Sometimes the political need for change sweeps across a province. Take New Brunswick circa 1999 and Canada circa 2006. Evidently Islanders felt the same yesterday.

But I hope, upon hope, that the Liberal government on PEI not only continues many of the economic development policies of the previous government but also builds on them. PEI has been eating New Brunswick's lunch in the economic development area in recent years. It started with the aerospace cluster in Slemon Park. Then alternative energy. Some interesting moves in biotech. How about the IT incubator in Charlottetown that many said would sit empty. They are building a second one. Big name global firms like Novartis, AMVESCAP, CGI, Foundation 9 - all have set up on PEI in recent years.

But learn the lesson of New Brunswick. Premier Lord promised a "made in New Brunswick" solution to economic development. He disavowed McKenna's efforts to attract industry in favour of small business tax cuts.

And we live with the results. Without the 15,000 call centre jobs that were created under Lord as a result of the McKenna initiative (more than under McKenna, ironically), the Lord government job creation record would be in the negative. If you factor out call centres and public service jobs (including health care), New Brunswick would have been facing a Newfoundland-style population decline (as opposed to a slight decline).

Islanders feld they needed to change. Change is good. Change is refreshing. But a 180 degree change in economic development policy that caters to the CFIB will only relegate PEI to the situation of New Brunswick.

I was chatting with a guy the other day that should know and he told me that Nova Scotia was leading the pack followed by PEI with New Brunswick not even on the map when it comes to attracting industry.

Don't screw it up.

Oh crap.

I just went to the PEI Liberal's policy platform. No policy for economic development. Then I did a little Google and found this. Hardly a mention of economic development. Vague statements about rural development.

I don't mean to beat the issue to death, but after reading more gushing editorials and comments about the new tourism money from the government of New Brunswick, I just have one question.

For all of the pundits, journalists and newspaper editors that think tourism is the panacea for economic development in northern New Brunswick, just a simple question. Would you work for $8.50/hour 11 weeks a year? How about your kids - after university?

I realize just about everyone seems to love tourism. Heck, even I like it for selfish reasons (I like using the infrastructure myself every year). But when you have scarce dollars to invest what industries make for the best back for the buck? Particularly when we are desperately need high wage, year round jobs in value added industries?

All I can say is I hope there is another $100 million for the digital media sector. And another $100 million for the data centre sector. And another $100 million (heck, make it two) for the alternative energy industry.

On a completely different theme, I see that Starbucks is now taking on Brazil. The single most coffee obsessed market in the world - without any doubt.

There is a Moncton lesson for Starbucks, here. When Starbucks first came to Moncton, there were plans for multiple Starbucks. There was even a "coming soon" Starbucks sign up at Trinity next to the movie theatre. But Starbucks completely underestimated the power of Tim Horton's and its embeddedness in the Moncton culture (not to mention Moncton's socio-demographic situation - few students, limited artsy fartsies and lower average incomes than Saint John, Fredericton and Halifax).

As a result, no expansion of Starbucks in Moncton. Just the lonely one in Chapters catering to some UdeM students (and ABU) and a few folks that need a real latte once in a while (hand raised here).

The lesson in Brazil is similar and should be similarly obvious. Brasileiros love their cafezinho. Not lattes, not mochas, not tea. Not even cappuccino. And more importantly, they will bristle at the thought of paying $4 for a coffee, too. Now, there will be a limited market here for the American style Starbucks. Like most places in the world, there is a need to emulate America among a certain segment of the population. But by in large, Starbucks, in my opinion, will need to start serving up $1 cafezinho to make it work here.

However, for me, I'll just have my grande latte with skim milk.

Maybe I'll go get one now.

Tchau.

I am heading down south today for my annual pilgrimage. Sao Paulo, Brazil is the destination. A city of 11 million and a metropolitan population of 29 million.

But there are great restaurants, lots of things to do. Lots of smog to fill up the lungs.

