It’s been a week of education for me. Over the past seven days I must have talked to a couple of dozen people offering insight into a wide variety of economic development and related topics such as: LJR’s bringing in…
Continue ReadingSingle regulator not the point in New Brunswick
Pierre Lortie made a compelling case yesterday in Fredericton to keep the current system of provincial regulators and not move to a single national securities regulator as advocated by the current federal finance minister. The room was packed with people…
Continue ReadingIs small beautiful?
My column today is on using our size as an advantage. There are two schools of thought on this. One, small jurisdictions can’t really compete with large ones at any level so unless you strike oil, just accept your destiny. …
Continue ReadingA new tactic
My old friend Peter Lindfield has a new tactic to tray and get people interested in economic development. In his column today, he talks about how we need to be more globally connected and touches on the issue of the…
Continue ReadingIn defence of the Irish miracle
A number of people have insinuated that the problems in Ireland have something to do with the large scale foreign direct investment that has poured into that country over the past 25 years. The Irish miracle was driven by the…
Continue ReadingAre we being taxed into poverty?
About the only way to get attention as a new political party is to make bold statements or do something else to get people to look your way. This is the case with the People’s Alliance column this am where…
Continue ReadingA Shermanesque government
For some reason the new Tory government feels the need to be Shermanesque in its pronouncements. We have “no raising of the HST”, “no closing of hospitals” and a round of other absolutes that either restricts their ability to make…
Continue ReadingPhysician heal thy system
My column this morning is on health care. I don’t pretend to be an expert in health care economics but I have studied the data in fair detail and was involved in the preparation of two health care regional strategic…
Continue ReadingGood Will Hunting
I see that Premier Alward has a 61% approval rating among those with an opinion in the latest opinion poll. There is a lot of good will for the Conservatives right now but we don’t need to go back to…
Continue ReadingMore on future generations
My column on Saturday mused about this idea of doing something for future generations. At the Future NB summit several speakers told us we need to fix our current challenges for our grandkids. I stated that in 1971 there were…
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