An old friend of mine just had a baby in Virginia and only received three months of maternity leave. She described her employer as not particularly family friendly and worried about staying late at work, etc. The reality is that…
Continue ReadingHead in the cloud
I got an email from something this morning saying that Microsoft took a look at setting up a data centre in New Brunswick a few years ago. I’m not sure what happened but I suspect that power rates were a…
Continue ReadingWho’s subsidizing who?
Premier Alward is right to be worried about the future of transfer payments – particularly the equalization program. I’m interested in this broader narrative of, to slightly alter Aretha’s “Who’s zooming Who?”, of who is subsidizing whom? Ontario’s Premier…
Continue ReadingInsurance and economic development
I don’t know what is going on with the insurance industry in New Brunswick. There is certainly a Frank McKenna factor but there is much more going on here than just TD Insurance. The industry added another more than 600…
Continue ReadingOn Chinese Company Investment Here
As with most things, New Brunswick lags the rest of Canada both in terms of exports to and investment from China. We import a pile from China, however. Just take a look at where much of your electronics, toys,…
Continue ReadingMinimum Wage: Musings
According to Statistics Canada data, there were 17,100 people at the minimum wage in 2009. As a percentage of total workers, it is lower than the national average but it is up considerably since 2004 (around the time government started…
Continue ReadingLiberals and coherency in economic development policy
I have a lot of respect for guys like Roger Melanson and Chris Collins but I worry that a good Liberal economic development policy is being co-opted by raw realpolitik. While Melanson was out a few days ago with a…
Continue ReadingThe only effective source of innovation is pissed off people
I picked up Tom Peters 2010 book “The Little Big Things” yesterday in Fredericton. We are all products of our environment and history and I was a huge devotee of Tom Peters back in the 1980s and have bought most…
Continue ReadingThe power of collaboration
I have been thinking a lot lately about how jurisdictions proactively foster new growth sectors in an economy. New Brunswick, right now, doesn’t have a lot of sectors that have obvious growth potential. We put a lot of faith in…
Continue ReadingDeconstructing an ‘incentive’ deal in NY
At first glance it looks like the New York government gave up a pile of cash to get 108 Norampac jobs but how much did this deal actually ‘cost’ New York? The company got $60 million in brownfield tax credits,…
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