I'll try to blog a bit from there.

It's funny how things go.

In the mid 1990s, the Dept. of Economic Dev. & Tourism brought in an economic development guru (I can't remember his name) and he made a very good presentation on how governments can support effective and long term economic development.

During the Q&A, someone asked him about tourism.

He said bluntly - don't focus on it. Let tourism associations and tourism operators that directly benefit from it do their own marketing and development work.

The person who posed the question said something about how important tourism was to New Brunswick.

He said "my point exactly".

He said "name me a single tourism-dominated economy that is a strong economy".

His comments didn't matter. The Liberal government of the day made tourism a major priority. The Lord government did as well - or at least claimed as much. And now the Graham government has staked its claim announcing yesterday another 100 million for tourism development.

The T&T article today states:

Tourism in New Brunswick is a $1.2-billion industry, creating 33,000 jobs. It's also seen as the sector with the most growth potential.

Why do we like tourism?

It's low wage. Mostly seasonal work. It's not particularly technology intensive. It's not particularly Green (tourists mostly drive in their cars). If you did a dispassionate analysis of tourism, you would likely not support it but there is something about 'tourism' that gets people going.

Maybe they like the concept of people coming here to visit. Maybe it helps prop up our insecurities about our little province. Hey, if people want to visit here it must be a great place, right?

Maybe - more importantly - people think it is a better sector for regional development. Rural areas lend themselves to tourism. It's natural, right?

But think this through for a minute.

Jeannot Volpe puffed out his chest after his last budget and proudly claimed that no New Brunswicker making under $15,000 per year will pay provincial income tax.

Now, we invest in an industry with an average annual wage of just about that. And a seasonal industry as well.

In the late 1990s, governments said they would stop funding 'seasonal' jobs because of the province's dependence on them. So much for that.

I think there is a place for tourism and a role for government. It's a great industry for students in the summer (though we have less and less of those these days). And I also like the idea of showcasing our province for foreigners.

Probably the best benefit from investing in tourism infrastructure is that we get to use it as well!

But the provincial goal is self-sufficiency. Which means raising massively more own-source tax revenue.

Tell me how more tourism jobs does that?

Even more worryingly (I blogged on this before), the folks in Miramichi have acknowledged that there will be less forestry jobs in the future and so they want to make up the shortfall with tourism jobs.

On average, tourism jobs pay less than half the wages as forestry industry jobs.

Tell me how this feeds self-sufficiency?

It's a bit like being back in Lord's bizzaro world. Cut economic funding, cut small biz taxes and cross your fingers.

Now we invest in politically-popular ribbon-cutting-oriented every-local-politician-loves-it tourism but I haven't seen any new money to attract high wage, capital-investment intensive industries.

It's ultimately about trade offs. $100 million for tourism could have been used to help built a video game/animation cluster in Miramichi. Or a language translation/localization industry in the Acadian Peninsula. Or high value added forestry products in Campbellton. Or a natural gas park in Sussex or a large scale data centre in St. Stephen. All of those sectors would have contributed significant new tax dollars to the coffers of the provincial government.

I am sure that at least half the people reading this post are pretty cranky right now.

Have at it.

From today's TJ:

New Brunswick's largest public sector union is warning the province's labour peace could end abruptly if the Liberal government pushes forward with a controversial proposal on merging union contracts.

The Self-Sufficiency Task Force's call for a single, five-year public sector labour agreement has the province's public sector unions talking tough. Tom Mann, executive director of the New Brunswick Union, said if the proposal means lumping teachers, nurses and other public sector workers into the same union contract, the province risks turbulent union relations.


I can't figure out the public sector.

I have the utmost respect for people who decide to go into public service and make a career out of trying to make their community, province or country a better place.

But the public sector in New Brunswick should the paramount voice in this province calling for radical change. They, in a way no person in the general public ever could, understand the scope and scale of the challenges - or at least they should.

