I am not sure that the poll out yesterday was much of a surprise. I talked to a number of fairly placed folks yesterday and the concensus is that the pile of spending announcements, the lucrative spending budget and the…
Continue ReadingTories serving up gravy
I thought they were scrapping this John Manley-brainchild-Ottawa-and-Montreal-development program? Maybe not. $189 million from Technology Partnerships Canada for CAE’s research and development project called Phoenix. A total of $630 million is expected to be invested in the Phoenix Project over…
Continue ReadingBring on the Bilderberg
I don’t usually scrape content for fear of the big bad media monitor swooping down to crush me like a fly but this article is neat and I can’t find you a free link: The New Brunswick connection: Did Frank…
Continue ReadingWhat’s in a headline?
What’s in a headline. Here are the three leading stories over the weekend about the latest job data from Statistics Canada. Note that the T&T and DG actually ran the same story but with slightly different headlines: Times & TranscriptN.B.…
Continue ReadingFor the economic development smile-a-day file
You may find this funny or possibly annoying or both. It’s a story in the Arkansas News that concludes there is political advantage to encourage Toyota to build its next auto plant in Arkansas (the New Brunswick of the south)…
Continue ReadingReaching Atlantica
I was able to attend much of the Reaching Atlantica conference this week in Saint John. I am encouraged by the traction this theoretical economic zone is getting. I had a whole blog prepared on Maude Barlow and ‘Resisting Atlantica’…
Continue ReadingGet ready for a humdinger
Okay. Canada had the best month for employment growth in over four years. There were almost 97,000 new jobs created last month according to Statistics Canada. New Brunswick’s total employment went up zero. No new jobs created in New Brunswick.…
Continue ReadingElection coming?
One of the best signs an election is coming is when the government turns on the spending tap. The graph below shows the value of building permits issued for government and institutional construction (institutional is mainly government – schools, hospitals,…
Continue ReadingJust a little Equalization example
I think by now you know my position on Equalization. The program is designed not to provide parity in government service delivery across Canada but to provide a minimum acceptable standard for government services. The reason I think this is…
Continue ReadingGaining momentum – capturing the public’s interest
I have often wondered why economic development agencies don’t use the Web more to engage the public about the key issues related to economic development. Besides the odd blogger or two, there is almost no where a New Brunswicker could…
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