all less than 12 per cent.”

Meanwhile, “New Brunswick also has the second highest median age in Canada at just under 44 years of age. Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest median age at just over 44 years.”

Such news, like the weather and the time of the year, naturally evokes situational unease, a sort of contact dermatitis of the soul. Indeed, it has become customary for political leaders from all parties to decry the demographic shift underway in New Brunswick and elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

But fellows like Michael Haan, the Canada research chair in population and social policy at the University of New Brunswick, thinks we’re missing point. We should stop complaining – something we’ve been doing almost reflexively for years – and embrace our wizening profile. After all, what else do you do with lemons but make lemonade?

Actually, his argument is a little less flippant than that as he tells the T-J, “I think young, entrepreneurial people should see opportunity here. You have a large population of aging baby boomers who are wealthy and have time on their hands. . .These are interesting people who have lived full lives.”

Well, I know I have. In fact, despite Mr. Haan’s unfortunate use of the past tense, I still am living a full life. I belong to the largest cohort of the boom – those who turn 53 this year – and when I amble down history lane, I am frequently astonished by a half-century of change.

In 1960, the year I was born, for example, the Gross National Product of the United States was $503 billion. Today, it’s closer to $16 trillion. In that year, the median household income in America (not adjusted for inflation) was less than $6,000. Today, it’s more than $50,000.

Also in 1960, according to The People’s Chronology (published in 1979), “The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC meets for the first time September 14 at Baghdad and  forces a retraction of the decrease in oil prices by Standard Oil of New Jersey. . .Some 2,000 electronic computers are delivered to U.S. business offices, universities, laboratories, and other buyers. . .The debate will rage as to whether computers wipe out jobs or create new ones. . .Aluminum cans for food and beverages are used for the first time commercially but 95 per cent of U.S. soft drinks and 50 per cent of beer is sold in returnable bottles that are used 40 to 50 times each.”

It’s easy to forget the “full lives” members of every generation lead. The passing of time, of youth, renders us sentimental codgers and coots in this dangerously sentimental month of the year.

Sure, we’re getting old. It happens to the best of us. But New Brunswick’s economy is not a nursery school with seats saved for precious toddlers.

There’s work to be done, and we’re not dead yet

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Nov 18 2013
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Government, Media, Oil and Gas, Politics, Society

No room for pleasantries in real politics

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Despite his occasional partisan bluster – a necessity of elective office, regardless of one’s political flavour – the premier of New Brunswick is a genuinely nice guy who actually cares about other people’s feelings.

In fact, until recently, about the only way to get an authentic rise out of David Alward was to suggest the he and his government ministers were aloof to the concerns of their fellow citizens, content to play king and courtiers in their castle made of sand above the high water mark on Freddy Beach.

“It bugs me,” the pastor’s son (who is a certified psychological counsellor, a former community developer and an active rural hobby farmer) once interrupted himself in mid-interview with yours truly. “I don’t know how anyone could describe us as closed or uncommunicative or not inclusive.”

The truth, of course, is that openness has all but typified the premier’s political oeuvre since he came to govern one of Canada’s defiantly ungovernable provinces in 2010. Where his predecessor, Liberal Premier Shawn Graham, protected his counsel like a NSA agent under house arrest, Mr. Alward has done a contortionist’s job at public events, and in private meetings, explaining, in often exquisite detail, his plans and priorities; in effect, his thinking.

And that may be his biggest problem.

On Friday, the premier was in a rare uncompromising, even antagonistic, mood. Lashing out at anti-shale gas activists in the province, he declared that they represented the point of the spear aimed directly at the heart of natural resources industries here.

“This is not just about SWN (Resources Inc.) being able to develop,” the Telegraph-Journal quoted him. “This not just about Rexton or Kent County and SWN. Mark my words that the same groups that are against seeing SWN move forward with exploration are against projects like Sisson Brook or other potential mining projects we have in New Brunswick. They are against seeing pipelines come across our country to Saint John and creating the prosperity (they) can.”

The denouement of his point was simply this: “The question the New Brunswickers should be asking is ‘what is our vision for our province’? . . .Do we want to have our young people living here in our province building their lives here or are we condemning them to having no choice of where they are going to live in the future?”

