The teeny bopper movie that was so popular a few years ago called High School Musical featured a catchy song called “We’re all in this together”. This could be the theme song for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The chart…
Continue ReadingWhat the Mactaquac Dam says (or doesn’t say) about our view of the future
If you read the history of New Brunswick’s big electricity generation projects you will find they were meant to facilitate economic growth. Going back to the 1920s, the main rationale given for big public investment in power projects was to…
Continue ReadingWant to guess the fastest growing & biggest declining U.S. states & CDN provinces?
It may be a coincidence but it is an interesting one. Statistics Canada has a chart showing the six fastest growing U.S. states and Canadian provinces and the six slowest growing (actually declining) by population. Other than Nunavut, the five…
Continue ReadingNew Brunswick: A brain for the world? Pearls of Wisdom from Dr. Dhirendra Shukla
From a recent TJ column: If someone asked me to name the most entrepreneurial university in Canada (the one most supportive of business startups), my first thought would be the University of Waterloo. However, at the 2014 Startup Canada Awards…
Continue ReadingNew Brunswick played crucial role in the founding of Confederation!
Ged Martin, the chair of Canadian studies at Edinburgh University in Scotland, was in New Brunswick this week to stir the pot. He told a packed house (maybe not that packed) that New Brunswick was the main reason why the…
Continue ReadingWe need to talk about population
From a recent TJ column: Among folks who have time to debate these things, the legacy of former Premier Bernard Lord is highly contested. His supporters point to balanced budgets as well as moderate GDP and employment growth. They characterize…
Continue ReadingSelling the uncomplicated life
From a recent TJ column: I wrote last week about what my father-in-law calls the “uncomplicated life” New Brunswickers enjoy by choosing to live in this province. Many of the little things we do every day without complication can pose…
Continue ReadingEnlisting the young in the fight against lethargy and stagnation
From Dan Martell’s CrunchtimeNB initiative to Lisa Hrabluk’s Wicked Ideas (as in, she tells me, wicked smart), there has been a lot of focus on getting out the youth vote in this election. I love it. The more NBers engaged in…
Continue ReadingI didn’t want to write this, but I did (Warning: Fracking content ahead)
I read the article quoting the most popular Premier in Canada, Brad Wall, and his position on shale gas – or more specifically hydraulic fracturing as Saskatchewan is mostly using the technology to frack for oil in the Bakken –…
Continue ReadingAre we fracking Confederation?
Watching Joe Oliver’s response to the Nova Scotia fracking ban was painful. He paused after every word. He hummed and hawed. Presumably what he would like to say but can’t is that this issue could end up putting a whopping…
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