I just read the printed version in the TJ of my treatise on the need for NB to attract more multinationals. Aside from my use of ‘are’ in the place of ‘our’ (I write a lot but make this mistake often), I hope it made some sense. It’s hard to tell with a concept like this. People hav entrenched notions of the nobility of the ‘little guy’ and the nastiness of the greedy multinationals. And when UPM and others close their NB plants like the thousands of people that are affected are just business ‘inputs’ like trees or machinery, this reinforces that viewpoint.
But we have to resist this tempation. The truth is that the ‘little guys’ – small to medium sized businesses in New Brunswick go out out business at 20-30 times the rate of large businesses – it’s just that when the big guys go, they really go, if you know what I mean.
We need to get that mix right. A lot of our multinationals from the 20th century are shaking out. Now we need new multinationals from 21st century industries – of which we have very little.