These are, indeed, the questions. They have always been the questions. It’s just too bad that Premier Alward has waited until now – less than a year before the provincial election – to pose them with such cogency and force.

In fact, had he spent more time over the past 18 months unapologetically supporting industry’s efforts to ascertain the economic potential of shale gas (indeed, of all promising avenues of natural resources) – and commensurately less time defending his government’s decisions and convening public panels in vain attempts to win friends and influence people – the conversation in this province might now be profoundly different, and radically more productive.

The bottom line is that Mr. Alward’s generally laudable instinct to consult ‘the people’ has also been a lamentable liability of his leadership, and on more files than natural resources.

The awful state of the province’s books – its rolling $500-million deficit on a long-term debt of $11 billion – is not, strictly speaking, the premier’s fault.

Still, in a way, it is.

By refusing to consider raising the provincial portion of the Harmonized Sales Tax, because he promised ‘the people’ he would consult them first, in the form of a referendum, he effectively tied the hands of his Finance Minister and severely compromised New Brunswick’s fiscal recovery from the Great Recession.

Had he forced the province to swallow this bitter, but necessary, pill early in his mandate, the public accounts would have been far healthier than they are today, providing the governing Tories with more and better options for health, education and social policies.

It might even have influenced the debate about shale gas by having eliminated much of the monetary hysteria that now underpins it.

Make no mistake: The consultative, empathetic premier of New Brunswick is a genuinely nice guy.

But, oftentimes, as the saying goes, nice guys finish. . .well, not first.

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Nov 12 2013
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Economy, Politics

Toward a living thing in politics

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Across the River Styx, the heroes of the Underworld extend their hands to shake our own as they muse bravely about the future of this perdition that is New Brunswick.

Or, perhaps, “perdition” doesn’t quite capture the esprit de corps in Canada’s lagging indicator of a province. This is, after all, where the unemployment rate moves up or down by mere tenths of a point, and never more, around the 10 per cent mark.

This is the place where the annual rolling deficit assumes a life of its own despite feckless efforts to reign it back below $500 million.

Meanwhile, in this place, where we be, the trail of breadcrumbs leading our wee Hansels and Gretels due west grows ever broader, ever more inviting.

Perhaps, then, New Brunswick is not so much a country for the damned, but rather this nation’s one, true country for old men (and women).

What say you, provincial NDP Leader Dominic Cardy in your official response to the recent Throne Speech of the reigning Tories?

“We have to think of our seniors as an asset, not a burden, and their experience as an economic engine that can strengthen our economy,” he declared in the Telegraph-Journal this past weekend. “Engaging and unleashing the potential of seniors in the education and social services field will have a significant and immediate benefit.”

Well said, oh ye of great faith, if little actual experience governing anything. The same observation, of course, can be made about his opposite number, Liberal Leader Brian Gallant, who also has a thing or two to say about New Brunswick’s prospects.

“We have to ensure that we invest on ourselves and that we believe in ourselves,” he opined in Saturday’s T-J. “It is the best way to ensure that New Brunswickers can fill the jobs that are waiting for them and that employers can get the jobs that are waiting to be filled.”

It is entirely probably – even guaranteed – that Premier David Alward will voice similar sentiments – very nearly identical ones, in fact – in the weeks and months ahead. He seeks another mandate on the strength of his stewardship of the provincial economy and, again, on the supposition that things will get better if only we have faith in the future of the province’s commercially viable natural resources.

But where the Tories and their rivals part company is in the respective locations of their priorities. And this is substantially a matter of emphasis.

The Throne Speech is, in tone, an almost technocratic document. It talks about people, but largely in a perfunctory way; as the recipients of sound government planning and policy. Individuals emerge as passive participants in the political process and in their own lives, even though they are, and will continue to be, the subject of extensive “consultations” on just about every file in the legislative docket.

In contrast Messrs. Cardy and Gallant (the latter, in particular) proceed from an almost humanist perspective and fill in the policy agenda as they go.