Every day public sector workers in New Brunswick are confronted with the realities of a declining population, among the worst health outcomes in Canada, declining student enrollments, aging infrastructure, increasing dependence on equalization, losing economic development, etc. They should know because they are embedded in it.

And yet, instead of a thoughtful response to the self sufficiency commission and in fact putting forward their own ideas about how to get us out of the rut we are in, we get sabre rattling about the recommendation related to merging of union contracts.

I don't know anything about merging of union contracts.

All I know is that this "Tom Mann" should be about proactivity and solutions. He should be talking about ways to invest public sector pensions in New Brunswick's economic growth and not China's or Toronto's (99.7% of all public sector pension money from New Brunswick is invested outside the provinces in other markets deemed 'worthy' by the pension investors). He should be looking at marshalling the large public service behind self sufficiency and asking all members to think about it as they do their business day to day. The health department should be looking at ways to leverage its $2 billion budget for increased economic development. The supply and services department should be looking at ways to support economic development. If they let a large contract to a firm from Toronto, the next call should be from Business New Brunswick. NB Power should be about economic growth. The department of education should be about aligning post secondary training with targeted growth sectors put forward by BNB. The tourism department should be looking at sectors that generate higher wages and year round employment. The department of finance should be, well should be, about sustainable, economic growth generating more own-source revenue to reduce dependence on Ottawa and gird up our communities for the long term.

Make no mistake. The people Tom Mann represents are the front line in this battle. And if the only interest is in narrow-minded worries about potential wage impacts somewhere down the road, I have news for Mr. Mann.

In 10-2o years without major economic growth leading to a reversal in population decline, "they" are going to force the amalgamation of the Maritime provinces and lay off half your workers. So if you are really concerned about the long term 'health' of the public service in New Brunswick, you will be more interested in supporting the self sufficiency agenda and less about short term gratification.

But unions seem to be more about short term gratification these days. Just as Buzz.

Maybe it's because I have worked with 11 different economic development agencies (federal, provincial, local and U.S) over the past 12 months. Or maybe it's because I leave this Sunday on a three week vacation. Or maybe it's because I am tired.

For whatever reason, I am starting to think we need to do some real serious rethinking about economic development in the Maritimes. We have been discussing things and debating ideas but I don't thing there has been a systematic rethink of what we are doing - process wise - in 20 years.

I don't think I am up to writing my thinking on these topics but I will post the questions here today and we can work them out over the next few weeks.

And then, as Mike Myers' Barbra Streisand loving character would say "talk amongst yourselves".

Questions:

• Should local economic development agencies do active 'seek' and 'find' activities (i.e selling a community as a place to invest in)? My research shows that the average successful IPA (investment promotion agency) will spend between $500,000 and $2,000,000 per successful new investment in a community. And I am not talking about 'incentives'. I am talking about just the cost of the 'investment' group or IPA divided over the number of new investments in a community (like RIM in Halifax or Molson in Moncton). So, using those numbers, on average, a local or regional economic development agency that spends $200,000 per year on 'seek' and 'find' would take 3 to 10 years to land one project. However, without a strong and successful provincial level IPA, local agencies feel they must do 'seek' and 'find' and divert resources in that area. Is that a good strategy?

• Should local economic development agencies (at the prompting of provincial and federal agencies) still spend upwards of 60%-70% of their time and resources promoting 'small business' development? Or was this policy promoted back when self-employment was preferred to being unemployed? Has it been successful? My research shows that Ontario has a much better rate of small business success (defined as survival and growth) than New Brunswick despite all the effort and resources put into New Brunswick in this area? Is this the best use of economic development resources?

• What role should local economic development agencies play in the area of migration and immigration attraction? Aren't there provincial and federal agencies involved in this?

• What role should local economic development agencies play in labour market development? Aren't there whole provincial and federal government agencies doing this?

