We have talked a lot on these pages about the importance of scale. The top 10 urban centres in Canada are home to nearly 80% of all net population growth across Canada. Talking to Rory Francis from the PEI BioAlliance…
Continue ReadingDo you know the way to Cap-Pelé?
Burt Bacharach wrote the famous and catchy tune “Do you know the way to San Jose?” (Millennials google it). This summer we should push for our own version here in New Brunswick: Do you know the way to Cap-Pelé? The…
Continue ReadingThe Great Cape Breton Experiment: If they come, will you be able to build it?
I know long time readers will be getting tired of my variations on the “if you build it, they will come” theme from the great baseball movie Field of Dreams but I still think this concept underlies a lot of…
Continue ReadingGrowing Pains podcast: Don Mills edition
I first heard Don Mills discussing public opinion in Atlantic Canada in the very early 1990s. His firm, from which he kind of retired in 2018, Corporate Research Associates, was a constant surveyor of public opinion in the region for…
Continue ReadingLet’s wait a little bit more before we throw over the global economic order
It’s amazing how quickly the four horsemen of the apocalypse have rode into town with the Covid-19 virus. They are quick to throw the whole global order under the bus and call for a new nationalism, closed borders, rebuilding local…
Continue ReadingWhat do we want from our universities in New Brunswick?
I hate to change the subject…. But after having reviewed 25 years of data on the university sector in Canada, I think it is probably time for New Brunswickers to start thinking about what they want from the university sector.…
Continue ReadingGrowing Pains: Episode #1 (last week was Episode #0)
We have a packed episode this week. We talk about about a recent article by the economist Richard Saillant where he provides his thoughts on COVID-19’s potential impact on the New Brunswick economy. I discuss what appear to be labour…
Continue ReadingWork and productivity in the time of Covid-19
I was talking with a business owner earlier this week who told me half his staff wanted to be laid off. Why not? They are worried about Covid-19. They see their friends and family all off work – many furloughed…
Continue ReadingIntroducing Growing Pains: A podcast focused on economic development in Atlantic Canada
When Matt George approached me about the potential of doing a weekly podcast I wasn’t particularly convinced. There are now thousands of podcasts out there – many of them pretty good – why would anyone want to spend 45 minutes…
Continue ReadingOptimizing economic development in a small jurisdiction such as New Brunswick
The editorial in the Telegraph-Journal this morning called for a complete dismantling of Opportunities New Brunswick. It’s probably a good time to think about what is the best model for economic development in a smaller province such as New Brunswick.…
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