Think Stronach, Emmerson and now Wally Stiles. I suspect this will rankle Tories and also backbencher Libs.
On a lighter note, that story in the TJ this morning about ATCON is right on the money. If New Brunswick companies can band together to bid on and win large construction contracts, that’s good news.
One of the problems that New Brunswick has is a lack of ‘mid sized’ firms. In the Canadian context that means local companies with between 200 and 500 employees. We have either giant firms (McCain & Irving – McCain, for example, generates almost as much revenue annually as the Government of New Brunswick) and tiny firms – something like 97% of all NB-based firms have less than 25 employees.
Those small guys can’t really compete on large projects here or abroad. But if they combine – maybe they’ll get the critical mass to get somewhere. I even like the GTech model where a successful local firm becomes part of a global player (I think it’s called Lottomatica). There will be a sizeable portion of readers that hate that idea and say that Gtech will become the ‘branch plant’ that will eventually be closed.
But I think that’s a morbid view of our province and the capabilities of our people. As I understand it, GTech is actually expanding its operations.