“Investing in knowledge and in ourselves is by far the best economic investment, but, at the same time, it is the best social equalizer,” Mr. Gallant stipulated in his weekend commentary.”. . .All the people who lobby me talk about education or training, whether it is to start growing our economy, whether it is to help their specific businesses,  whether it is to help our children, whether it is to combat obesity, whether it is to increase our literacy rates, or whether it is to eliminate poverty. . .How are we going to do this? First off, we have to believe that we are capable of doing this.”

Implicit in all of this is the contention that New Brunswick is not “going to do this” by exploiting natural resources, alone.

The solution, he suggests, is nestled somewhere in a much bigger picture, a larger and more inclusive vision of the province’s future – a vision that posits classically liberal notions of intellectual and manual dexterity, rather than the machinery corporate exploitation, at the centre of a durable economy.

Messrs. Gallant and Cardy still linger, like the rest of us, in the Underworld, but their notions are beginning to resonate among voters, who are, in the end, the only arbiters of the future who matter.

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Nov 06 2013
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Economy, Energy, Politics

A good try, but say good-bye PCs

Fame is so fleeting, so cold in its remembrance

Fame is so fleeting, so cold in its remembrance

The New Brunswick election is 11 months out, and I’m calling the odds.

David Alward’s pseudo-Tory juggernaut – that un-merry band of hometown heroes who thrashed the brash Shawn Graham and his ineffectual Liberals in convincing fashion three years ago – is dead on arrival.

Other metaphors spring to mind.

There’s “toast” and “belly-up.” There’s “froggies on a slow boil.” There’s knocked and knackered and out cold.

But however you term the imminent future of New Brunswick’s sitting government, the conclusion that it has become as useful to this province as a pocket is on the back of a shirt is impossible to escape.

Still, somehow, the shirt continues to fit in the minds of those who craft things like Throne Speeches, the most recent of which – delivered Tuesday – leaves no issue unmentioned, though few merit much more than passing references.

As for the forestry, in the upcoming year, our government promises to implement “a strategy to ensure New Brunswick has a competitive industry for generations to come” – whatever that means.

Meanwhile, “on the innovation front. . .in the coming year” our government’s focus on research and innovation will start “bearing fruit” as “other policies and initiatives are being designed to bolster our knowledge economy and create new, sustainable jobs.” The specifics, apparently, are temporarily unavailable.

There’s neat stuff on culture. “By establishing a Premier’s Task Force on the Status of the Artist, your government will work towards recognizing and supporting the profession of artists in our province.”

There’s a cool measure to protect personal pocketbooks. “Your government plans to introduce amendments to unproclaimed legislation aimed at regulating payday loans to create an effective regulatory regime.”

Where the Alward government appears unequivocal, clear-eyed and firm is on the subject of natural gas – shale gas, in particular. In fact, the “responsible” exploitation of all the province’s commercially viable natural resources has become the Tories’ single loudest rallying cry leading to the next election.

“As you may recall, your government has done a great deal of work towards making sure that our natural resources – and, in particular, our natural gas potential – are identified to determine whether there is potential for economic benefits in the future,” the Throne Speech notes. “Economic benefits that could be derived from our natural resources are what will allow government to help fund and improve education, health care and many other services in the years ahead.

“Backed by the strongest rules for industry, introduced in February, as well as an action-oriented Oil and Natural Gas Blueprint for New Brunswick, introduced in May, your government will continue on the course of responsible exploration and development.

“A key aspect of managing oil and natural gas development is ensuring that the province secures a fair return to New Brunswickers for our resources. Your government recently announced a new natural gas royalty regime that ensures a fair return to New Brunswickers while encouraging investment in this sector.”

To many in the Progressive Conservative camp (and outside of it), this is the economically right thing to do. And Premier Alward and his team deserve praise for sticking to their principles regarding shale gas. New Brunswick is the only province in Canada that has not posted job gains in the past year; its $500-million annual deficit is beginning to resemble a permanent feature of the landscape.

But common sense rarely wins elections. Voters in this province are in no mood to award power to anyone. They’re far more apt to deny an incumbent his mandate, especially if that mandate depends on the most incendiary issue to come along in this province for many years.

Shale gas is not about royalty regimes, deficit reduction, and funding increases to social programs. In New Brunswick, it’s about symbols of justice, law and morality. It’s about defending the little guy against the big, bad, rapacious corporate elite. It’s about taking a stand in the absence of a trustworthy, faithful government.

