This is interesting. The City of Toronto Act proclaimed Monday provides Canada’s largest city with broad new powers and significant new legislative freedoms. The act grants a wide range of new powers, including the ability to regulate store openings on…
Continue ReadingLooking for a few good (non-gender specific) men
I posted a blog a few weeks ago postulating that in front of every good economic development program you will have politicians and behind it you will have a few good civil servants. I got some blowback for this position…
Continue ReadingAnother $47.5M Fed investment in Quebec
Doesn’t it seem to you that there’s a $50M Federal economic development investment in Quebec or Ontario announced every week? The latest is $47.5 million from the Feds in a $1-billion residential and commercial development at the Mont-Tremblant, Que. ski…
Continue ReadingConsiderations for 2007
Here we go again. Another year. For economic development watchers/practitioners, 2006 was another interesting year – but not a lot of it was positive. Here are my picks for the good, bad and ugly of 2006 (relative to economic development…
Continue ReadingRead this one carefully
Read this article about Team Pennyslvania – an initiative that I think has been quite successful at attracting industry to that state. Notice the name of the writer. She is the CEO of a local firm in Pennsylvania. Let that…
Continue ReadingN.B.’s population woes are expected to worsen
The Daily Gleaner ran a story yesterday on the population decline in New Brunswick. Campbell Morrison takes a balanced look at the issue. Statistics Canada predicts the decline could mean the province would be home to as few as 708,000…
Continue ReadingLike the proverbial dog with a bone
I like the CBC. Some of the best, if not the best, reporters in New Brunswick are employed by the public broadcaster. But I’ll say this. If Robert Jones got a bee in his bonnet about the root causes of…
Continue ReadingPropping up rural communities in Atl. Canada
Another article in a western Canadian paper educating westerners about the excessive federal funds sent to Atlantic Canada to prop up rural communities. This is from the Victoria Times Colonist: Government programs aimed at helping rural areas can easily go…
Continue ReadingGroan
Premier Graham is setting up a task force to make recommendations on how the province can become self-sufficient. Why I titled this post ‘groan’ is the last paragraph in the article: While Graham said he’s open to new ideas, taxation…
Continue ReadingIdaho?
I have an admission to make. Over the past couple of years, I have been buying up old time music CDs. Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, etc. As if I wasn’t boring enough, now I…
Continue Reading