I get this question quite a bit. After a German entity bought up some timber land in the Miramichi this week I received several emails of concern.
Well, if you aren’t prepared to invest in New Brunswick, we will need to find someone who is.
Take a look at how/where your Canada Pension Plan dollars are invested. You will look long and hard to find any investment in New Brunswick.
Take a look at where your New Brunswick public pension monies are invested. Again you will need to look very hard to find anything directly invested in New Brunswick.
Take a look at your own RRSP investments. See how much of it is invested in New Brunswick. Chances are, not much.
Of course I am being a little facetious here. Lots of New Brunswickers invest in New Brunswick but the point I am making is that if the billions and billions of NB pension and retirement savings is almost all invested outside New Brunswick, it only stands to reason we will need some investment to flow in.
If our retirement nesteggs are funding economic development in China and Ontario, why doesn’t it make sense that someone’s nestegg in Hong Kong or Germany would invest their money here.
We live in a world with fairly open borders now. People, capital and ideas flow freely.
We just need to make sure that we are attracting our share of the global flow of people, capital and ideas.
Irrelevant discussion because … as long as we have 3 governments in Atlantic Canada to govern 2 million people, and we are in competition for business among ourselves for outside investments ….it’s hopeless.
As I have said before, one good Mayor could manage Atlantic Canada.
Otherwise…. your wasting your dreams on the present setup. LALA land to entice investments!