My central point with these questions is born out of an emerging line of thinking (again maybe driven by tiredness). Namely, if local economic development agencies are spending all their time doing stuff that is more likely aligned with provincial and/or federal mandates, who is doing the stuff that is not the mandate of provincial and/or federal organizations? Stuff like research on the local community and economy or making the business case for the local community or making sure there is a good stock of available real estate or industrial/business parks?

Who is doing what I like to call "product development" at the community level?

I just fear that local economic development agencies are given very little resources and asked to do everything. And at least in some cases nothing gets done well.

What local economic development agencies need, I think, is a well formed and successful IPA at the provincial and/or regional level (or national). Then the local agency takes care of on the ground stuff in the community.

What local economic development agencies need, I think, is a well formed labour market/training/education function at the provincial level and the local agency makes sure there is alignment between local need and provincial strategy.

Essentially, I am starting to think the best local economic development agencies are what I would call catalysts. They bring resources together. They provide a mirror on the local economy and issues of interest. They put the spit and polish to the local brand. They know the local stakeholders in a way no provincial or federal agency ever could. They get things done by marshalling a wide variety of resources - because they are not funded with the millions of dollars to do it themselves.

We will discuss this more, I think, over the next few weeks.

I had dinner last night with a few of the region's top economic developers (in my humble opinion) - at least the top thinkers about this stuff.

And I posed a question to this gang. Take away all the perceived obstacles. Suppose the government had money to invest in infrastructure and economic development. Blue sky it. What could be done to help rural Newfoundland communities become viable for the next 50 years.

Their answers kept coming up green. Green energy. Green communities. Attracting green entrepreneurs. And there was some thinking around data centres and other non-location specific ideas.

At the core was this notion that there might be a sub-section of the population in the developed world that would like to live in small, quaint communities if they could make a decent living there.

I liked it. Even from a branding perspective.

The TJ's running a story this morning called "Courting Club Fed" about attempts to attract federal government employment to New Brunswick. The article states:

In 2005, it [the percentage of all federal government workers in Ottawa] was precisely 31 per cent - a figure that's grown over time, according to a March, 2006 report prepared for parliamentarians. (No wonder that Ottawa alone welcomed nearly 3,000 New Brunswickers as new residents between 1996 and 2001, according to Statistics Canada's 2001 census.) By comparison, less than 17 per cent of U.S. federal or British national government jobs are concentrated in either Washington, D.C., or London, England.


I think it would be fair to say there is a little irony in this fact. Considering Canada is such a widely dispersed country and feelings of being disconnected from its national government is a recurring theme. Considering that most Prime Ministers (I don't know about this one) talk about the need for a 'strong' federal government in the 'regions'.

But as we have talked about before (and this article rightly states) - prying more jobs out of Ottawa will be just about impossible. Paul Martin tried it - he moved about 20 jobs from the Canadian Tourism Commission to Vancouver -and was resoundly trounced by dozens of groups.

The new Conservative government said "no way" when asked if they were even going to continue studying the issue as the Liberals were in the process of doing when they were turfed.

I was in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago and I picked up a local newspaper. It chronicled the employment picture in Ottawa over the past decade or so and stated that the Federal government (John Manley) made up almost job for job for the Nortel and dot.com meltdown in the early 2000s by hiring civil servants in droves. Now, the high tech sector in Ottawa has rebounded and Ottawa has one of the strongest economies in Canada.

In that same newspaper, there was a full page advertisment for Information Technology consultants. In one column it listed the firms' names, in a second it listed the firms' areas of expertise and in the third column it listed the "Percentage of revenue from government sources". In most cases, these firms generated 40% to 98% of all revenue from government.

So the importance of the government (direct employment and business contracts) to the Ottawa economy is self-evident. One can easily see why powerful stakeholders in that city would want to horde the new jobs and not see them dispersed to the 'regions'.

