I have commented on this before but it is well worth revisiting in light of attempts to merge a few communities in southeastern New Brunswick. New Brunswick has 256 distinct municipalities ranging from the Alma Parish with five residents and…
Continue ReadingThere’s not many secrets in this biz
Look, if you want to attract business investment into Atlantic Canada, you need people positioned in regional economic development organizations that play in the global business market. Here are the seven new appointees to the ACOA board: Ross McNeil, of…
Continue ReadingLack of British interest in Atl. Canada called ‘puzzling’
There hasn’t been a lot of foreign direct investment into Atlantic Canada from the United Kingdom. It seems there is not a lot of trade either. “Sadly, we are aware of only 14 businesses from Atlantic Canada operating in the…
Continue ReadingA little ‘scale obsession’ might be good right about now
I got into the office this morning and was promptly greeted by an email from some weight loss web site saying “Stop Scale Obsession!”. When I saw this email, I had to chuckle. In a couple of weeks, my wife,…
Continue ReadingA theoretical question
You know the old axiom about if a tree falls in the forest? I have a slightly different twist on it. If your ‘incentive’ to attract a company is forgone taxes – taxes you would not have received anyway if…
Continue ReadingAvoid group think on manufacturing
There were another series of articles last week about the decline in the manufacturing sector in Canada. Most economic developers I talk to don’t want to touch manufacturing with a ten foot poll. One group I work with ocassionally has…
Continue ReadingOld world thinking for a new world
A few years ago, somebody I worked with calculated the savings that a pulp mill in New Brunswick gets from incentive power rates from NB Power and found that over a ten year period, it was literally tens of millions…
Continue ReadingBrian Dick – Post numero uno
I have never actually met Brian Dick, former VP at ACOA and new-guy-with-the-impossible-mandate as head of the self sufficiency process. Most people that know him that I have some contact with think highly of him. A guy, apparently, that likes…
Continue ReadingFailure Parties
I have not been posting for a while. In truth, I was getting pretty disappointed with things – both in the economic development world and with this blog. It seemed to me that some people just like to bitch and…
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