In other words, a lot of it is pure nonsense.

Still, no party – Tory, Grit or otherwise – can win against those odds.

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Oct 21 2013
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Government, Oil and Gas, Politics

Douse the fire that rages beneath

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Nothing ignites media coverage and inflames public opinion quite like images of burning cop cars. The realization that authority’s symbols can go up in smoke, just like anything else, with the strike of a match is horrifying to many; strangely satisfying to some.

But though news and opinion will inevitably focus on who started the conflagration (both literal and figurative) on a rural stretch of New Brunswick highway last week – a bonfire that claimed five police cruisers and resulted in the arrest of 40 native people protesting shale gas development in the province – the rooted issues are harder to untangle in an era when disenfranchisement is the normative language of public engagement.

Adam Huras’s excellent first-hand account, in the Telegraph-Journal, of the Thursday-morning raid of the protesters’ encampment near Rexton suggests that the RCMP may have overdosed on bowls of Wheaties the night before.

“On Thursday morning, at either end of the protest encampment were only a handful of RCMP officers learning up against a few cars,” he wrote for Friday’s edition.

“‘It was a slow night, you didn’t miss much,’ said one officer. ‘It’s quiet,’ added another.

And then it wasn’t. In an instant, two police cars flashing red and blue lights, closed off the road. ‘Move!’ yelled an officer. ‘And don’t you text anyone, not one person. Don’t touch your phone.’ I was being walked back to my car when the order was given to move in.”

At which point, he reported, the stuff really hit the fan: “Roughly two dozen unmarked cars, a large police van and a bus converged on the area at 7:15 a.m. – the vehicles flying down both the on and off ramps of Route 11. Jumping from them were police in full camouflage brandishing guns. About 20 Mounties entered the protest area and 20 more stood at the barricade. Wave after wave of reinforcements arrived.”

Then came the fires, set by angry protestors.

It’s tempting to think that the violence on both sides is exclusively about natural gas. The Elsipogtog First Nation, like many other groups in New Brunswick, is genuinely  concerned about the effects of hydraulic fracturing on supplies of drinking water. In this, they’ve chosen to believe fellow opponents from other parts of North America who have longer experience with the industry.

But gas merely fuels the fire that lies beneath.

An inchoate rage burns across the land. For Canada’s First Nations, it finds expression in the Idle No More movement. For others in towns and cities just about everywhere in the western world, it generates an irresistible desire to “occupy” something – a public park, a government quadrangle, the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in downtown London.

The suspicion that governments no longer represent the interests of average people, but only those of powerful lobbies and corporate interests has evolved into a conviction. The evidence, many believe, is everywhere.

What, they point out, was the financial meltdown of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession except an implosion of greed and avarice perpetrated by the few at the expense of the many?

What, they ask, is behind widening gaps in income and economic opportunity except the wholesale abrogation of democratic principles of equal and fair representation before the juggernaut of privilege?

Why can’t legislators in Washington keep their nation open long enough to do the people’s business? Why can’t lawmakers in Ottawa respect their own environmental regulations?

Shale gas protest, though specific in its own  right, in New Brunswick is also a species of this unease with, and mistrust of, public institutions.

The only way to address it is to talk candidly and openly with one another.

No long ago, Premier David Alward and First Nations leaders in the province made a good start. In fact, according to The Canadian Press on October 6, they arranged to “continue talks Monday in an effort to resolve a growing dispute over shale gas exploration. Alward and three of his cabinet ministers met Sunday with Elsipogtog council members and other opponents of the shale gas industry at a hotel in Moncton, N.B., in an effort to end a protest that has closed a highway in eastern New Brunswick for a week.”

If last Thursday’s events are any indication, the need for dialogue has never been more urgent.

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Oct 03 2013
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Economy

A gentle and timely appeal to reason

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To some in New Brunswick, he will appear as a beacon of enlightenment. To others, he will seem no more inspiring than any other pragmatist. But Ernie MacKinnon’s real distinction may be that he is the first resident of this province to openly repudiate his private interests in favour of the broader public’s.