Again, a little more irony, Jean Cretien said when he was elected that the information highway would be the great 'leveller' of the playing field between large and small regions in Canada. Under his government, we then proceeded to see the largest migration to the 5-6 main urban areas in Canadian history. John Manley, I was told, believed that the 'cluster' effect was required for government departments too and was adamantly opposed to moving federal jobs to the 'regions'.

Our old friend, Scott Brison was just 'whistling dixie' as they say when he said in a a 2004 speech in Sydney, N.S., "there is simply no compelling reason anymore to keep the majority of public servants in the Ottawa-Gatineau area."

I'll give you a handful of "compelling" (inverted quotes) reasons:

1. John Baird has said "no way".

2. The government labour unions have said "no way".

3. 98% of all power brokers in Ottawa say "no way".

4. The days of the all powerful regional minister (Romeo Leblanc, John Crosbie, Allan MacEachern) are over.


So, in conclusion, it is unlikely we will see any Romeo Leblanc-style federal government jobs in New Brunswick or even the Maritimes anytime soon.

I was reminded again recently about how easy it is to criticize attempts to attract industry and grow the economy. An economic developer friend of mine was commenting on a certain corporate interest in the province and why they have little real interest in supporting real economic development. After all, he said, if we bring in a large multinational firm they will steal away this firm's best workers with better pay and benefits.

I have always felt that one of the benefits of attracting large, multinational firms to your province is that it forces up overall wages over time. I have seen this in practice in New Brunswick over the past 15+ years. IT workers being paid $30k per year until a larger firm is brought in that is paying $45k per year for the same workers. Call centre workers' wages have increased from an average of $10/hour in the mid 1990s to $16/hour how. Manufacturing workers paid $8.50/hour with no benefits and laid off during slow season. After a large manufacturer comes in paying $17/hour for basic machine operator skills (plus benefits), local firms needing to raise wages to compete.

I'm not criticizing these firms. Wage rages are organically set in virtually all markets. In New York City, I am not sure investment analysts would be paid an average of $650,000 per year if the companies didn't feel they needed to pay it to attract and retain workers.

You cant' just say "raise your wages 20% for the good of the province". There needs to be market forces inching up wages over time and local firms need to get more competitive in other areas of their business so they can compete. I think attracting good firms in bolsters wage increases.

And in a similar vein, I had government manager once tell me, while explaining why public sector wages were so high compared to private in New Brunswick, that it was the role of government in weak economies such as New Brunswick to set the bar for wages. If a government secretary is paid $18/hour, he said, that would force the private sector to raise wages over time.

While I found his logic a bit weird, when I look at the Fredericton market, for example, he seems to be correct. Recent Wage Report data indicates that indeed secretaries, administrative workers, bookkeepers, janitors, etc. all get higher wages in Fredericton than elsewhere in New Brunswick.

So come full circle to the vested interest bit mentioned in the title.

If you were a large manufacturer in small town New Brunswick paying $9/hour for assembly line workers and laying them off during down time, would you want the province to bring in a Michelin plant and plop it down in your community? Probably not.

If you were a firm that employed 25 IT workers in a large New Brunswick city at $30k per year and the province brought in a large IT firm that paid $45k per year and they raided all your workers, would you like that? Probably not.

This is a common theme in the blog. Governments need to rise above the fray and balance all of the issues when making decisions. The local business lobby is one voice. A voice that can be a positive force or a negative force for development (sorry to all my Chamber friends).

That small town needs another plant. It needs more economic development. It needs to not be so reliant on one or two large employers - even if they are held up as the bedrock to New Brunswick's economy. At the end of the day, Joe Q. CEO will put his firm's interest ahead of any altruistic objectives 99 times out of a hundred.

Governments - economic development folks - need to put the community's interests ahead of any one company or individual - even if that individual scares the pants off them.

Would somebody please explain the New Brunswick (and while you are at it the Canadian) health care system to me? Specifically, the economics of it. I have an MBA and graduate level education in economics but I can't figure it out.

