The TJ is running a drooling editorial today about New Brunswick’s business moguls. The piece starts out with: The nineteenth century is often referred to as New Brunswick’s golden age. But the twentieth century was the age of New Brunswick’s…
Continue ReadingThe Bank of……
Got a chance to visit the Fort Beausejour today for the first time. It is doubly interesting to me because of its historical significance in an abstract sense (as an important historical reference point) and its foundational implications for the…
Continue ReadingPost secondary commission thoughts
My comments on the new Post Secondary Commission recommendations. What I got right: Mount Allison and St. Thomas – untouched – in fact the report calls for more funding for St. Thomas. A pile of new dough recommended for the…
Continue ReadingListen closely. You will hear it.
The four horsemen of the vested interests. They are coming on strong around this issue of “post-secondary education reform”. This is a great example of how things don’t get done in New Brunswick. Anything remotely controversial like consolidating LSDs, reforming…
Continue ReadingBlogging from Freddy Beach
I’m in Fredericton today for a couple of meetings. I have a few minutes so I’ll serve up a quick blog with my Starbuck’s coffee. I spent most of my childhood in Fredericton. More specifically, Lincoln just outside of Freddy.…
Continue ReadingVolpeian logic redux
New 2006 Census data out today. Not much to report – just stuff about family structures. However, there is one chart that I found interesting. New Brunswick had the second fastest decline in the number of couple households with children.…
Continue ReadingNSBI – A Good Model
Some of you might accuse me of a conflict of interest because I have done some consulting work with NSBI. Fair enough but I have worked with over 30 different economic development agencies and studied numerous more. And I believe…
Continue ReadingIf you can’t beat ’em, join ’em
In my discussions with local economic development folks, inevitably many will bemoan the rise of the ‘offshore’ and how India is taking away call centre jobs and China is taking away manufacturing jobs and ultimately the question is asked “how…
Continue ReadingRandom stat
Everyone likes a random statistic or two. Here’s one. New Brunswick has now had 16 straight years of net out-migration (more moving out than in). Before that, the longest stretch of net out-migration was the nine year period between 1962-1971…
Continue ReadingAnd the band plays on
I got quite a bit of feedback – some posted publicly and others not – on the future of this blog. I have to admit I am losing some interest in the blog – not the subject matter – but…
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