In a long, though articulate, commentary, along the “ask-not-what-your-country- can-do-for-you” vein, published by the Telegraph-Journal this week, Mr. MacKinnon – a former Deputy Minister and first CEO of the New Brunswick Investment Management Corporation – explains why he has changed his mind about pension reform in the province. It wasn’t an easy decision, he explains. But it was a necessary one.

“When the issue of major reforms to the pension regime for public servants first burst into the public’s consciousness. . .my initial response was anger,” he writes.

Then, “At some point, the reality of what is coming forced me to look more objectively at the facts and important trends. . .After much research, listening, and thought, I now see the value and the urgency of many – but not all – of the proposed pension reforms.”

It is an astonishing admission, as rare as snow in July, in a province that has become inured to bad economic news, yet wedded to its various and costly entitlements. And it is not calculated to win him any friends over at the New Brunswick Pension Coalition, for which he has consulted, and which is planning to haul the government into court over its decision to move to a shared-risk approach to managing the retirement savings of former civil servants.

Still, as Mr. MacKinnon states, “Make no mistake, if I thought it were possible, I too would insist to have our pension contract honoured. However, I have reached the conclusion that if measures are not taken today and should potential risks become reality down the road, the implications for pensioners will be even worse.”

The former bureaucrat’s comments point to the grim truth about public pensions just about everywhere in Canada. They were crafted at a time in the nation’s history when the future looked much brighter than it does today. The pay-it-forward model – in which the existing generation of public workers essentially contributes to the retirement well being of future ones as it relies on the beneficence of past ones – is, for all practical purposes, broken.

In New Brunswick – where the annual deficit is nudging $500 million on a structural debt of nearly $12 billion – the unfunded liability in public pensions is perilously large. Indeed, the “flaws” in the plan, Mr. MacKinnon observes, are clear to see. They “arise from increases in member lifespans, a spate of costly early retirement schemes and sometimes inadequate sponsor and member contributions.”

And while returns over the past few years have been higher than anticipated, the fund “still has a substantial deficit because the liability side of things has been deteriorating faster.”

Mr. MacKinnon doesn’t let the government off the hook entirely. He wants elected officials to mitigate worries that base benefits will be cut. He also wants them to “make provisions” to soften the blow of cost of living adjustments in the initial years. Meanwhile, he insists that those who manage the fund truly know their business. “Thirdly,” he writes, politicians “must ensure, in legislation, that pension funds are managed here in the province, to the greatest degree possible, by our own people at NBIMC (New Brunswick Investment Management Corp.) to minimize costs and ensure control of risks.”

All of which is eminently reasonable. But there’s more to this.

Mr. MacKinnon’s essay addresses questions that extend far beyond the pension debate. He reminds us that New Brunswick is, in fact, a “village” and that its citizens owe one another an obligation of mutual indulgence – that “we must all contribute to the resolution of the challenging issues we face today.”

Beacon or pragmatist?

Let us hope that Mr. MacKinnon is, at least, a trend-setter.

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Sep 19 2013
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Demographics, Economy, Politics

Facing up to the pension challenge

In the unlikely event that New Brunswickers, en masse, get busy and jump start another baby boom to someday repopulate the ranks of the provincial civil service, we might just avoid the fiscal crisis that now looms over public pensions.

The sad truth is, though, the $1 billion in unfunded liability will not vanish so appealingly. No fancies of the imagination, no wishful thinking, no sleights of the accountant’s hand will make it go away. Someone’s going to have to pay for it. The debate that roils now is solely about who.

Will it be, to some extent, those who paid faithfully into the fund for decades –  presuming that they would receive, upon their retirement, a predictable amount on which to survive their sunset years? Or will it be, to a much larger extent, those who are still working – many in the public sector; many more in the private sector where taxes must, by necessity, cover the pension shortfall.

Such is New Brunswick’s “Sophie’s Choice”.

The David Alward government has never been clearer about its stand on any matter of public policy than it has on this one. It wants to move to a shared-risk approach, modeled after some European systems, in which pensioners assume some of the hazards of their variably performing investments directly. Gone, then, would be the traditional and fixed guarantees, including yearly CPI indexing.

