I had a great conversation with an engineer in Freddy Beach last week and we talked about why the Capital City has a higher concentration of engineers than any other city in Canada (with at least 25k population). I was…
Continue ReadingFacing competitive realities
One of my core themes is that New Brunswick should be attracting more investment from national and multinational firms. In my opinion, a core reason for our economic under-performance for generations has been this structural deficit – the capital flow…
Continue ReadingLearning from the tree advocates
I am not sure if you are following the tree controversy in Moncton but a developer tried to cut down nine grand old trees on a heritage property site and before he could get many cut down, his property was…
Continue ReadingBleeding the patient is not the solution
In light of the NWT effort to attract New Brunswickwers to the high wage jobs in that part of Canada, I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone that encouraging out-migration is not the answer to our…
Continue ReadingQuebec luring video game jobs from U.S.
The key point in this article is the 37.5% of payroll costs – refundable tax credit for video game companies. It certainly has been effective with 86 companies and 8,400 jobs created but it cost the Quebec government $100…
Continue ReadingAdvice for the young and the restless
Man, it just seems like yesterday we were debating about the spoiled Millennials and how that they were the first generation in memory that hadn’t experienced the impacts of a recession or depression. That was 2006-2007. At that time…
Continue ReadingOn boomers and NB economic development
Just a few more comments on my column on Saturday challenging boomers. The truth is that we know desperation is a powerful motivator – in our personal lives, in our businesses and in our communities. If the roof is…
Continue ReadingSolving the Yankee Economic Crisis
How’s that for a whopper on a Saturday morning? I have been thinking about this and it is a classic Gordian Knot. The tax/spend balance is out of whack and there is very limited political will to seriously tackle the…
Continue ReadingThe baffling statistics around call centre employment
Once in a while you come across a statistic that is so mind boggling your first thought is that it must be an error in the data. I was look at the business support services sector employment data in New…
Continue ReadingAre we heading towards another recession?
It seemed to me the news yesterday that Canada’s GDP declined in the latest quarter was met with a yawn. One more quarter of negative growth and it is called a recession – or in this case a double dip…
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