From a recent TJ column: In 1978, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, a total of 156 out of every 1,000 workers in New Brunswick were employed in the manufacturing sector. By 2013, the percentage of the province’s workers…
Continue ReadingLooking to the PEI bioscience cluster for inspiration
From a recent TJ column: If I asked you to name the most important sectors of the Prince Edward Island economy, you would likely mention potato farming and tourism. While agriculture and Anne of Green Gables continue to be mainstays…
Continue ReadingI miss selling the soap
I was making a presentation the other night over in Charlottetown to a group of business and government folk and was told there was a senior manager from a big multinational firm in the crowd and they were pitching him…
Continue ReadingFederal grinchiness and economic growth in New Brunswick
New Brunswick Tory MP John Williamson in Saturday’s TJ: “MLAs from both provincial parties have approached my office to ease the employer requirements under the temporary foreign workers program, something I will not do”. He “maintains the program is meant…
Continue ReadingThe Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead and related random thoughts
I just finished Charles Murray’s The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life. It’s a short book and actually targeted at 20 somethings just starting out in…
Continue ReadingCruise control is a better deal in New Brunswick
I’m in Ontario this week. I have worked on five projects in the last year or so up here. I’ll have to set up an office…. Anyway, driving mid-day on the 401 for about 90 minutes and I hardly was…
Continue ReadingNew Brunswick’s GDP growth chimera
I see TD was in Moncton yesterday predicting that New Brunswick’s GDP will increase to 1.5 percent next year after running at 0.5 percent this year. Later in his speech he talked about how the province’s population will be in…
Continue ReadingBronze Age corporate tax breaks
I’m reading an entertaining book right now called 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. I had to chuckle this morning when I read about the Egyptian kings around 1,300 BC exempting ships bringing traded goods out of foreign lands from…
Continue ReadingCooke-ing with gas: Firm size and ambition
Long before natural gas started to be used in New Brunswick as an energy source (at least in its current incarnation), my father used the expression “now you are cooking with gas” when he was talking about something gaining momentum. …
Continue ReadingScrap NSBI for more co-operative enterprises?
On many occasions, I think the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives adds a lot of value to the debate in Canada but their recent proposal to scrap NSBI and put the money into expanding “co-operative enterprises across the province” is…
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