From a recent TJ column: I once had a long conversation with the manager of one of the largest customer contact centres in the province. He told me that his New Brunswick employees were unquestionably the best he had ever seen…
Continue ReadingDon Mills, perceptions and immigration
Think of Don Mills as a slightly older, wiser version of yours truly – only with an army of pollsters at the ready. In the past few years, Mills’ focus and mine are starting to converge somewhat on issues such…
Continue ReadingEI, temporary foreign workers, and business closures
I have a simple question for you. Under which of the following scenarios is a local community better off: 1. A local manufacturing company can’t find workers even though the unemployment rate is 20%+ and closes the plant and moves to…
Continue ReadingWith friends like these… Ezra Levant and NB shale gas
Ezra Levant has turned his pen to the subject of shale gas development in Canada. An excerpt of his new book is published in the Toronto Sun. There are two things that bug me about Ezra’s view on this. First,…
Continue ReadingThe Campbellton-Miramichi Conundrum
One of the more interesting conversations I’ve had occurred with a senior government policy wonk more than a decade ago around the time of the big mill closures in the Miramichi. One of Premier Lord’s advisors at the time told…
Continue ReadingAre we moving from austerity to growth mode?
I had a great conversation with a banker in Fredericton recently who is a big fan of Finance Minister Blaine Higgs. He told me Higgs is now ready to move his thinking from austerity/cost cutting to efforts to foster economic…
Continue ReadingWill there be jobs, jobs, jobs in New Brunswick?
I might have to turn off blog commenting again -but for another reason. Despite the filters, I now seem to get a dozen or so spam comments in the queue that I have to manually delete for every actual comment. Anyway,…
Continue ReadingEqualization sans oil and gas?
I know that some folks get apoplectic when this issue is raised but I had an interesting conversation yesterday with an economist who is quite worried that within a short period of time, the impact of the oil and gas…
Continue ReadingThe changing rural/urban employment landscape: It’s not what you might expect
Someone asked me to provide employment trends in urban and rural areas and the source. The source is shown below the tables. These tables show the employment change (percentage change) between 2006 and 2013 for urban and rural labour markets…
Continue ReadingICYMI: My BTW on TFW not quite LOL
I have received several emails about this issue regarding the Saskatchewan waitresses that were turfed and replaced by temporary foreign workers (TFWs). On the CBC this morning a professor was talking about how many of the 1,000+ comments to the…
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