Over the past eight years or so, the New Brunswick government has put billions more into the health care budget -this despite the fact that the population has actually declined slightly. The health care sector is the fastest growing in New Brunswick - adding thousands of more workers in that eight year period. The total health care budget today is $1.926 billion. That means the government spends about $8,600 per family for health care in New Brunswick. Now, you then need to pile on private costs of health care which in my case adds another $2,000+ per year. So, on average, it costs over $10,000 per year to provide health care for my family - or about the amount of a good HMO in the U.S.

The health budget was $1.319 billion in 1999 - roughly a $610 million increase per year - or about $2,800 per New Brunswick family.

Keep in mind there has been a slight decrease in population during that same eight year period.

Now with all that background, my wife goes to the doctor and the doc orders a routine test. We get a letter in the mail confirming the appointment in June. My wife calls them to say we will be on vacation in June, can we reschedule for July or August. She is told that the notice said June 2008 so she would not have to reschedule.

June 2008 for a routine test. A test she could get in Brazil (her home country) for $80 and in 2-3 days.

$600 million more spending. Same population base. Thousands more health care workers.

And the wait times for routine tests are up by 2-3 times what they were eight years ago.

Somebody explain this economics to me, please.

This is not just another person complaining about health care (well, actually, yes it is). There are a few serious considerations here.

The first is near and dear to my heart. Former Premier Lord bragged at great length about his 'investments' in health care. 80% of all new money, he said. $2 billion more since 1999, he said.

And what did he get for it?

Longer wait times, thank you very much.

Divert money out of economic development and strategic infrastructure into health care and get worse outcomes.

Makes sense to me.

Secondly, can we really expect people to move here (you know, the whole self sufficiency thing) when they have to wait 14 months for a routine exam?

This is a serious issue.

This is interesting. The 100 mile diet - eating only food grown within a 100 mile radius of home - as a way to help save the planet. The proponents of this diet cite a study in Iowa found that a regional diet consumed 17 times less oil and gas than a typical diet based on food shipped across the country.

I have to admit that the food from the local market here in Moncton seems to taste much better than most of the stuff from the supermarket.

But if we all ate local, wouldn't that put the screws to the agri-economies of the Third World?

For those of you that like comparing Canada to other countries, fill your boots.

There are literally hundreds of comparative statistics for the world's countries.

A sampling:

Canada's military expenditures as a % of GDP: 1.1% - 57% in the world - just behind Burkina Faso, Latvia and Venezuela.

Population growth rate: 113th in the world

Population density: 218th out of 230 countries - 2.64 people per 200 sq. km. Monaco leads this list with almost 17,000 people per 200 sq. km.

Percentage of people below the poverty line: 15.9% (60th out of 75 with 75th being the lowest)

I had a conversation a few years ago with a friend who is a strong Conservative. He was 'disgusted' after reading a report that showed Liberal Cabinet Ministers' ridings were the recipients of considerably more ACOA funding than Conservative ones. Another sign of corruption, he intoned.

While the source of this information is suspect, it does show that Conservative ridings in Quebec are getting considerably more than other ridings (particularly the Minister's).

Bottom line? I think when you have the reins of power, party affiliation doesn't mean much.

My own opinion is that Ministers of departments such as Quebec Economic Development and ACOA should be extra cautious and transparent when it comes to funding projects in their own riding.

But I may be in a minority position - so to speak - on this. Jean Cretien was adamant that it was the job of a Minister to use his/her influence to get things for his/her riding. It seems the Tories feel the same way.

I just hope they are good, long term growth oriented projects that will help those economies thrive.

One of my favourite movies of all time is The Bridge on the River Kwai. Every year or so I dust it off and try to see it again from a slightly different angle. However, I just can't figure out what Obi Wan Kenobi is doing in China during the WW2.

But I digress.

