Let me say right up front that Michael Tutton’s Canadian Press article on BNB’s bad loans was an important contribution. I have said that governments should be ultra-transparent about economic development spending. Instead of waiting for intrepid journalists to find…
Continue ReadingHaan’s new data on the Census
Dr. Michael Haan has been cranking out new data on the Census. He sent me the following charts. The first two are from the 2006 Census (the 2011 data on this will not be out for months).…
Continue ReadingBlink: The power of snap judgements
Someone tweeted today that New Brunswick was named world’s best place for mining and – in a split second – I groaned. That’s the world we live in. If the province was named the best place for IT or finance…
Continue ReadingThe Higgs doctrine
This MRI controversy in Saint John is a small but instructive example of what is coming. I guess people have short memories so I will point out again that McKenna kept program expenditure growth at an average of 1 percent…
Continue ReadingImmigration distribution in Canada is rapidly changing
It is pretty impressive the change in the destination of immigrants in the past few years. From 1991 to 2006, Ontario attracted 54.5 percent of all immigrants into Canada (using Census data). In the most recent year that is down…
Continue ReadingWhat happened in the 1950?
I have been thinking and reading about this for many months and I just think something happened in New Brunswick after WW2 and early into the 1950s that was very interesting. Peter Lindfield reminded me of this in his TJ…
Continue ReadingThe silence of the lambs
I’m probably breaking a dozen copyright laws but I thought this article in the Sackville Tribune was worth the risk. The author is Bonnie Swift, the director of economic development at the town of Sackville. In the footnote, you will see…
Continue ReadingBullish on Ontario
Ontario, it’s kind of fun to watch the drama unfolding in our largest province. I have been listening to The Agenda coverage of the Drummond report. It’s an existential crisis! I’ve said it here before, Ontario is an economic powerhouse.…
Continue ReadingThe new, closer urban/rural divide
A number of folks have written about this after seeing the new 2011 numbers. Unlike some, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking and studying the issue of the new, closer rural/urban divide. I was a strong supporter…
Continue ReadingNatural resources and economic development – towards a better framework
I recently collaborated on a paper for the Atlantica Centre for Energy. A highly critical commentary in the TJ today suggested that I authored the report. This might be another debate about semantics but I helped write this report but…
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