Children of men
Take Francis Maguire, for example. He’s the preternaturally accomplished CEO of Moncton-based Major Drilling International Inc. But, when not overseeing the global ambitions of a multi-million-dollar-a-year mining services company, he’s honing one or more of his 91 recommendations to the New Brunswick government on long-term economic self-sufficiency.
Then, there’s Stephen Dempsey, last year’s chairman of the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce. When not managing his quotidian duties as CEO of the Greater Halifax Partnership, he’s immersed in a virtual labour of love (dubbed Atlantica) that seeks to establish stronger economic, industrial and social ties with New England and other U.S. states along the northeastern seaboard.
There are hundreds, even thousands, of men and women just like them who believe, now more than ever before, that tending to business-as-usual is no longer good enough in the rapidly evolving age of global trade, if only because the fortunes of individual companies no longer solely depend on entrepreneurial drive and innovative spirit. They depend, increasingly, on answers to reflective, imprecise and philosophical questions: In a region of three million people, who do we want to be in the world; where do we go from here; and how do we get there?
Adversity attends Atlantic Canada like a handmaiden. Our population is falling more rapidly than in any other part of the country. Outmigration from Newfoundland and Labrador, P.E.I., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick robs us of some of our most talented workers, professionals and thinkers. Our ability to retain the pathetically low number of educated immigrants we already host is compromised by an antiquated system of federal regulations that hobbles the credentialing process.
Meanwhile, our traditional resource-based industries – forestry, mining, fishing, agriculture – crumble beneath the twin boots of over-capacity and over-regulation. Our manufacturing industries languish before the almighty exchange rate with our nearest and dearest trading partner, the United States, with whom we do more 90 per cent of our annual business. Our beacons of technology and innovation – aerospace in P.E.I., information and communications in Moncton and Fredericton, oil and gas in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador – struggle for lack of venture capital, university commercialization, and institutional respect.
Then, of course, there is the federal government. Not long ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced increased funding designed to strengthen Canada’s shipbuilding industry and, in the same breath, a new trade deal with four European nations calculated to utterly destroy it. Within a week of this announcement, the PM broke his promise to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador over their offshore energy accords, and threatened to take them to court if they continued to complain.
Yes, down here, adversity is our constant companion. But is there anything we can learn from the relationship?
Jonathan Daniels, the CEO of the Eastern Maine Development Corporation, and the recently elected chairman of the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce (the first American to hold the post), thinks so. At last week’s 2007 Atlantica Conference in Halifax, he had this to say: “By working together, on the ground where it counts, we can rebuild. We can grow together. We can make the future together.”
Stephen Dempsey agreed. “I think we’re just beginning,” he told the crowd on the final day of the convention. “We started in this process more than a year ago. Now, we have many more opinions, and much more information from many different sources. . .I want to see Saint John and Halifax become the hubs of Atlantica. I’d say Moncton, too, but I haven’t really thought, or talked, about that.”
These are workmanlike attempts to answer the fundamental questions, and they are welcome. Still, the stakes are now too high for conference room conviviality and parlour room politics. Adversity on the East Coast has become gritty, determined and unforgiving. The young protest against the excesses of the old because they know (as we once did) that nothing changes without short, sharp jolts to the status quo.
After all, it’s the fire that tempers the steel of our character, and our determination not merely to do well, but to do good in our region, and the world.
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June 19th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Brilliant! Hands down. Thanks for this.
June 19th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Dude, I’d love to let this go but you always have one paragraph where I think ‘how can he beleive that?’ I’m talking about the ‘over regulation’ in forestry in mining. You have GOT to be kidding? Over regulation in mining? New Brunswick was elected the most business friendly mining jurisdiction in the hemisphere, and that beats countries like Columbia where guys with guns protect the mining interests (in NB they don’t even need guns). In forestry there are almost literally NO regulations and what few there are are beeing ‘enforced’ by the companies clearcutting the land to send the wood to quebec to be milled. If thats ‘overregulation’, I wonder what underregulation looks like.
But keep in mind that although painting Atlantica as one large group may work here, its not working south of hte border. More and more trade regulations are croopping up by the month. I’d be very interested to see what groups attended this conference because the last I checked the only american representives have been a place in eastern Maine, and one professor in Vermont who is pissed off because Vermont is so ‘anti business’, namely, they don’t actually let corporations dictate how everyone should live. I haven’t seen anything from anybody in New Hampshire.