In a letter to the New Brunswick Pension Coalition (obtained earlier this week by the Telegraph-Journal), provincial Finance Minister Blaine Higgs said the status quo is unacceptable. So are the quick fixes contemplated to postpone the inevitable. “It would be impossible for the province to consider ‘Band-Aid‘ solutions,” he wrote. “Nor could we accept changes to the proposed model which would be unfair to our current and future employees or to New Brunswick taxpayers.”

It is around this issue of fairness than members of the Coalition also rally. Is it fair, they ask, for the provincial government to unilaterally claw back pension guarantees? Is it fair to force a retiree, with few economic options available to him, to accept a level of risk shrouding his income he was never led to expect until now? When, in essence, is breaking a deal ever fair?

Who’s right? In a way, everyone is. Still, and lamentably, for the current cohort of pensioners, there is no moral equivalency between these opposed positions. The ground on which the government stands is higher if only because most people in the province do not enjoy the arrangements at issue. Absent any reform, they would, however, have to pay for them.

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The disputants may blame each other until all the clauses in the Public Service Superannuation Act sunset. But the real enemy is demographics. And the cold, if somewhat comforting, fact is New Brunswick is not alone.

Just about everywhere in Canada, public pensions are in trouble. They were crafted at a time in the nation’s history when the future looked much more munificent than it does today. The pay-it-forward model – in which the existing generation of public workers essentially contributes to the retirement well being of future ones as it relies on the beneficence of past ones – is, for all practical purposes, broken.

Today, the population is increasingly geriatric and that – according to public policy experts William Robson and Alexandre Laurin, writing in the Globe and Mail this week – means “there are fewer active employees to support the pensions of retired beneficiaries. People are living longer, which means pensions need to be paid out for longer periods.”

In fact, as they discuss pension reforms underway in Alberta, they single out New Brunswick’s proposed changes as “ambitious” and “far-reaching,” suggesting that the “new shared-risk model. . .protects future generations by permitting reductions of base benefits already accrued, in extreme situations.”

For most New Brunswickers, the choice, though unhappy, is clear. In the interests of fairness, and for the sake of what’s left of the system, pension reform is necessary.

In fact, wishful thinking to the contrary, it’s unavoidable.

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Sep 18 2013
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Business, Politics, Society

Another day, another plan to fix New Brunswick

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Somewhere, beneath the florid appeals to New Brunswick’s angels – to its fairness, justness, competence, impartiality, integrity, and respect – lies a plan to exorcise the province of its equally durable demons, its languishing labour force and perishing skills.

Thus begins the David Alward government’s glittering, new Labour Force and Skills Development Strategy, inscribed as if on tablets come down from the mount: “New Brunswick has a proud history of innovation and national and international leadership. We have flourishing multinational companies and thriving small- and medium-size enterprises.”

And yet, o brothers and sisters, woe still walks among us: “New Brunswick is, however, facing challenges that cannot be solved quickly. . .a median population age that is older than all other provinces, a shrinking youth age group, a decreasing birth rate, and an adult literacy rate that limits employment options for some.”

What shall we do? For starters, we shall engage in the making and reading of charts, specifically the “GNB Strategy Map”, in which a “stronger economy” and an “enhanced quality of life” are possible even though we must, henceforth, live “within our means”.

This implies that “all working-age New Brunswickers and newcomers” will have “an opportunity to participate in the labour market” provided “that they have the right skills to match provincial labour market needs.”

How shall this be accomplished? It has something to do with stimulating “the creation of quality jobs” for citizens, fostering “private sector business growth” and “driving economic development efforts” to, in the final analysis, “provide value for tax dollars. . .achieve a sustainable budget” and “prioritize, optimize and improve processes” in government.

All of which suggests, if little else, that this government is no slouch in the report-writing department. And, to be fair, the document does contain no fewer than 44 “action” items, some of which actually make sense.

Still, one can’t help suspect that, a mere 12 months before the next election, many of these measures have lost much of their utility. They would have been more effective three years ago when the problems that beset the province’s labour force were just as clear, if not as acute, as they are today.

“In coordination with other partners,” the government intends to “develop labour market information products to assist with selecting relevant post-secondary education and employment opportunities in New Brunswick.” What’s more, it will encourage “employment counsellors” to “visit students beginning in middle school and again in high school to provide awareness of occupational forecasts and related skills requirements.”

