It’s kind of funny but sooner or later things that seem to make sense to a few people make no sense to others. Take the telephone. When NBTel started to make serious inroads into offering home telephone services 70 years…
Continue ReadingWhy NB will never boom or some such rot
Ok. In a nutshell here is the core reason why New Brunswick’s will never boom without a fundamental shift in think on economic development. Consider what New Brunswick’s Premier has lobbied Ottawa for in recent years:1. Money for Lepreau2. Money…
Continue ReadingNova Scotia taking risks
As you know, my preoccupation involves the attraction of foreign investment to Atlantic Canada. My preference is for large, well-established multinational firms that are well-capitalized and have solid revenue and profit streams. But not always firms with these characteristics can…
Continue ReadingWho’s advising Nebraska?
It looks as if Nebraska has New Brunswick’s disease of conflicting signals in economic development. The Governor of Nebraska unveiled last week a new economic development plan with tax incentives for growing small businesses. He stated: “When I became governor,…
Continue ReadingOn taxes and economic development
David Murrell, economics professor at the University of New Brunswick, said last week in the Telegraph-Journal that tax incentives should be used to attract new companies and investments. I am not opposed to this but I have a few what…
Continue ReadingHousing market reveals weak economy
I shouldn’t be talking about housing prices after just buying an old house in downtown Moncton but Statistics Canada doesn’t consult me on their release dates for new stats. Last wee, StatsCan published its new housing price index for major…
Continue ReadingEducation and economic development
Here we go again. The executive director for the Association of Atlantic Universities wrote a guest commentary in the Telegraph-Journal this week pleading with government “to make post-secondary education the top public policy priority”. He continues: a major funding commitment…
Continue ReadingLepreau – an economic decision
I have taken a lot of heat over my stand on the closure of the Lepreau nuclear power generating facility so I’ll clarify my position once more. I believe that governments should not be the in the business of subsidizing…
Continue ReadingBack from vacation
I am just getting back from a ten day vacation and a, what turned out to be, exhaustive move downtown in Moncton. If I had Internet access this week, here are some of the stories I most likely would have…
Continue ReadingAIP leads to FDI?
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) just launched the Atlantic Investment Partnership – The Second Wave, a new five-year … $708-million initiative to support economic development throughout Atlantic Canada. There is some wording here about attracting foreign investment but I…
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