This is why this bears closer scrutiny. New Brunswick and Newfoundland were losing population, now are gaining but marginally. If you look at PEI and Nova Scotia things aren’t nearly so bleak. As David recounts almost every month a new backoffice or research centre is cropping up there almost monthly. The population of both places is actively growing. In PEI they are successful in aerospace, are slowly buying out fisheries licenses, and their agricultural sector is very cutting edge which deals with market changes very quickly and proactively. Their energy platform is wind based and expanding. So the ‘status quo’ is far from dismal. Like Vermont the reality could very well be that people are ‘happy’ with it. But if you look at AIMS studies thats not good enough, so for example, in Vermont, where natural resources extend even to urban planning and new industry is regulated right down to the colour of their buildings, Vermonters haven’t voted to change any of that for forty years. It’s the only state that doesn’t have a Wal Mart in every hick town, and that drives SOME people absolutely crazy, like the one economics prof who publishes for AIMS and gripes because he has to shop at small boutiques or else drive 45 minutes to a Wal Mart.
Even in New Brunswick, people have to be careful not to jump on bandwagons. LIke I’ve said, the Saint John Board of Trade has been raving about how good the economy of Saint John is doing. Irvings oil exports are going through the roof, the vast majority of these people at Atlantica are doing great, in particular Macguire’s drilling company. So these people have FAR different ‘problems’ than most New Brunswickers. I don’t want to be missive, but that you are pointing out the main problems as over regulation and ‘archaic’ federal rules as being the big problems shows that this propaganda is working.
2% of the population, that’s 20,000 people, live in tenant housing and have no basic human rights. Hundreds just lost their jobs in Miramichi, what exactly would FEWER forestry regulations do for them?
That line is often preached though, ‘as long as we get more business friendly then business will come’. That’s not true at all. The issues that affect New Brunswickers, like not having enough doctors or medical research, has nothing to do with Atlantica. This is being SLOWLY rectified in a half assed way by teaming up with Dalhousie to create spots and a school for medical students. If you want to see ‘the culture of defeat’ this is a province whose government doesn’t even have the balls or brains to set up their own medical school. That may be too harsh, a partnership may be the best way to go, but that the province can’t or won’t set up and accredit their own medical school says a lot.
The other problem is the claim that an entire region lives in adversity. Is Irving suffereing? What about all those people who own the private strips of the rivers. New Brunswick’s richest 10% are the wealthiest 10% of all canadians. That’s almost 100,000 people who are richer than the richest of all the provinces. Is THAT adversity? Has ANYBODY at Atlantica even MENTIONED that? No, their idea is that if New Brunswickers make sacrifices and buckle down in their adversity then as they get richer, so will the province. That ‘trickle down’ theory was disproved long ago.
I’m glad you are talking about it, but you are talking about it from the wrong end. Is NB going to benefit from changing federal regulations to recognize foreign credentials? I doubt it, you can go count but I suspect there are very few chinese and indian doctors driving cabs. Why New Brunswick is suffereing is because many of the people are suffering. At my blog I started going through the national pollutant database and was amazed, not because saint John is so pollutted, but because if it weren’t for a few standout industries which are dying, the maritimes VERY easily could be the ‘knowledge centre’. That’s because with the minimal manufacturing the province is FAR FAR FAR less polluted than any other part of the country. The environment is a big thing nowadays, living is a ‘pollution free zone’ is a real plus for getting knowledge based workers who are smart enough to not want to live in cities that will slowly kill them.
That definitely WONT happen if ‘atlantica’ goes through with trucking initiatives, more coal burning and another refinery. Saint John, the pulp mills, and Belledune and Coleson Cove are still the polluting standouts. IF there were policies to phase them out and mitigate their effects then the province would at least have a real edge over just about every other place on the continent. Manitoba has only about a quarter higher population, yet churns out six times more pollution.
Whew, OK, that was quite a rant I admit. Just so I don’t sound like a complete malcontent thinking that the world is ending, I’m trying to get that stuff into a documentary that at least can be put on youtube and other free places. You can check out my website where we are looking at other alternatives, namely ones that have to do with PEOPLE.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Cool! Love the rant, as usual. And I’ll check out the website.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Great post as usual, Alec! I can’t believe you can actually keep up this extremely [positive] writing pace? You truly must be immune to the entrenched attitude around you or maybe, just maybe, you’re a practicing stoic?
June 21st, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Taxpayer. . .thanks for the support! Still, I come from a long line of malcontents. Nobody in my family ever shuts up about anything. And you ain’t heard nothing till you cross one of my 20-something, brilliant, beautiful daughters on a matter of principle, purpose, ethics, or fact. Now that, my friend, can bruise a tough man’s heart! Everything else is just welcome opinion. And the way things are going in our democracy, the more opinions, the merrier. Drink up, for tomorrow we die! ha ha