The strategy is also big on collaboration to wit: “Government will develop a coordinated approach with departments and other partners to ensure that all parties entrusted with growing the economy, work together and are aware of each others strategies and programs, i.e., New Brunswick Business Council, Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick.”

It will also “work with employers to increase their knowledge of the benefits and opportunities surrounding posting of jobs on the Job Bank and assist them in developing job and position descriptions.”

In fact, the key to the plan’s success, it seems, is its “many-voices” approach, for “to meet (the) challenges facing the province, strong, collaborative partnerships are required not only within government, but with communities, industry, businesses, educators, and labour to ensure that New Brunswick has the human resource capital to meet the needs of the labour market.”

Again, though, we’ve known this for years. What’s different now, apart from the fact that things are getting worse?

The frayed achilles tendon of this report – indeed, of virtually every version of a prosperity agenda since before Bernard Lord was premier – is the specific who, what, where, when and how much.

It’s one thing to declare that “Government will work towards ensuring that all high school students have a transition exit plan prior to graduation” or that it will likewise “work with the early childhood education sector to strengthen the sector’s capability to administer high-quality programming by its members for the benefit of young children.”

It’s quite another to spell out the actual mechanics. That’s what a proper, useful  strategy does.

One must assume that this government has a real plan.

Sadly, this particular document, as loftily well-intentioned as it may be, just isn’t it.

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Jul 31 2013
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Corporate Responsibility, Energy, Oil and Gas

“Common ground” initiative makes common sense

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Proof, perhaps, that the best ideas on just about everything originate far from the cocoons and cloisters of governments and corporations, the Atlantica Centre for Energy, based in Saint John, is injecting a long-overdue dose of sanity into New Brunswick’s shale gas debate.

In fact, the outline of its scheme, called “common ground”, to encourage “dialogue” among opponents and supporters of onshore petroleum development in the province – particularly, on the hot-button issue of hydraulic fracturing – makes so much sense, I’m puzzled – even a little annoyed – I didn’t think of it, myself.

The approach is simple enough.

We know that many rational people here are deeply worried about the effects on potable water and soil of large-scale fracking operations, and that, given the industry’s track record over the decades in other parts of North America, they have good reason.

We also know that exploration companies in New Brunswick insist that their technologies and practices have substantially improved, in recent years, and that provincial regulations governing their activities are among the strictest in the world.

Furthermore, we know that the debate has been hung up on competing definitions of what is actually knowable – a sort of epistemological hornet’s nest of a priori and a posteriori suppositions – about an industry that has not yet determined whether there is enough recoverable resource to justify commercial enterprise.

So, the Atlantica Centre reasonably argues, why not create an online podium for both sides – unedited, unfiltered, utterly transparent? Why not build a series of videos that present the divergent opinions, for and against, post them to its website and invite public reaction?

Or, as the group’s president, John Herron, told the Telegraph-Journal on Monday, “My view is that in the old days industry used to come to town and say, ‘I promise you jobs and growth – love me.’ That doesn’t work anymore. You can’t address an environmental concern or a health concern with an economic response.”

In fact, he added, “The minimum we owe each other is a dialogue, and if there is a process that people feel they can participate in, if there is a safe place where those different perspectives can be exchanged, I think we can identify points of agreements on many aspects that we are currently not. . .Consultation and engagement really has to be an ongoing, progressive process. It can’t be an event or even a series of events, and if there isn’t a process in place that people have confidence in, it’s not by accident that the default response in many cases becomes protest.”

Naturally, the key is creating that “safe place”. To this end, the Centre appears to have given serious thought to the breadth of representation that’s necessary to legitimize its venture. The first video, according to the T-J, incorporates commentary from “Cyril Polchies from the Elsipogtog First Nation; Jim Emberger, a Taymouth resident who is part of an alliance of New Brunswick community groups against the development of shale gas; Green Party Leader David Coon; NDP Leader Dominic Cardy; Stephanie Merrill of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick; Barbara Pike, executive director of the Maritimes Energy Association; and Donald Savoie, the Canada Research Chair in Public Policy and Administration at l’Université de Moncton.”

