David Shipley has a piece in the TJ this morning covering a new APEC report titled: The Growing Importance of Older Workers in Atlantic Canada. Shipley quotes a variety of experts predicting gloom and doom and advocating forcing seniors to…
Continue ReadingNew Brunswick getting older
Statistics Canada has just published its Age and Sex data from the 2006 Census. You can search the tables here. There aren’t a lot of surprises. Atlantic Canada is older than the rest of Canada – following a continuing trend.…
Continue ReadingIn defense of the Swivel Servants
Alec Bruce makes an important point in his column today. I have expressed my concern that you can’t have sustainable economic growth built on public sector employment growth. The dollars to fund the public sector either come from own source…
Continue ReadingCommon sense prevails
This should’ve been a no-brainer. Molson will not face tariffs when exporting beer brewed at its New Brunswick plant to Nova Scotia under a new deal inked between the two provinces just weeks before production is scheduled to start at…
Continue ReadingAge and Sex
Statistics Canada will release tomorrow its findings from the 2006 Census on the age and sex of Canadians. I suspect that New Brunswickers will be ‘greying’ faster than the national average but a wrinkle in that is the call centre…
Continue ReadingSay something enough and people start to believe it
There is increasing evidence that people are moving to Moncton – deliberately. What I mean is that people are choosing to move here primarily for quality of life and related issues not because they were forced to because of a…
Continue ReadingTJ stirring the pot a bit
It’s funny. The Telegraph Journal quotes me last week raising caution that a large percentage of the jobs created in New Brunswick have been public sector (or publicly funded jobs in health care, etc.) and then has a sneering Samuel…
Continue Reading"Evidence-based" economic development
I do some work in the health care sector and this term “evidence-based” has become commonplace. Everything now has to be “evidence-based from strategic planning to clinical practice. Now, you might say that is self-evident – particularly in health care.…
Continue ReadingThe real fiscal challenge lies ahead
One of the main reasons why Daulton McGuinty was thrilled with the federal government’s new approach to provincial funding is that the feds have agreed to move to a ‘per capita’ model for health and social transfers. McGuinty and most…
Continue Reading‘Oilpatch-size opportunties’ seen in computer gaming
It looks like someone is starting to listen. I just hope they will jointly realize the benefits of attracting some big studios to the province. That creates more critical mass and everybody wins.
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