I had the opportunity to be involved with this project. No, it's not the Atlantica project that wants to bleed Maritimers dry, suck out all the resources and leave an environmental wasteland. This is less ambitious. It's a partnership between Bangor and Saint John and the communities in between to try and work together to enhance economic opportunity in a heretofore pretty economically challenged region.

Central to this is the new bridge over the St. Croix river bisecting St. Stephen and Calais (hence my awful pun for a title - but it does rhyme a bit).

It seems to me there is a real desire to make this cross border partnership work. Instead Bangor being at the top end of I95 and Saint John being an end point for the Maritimes, these guys have figured out they are actually central to this Atlantica economic zone and want to leverage that into economic opportunity.

I wish them well and I think that there are some people involved that are just passionate enough to try and make this work.

For several years now, a number of folks including me have been pushing to position Atlantic Canada as a 'nearshore' alterative to U.S. companies offshoring IT and back office services to India. The cost structure here is much higher than India but there are a number of emerging reasons why companies would prefer nearshore to offshore including privacy legislation, proximity to markets, cultural similiarities, etc.

Indian IT firms have realized this and have started setting up nearshore facilities in North America.

Namely, in Toronto. Many of the biggest names in Indian IT - Cognizant, Wipro and now Polaris Software have all set up facilities in the GTA and all have claimed them to be 'nearshore' facilities to service the U.S. market.

To say that Toronto is 'nearshore' would be like calling Boston or Chicago 'nearshore'. The truth is that the GTA has attracted these firms because of deliberate and sustained efforts by the Ontario government to attract investment from India.

What's next? Will Toronto take on our lobster and EI brand? For me, to position Toronto as 'nearshore' has a similar logic.

However, if you are an Indian firm and you don't even know much about Canada (let alone Atl. Canada), you are likely to equate Toronto with Canada. Which is the posture of many (most) international firms.

The trick here is to somehow get the jump on Toronto. Pick a sector with great potential and get in first. Push hard and let Toronto do catch up.

That's difficult. Really difficult but it's been done before.

Here's a quote from a press release issued today by Industry Canada:

"Canada's New Government is charting a new direction, one that links the competitive energy of Canada's entrepreneurs to the creative genius of our scientists," the Prime Minister said. "Our new strategy will strengthen Canada's economy by tapping our deep well of entrepreneurial energy to fuel our technological progress."

Call me a conspiratorialist but this sounds like a very subtle way to reinforce the importance of Alberta oil to our economy.

One of the reasons why I push for more large, global companies to be attracted to the Maritimes is that precious few of our local firms ever grow into large and exporting firms. A few do - ballyhoo - but the vast, vast majority do not.

P.E.I. Preserve Company goes bankrupt

This breaks my heart. My wife and I used to go there when we travelled to PEI. I thought it was a winner. A great niche.

Gone. Well it may be back through restructuring.

A sad day to be sure.

Now before you criticize me remember that free advice is cheap.

A recent study found that 80% of data centres in the US are going to expand. Another study I saw estimated at least 100 new large scale data centres will be built in the U.S. over the next five years.

Data centres need cheap power, big fat telecom pipes and secure facilities. They do not have to be located in urban centres (except for a specific segment of the industry) and they are not call centres so it doesn't matter if you have an accent when you speak. Finally, they typically pay as well or higher than pulp mills.

So, for free, here's my advice for Danny Williams.

Take the dividend from the oil and gas revenue and invest it in attracting data centres.

Build your new power plant in Labrador and serve up cheap power for these data centres.

Attract 40 or 50 of these spread all over the province. This will create at least 20k or 25k jobs (direct and induced). Newfoundland will be known world wide as the Ireland of North America.

Well maybe a hybrid (Ireland's tech economy and Scotland's oil economy).

The Rock's economy will produce jobs, population will return, you will go down in history. They'll erect the Bust of Williams in front of city hall and your legacy will transform from the leader of the ABC movement to the builder of the 21st century economy for the Rock.

Hey, it's free advice. What else do you want. Throw me a few nickels and I'll try to get really creative.