Of course, none of this will fully immunize Mr. Herron and his association from criticism. The Atlantica Centre’s membership roll is a who’s who of business interests in the province. It includes Canaport LNG, Deloitte, Emera, Ernst & Young, Fundy Engineering, IPR-GDF SUEZ North America, Irving Oil Ltd., J.D. Irving Ltd., Maritimes Northeast Pipeline, NB Power, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Stantec. It also includes the two heaviest of hitters in the province’s shale gas game: Corridor Resources and Southwestern Energy.

But, these affiliations, alone, should not automatically dilute public confidence in the authenticity of the Centre’s project. Industry has known, for some time, that it can’t merely brush aside principled opposition. Until now, though, it hasn’t had the faintest clue about how to communicate its points to the broader public.

Letting its critics have their say, without ginning up the traditional spin machine, is a fresh idea whose time has finally come round.

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Jul 29 2013
1 Comment
Energy, Oil and Gas, Politics

Forging a confederation of common cause

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Typically, when Canada’s premiers gather to discuss the state of the federation, they produce enough hot air to float several trial balloons, all drifting in different directions at once. But last week’s gathering in Niagara-On-The-Lake suggested that provincial leaders might be warming to the idea of pinpointing one or two destinations at which to touch down together.

New Brunswick’s David Alward can take much of the credit for forging at least the semblance of common cause among his colleagues this year. He has been a vocal and effective critic (whether or not you agree with him) of federal changes to both the Employment Insurance system and labour market agreements. He has emphasized the shared impact of these moves across the country.

He has also reached out to other premiers in a consistent and collegial way – not seen since the Frank McKenna era – on the subject of energy, which is rapidly becoming the most important file on the interprovincial agenda. Even in the notoriously self-absorbed central Canadian press, his name tends to come before all others in stories about a dearly imagined west-east oil pipeline.

“They’ve all been very open to that discussion – I don’t have any concerns at all,” he told the Globe and Mail last week. “We’re bullish on the project because it’s a nation-building project, it’s going to have a positive impact on Canadians from coast to coast to coast. . .We feel very good about the work that is taking place and I have full confidence in the next steps.”

Reflecting on Quebec Premier Pauline Marois’ refusal to discuss the pipeline in the wake of the Lac Magentic tragedy, Mr. Alward was circumspect: “In discussions with the Quebec government thus far in our working groups, in terms of the pipeline, have been excellent, and we look forward to continuing to work with them,” the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal quoted him in Friday’s edition. “A catastrophe in their province, the derailment. . .I don’t believe Premier Marois is commenting out of respect for that. . .And I respect that.”

In fact, Mr. Alward was one of the first Canadian leaders to recognize the project’s symbolic significance to the country, as whole. He likened it to a new “national dream”, as big and bold for this century as the transcontinental railway was to the 19th. The argument resonated immediately with Alberta Premier Alison Redford, whose overriding priority is to get her province’s crude to refineries (any refinery) as soon and as cost-effectively as possible.

It’s clear, from her quote in the Telegraph-Journal last week, she hasn’t changed her mind. “We believe it is terribly important that this be considered exactly what it is,” she said. “(This) is a commercial transaction that must be approved by the approval processes in each province that has to take into account the integrity of the project, as well as the environmental impact of the project.”

Moreover, she said, “I’ve heard nothing (at the premiers’ meeting) that in any way suggested to me that there was any possibility that there were any new developments that would change this – that each jurisdiction that is touched by this project will do the work that it needs to do to make sure it does receive the approvals.”

Translation: Stay tuned, but matters are proceeding apace.

The pipeline company, itself, seems to agree. Last week, the Globe and Mail broke news that TransCanada Corp. was nearly chafing at the bit to execute its Energy East strategy sooner, not later.

“(The company) says it has garnered significant support for its quest to ship Western crude to refineries in the East, as premiers seek consensus on a politically charged cross-country pipeline,” the newspaper reported on Thursday. “The Calgary-based company (said) it has received major backing from producers who want to ship crude on its Energy East pipeline, and will make an announcement in the coming weeks. ‘We are very optimistic about the project,’ Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s president for energy pipelines, said in an interview.”

For New Brunswick and the rest of Canada, this is one trial balloon that may be getting ready to come down to earth.

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