The Bruce Report

Early last month, to the delight of those who dream of a coherent economic trade zone between Canada’s East Coast and New England, Irving Oil announced that by early next decade it will double its refining capacity, triple its workforce and, in the process, inject vast sums of private capital into the cross-border economy.

The news was covered with predictable enthusiasm by every major print and broadcast outlet in New Brunswick, some stretching the limits of credulity by predicting that the massive expansion will generate as much as $17 billion in tangentially related commercial benefits for Saint John, the province, and all international environs to the southeast. It won’t, but that’s not the point.

What is, is that on the day of the Irving announcement, Panama confirmed its determination to proceed with the largest modernization in the 92-year history of its famous canal. According to an Associated Press report, “The Panama Canal Authority, says that the project will double capacity of the waterway already on pace to generate about $1.4 billion [USD] this year. The expansion will be paid for by increasing tolls and take in more than $6 billion annually in revenue by 2025.”

All of which might well leave Atlantic Canada’s “brave-new-worlders” genuinely bewildered about the shape of their always uncertain future. Irving Oil? The Panama Canal? What does it all mean?

Over the years, hardcore “Atlanticans” have defined themselves against the Canadian type, if not exactly common sense. They have resisted the notion that Confederation, 139 years ago, has done anything except steal their economic birthrights. And they have agitated for freer cross-border commercial conventions (in fact, the wholesale elimination of inter-provincial and inter-state trade, labour mobility, and transportation barriers) between Canada and the United Stares, east of the Hudson River. Throughout, they have justified their demands by insisting that the so-called “logic of geography” calls for a renaissance of robust, north-south mercantile relationships up and down the Atlantic seaboard, irrespective of pesky things like national sovereignty, armed custom’s guards, and CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

Oddly, the one pragmatic argument for moving the regional agenda forward has always been Panama’s inability to accommodate the world’s oversized supertankers and container ships. As long as this route stayed off the cutting edge of global shipping corridors, the argument went, the more likely it was that burgeoning Chinese and Indian markets would move their wares through the Suez and directly into the post-Panamax ports of Halifax and Saint John. This, in turn, would inspire a transportation building boom the likes of which haven’t been seen since the golden age of sail.

Except, of course, the world no longer works this way (if it ever did).

Once completed, at a cost of $5.25 billion, the new Panama Canal will ferry giant ships to all the eastern North American ports that Atlanticans cherish – an inevitability that will expand seaport traffic exponentially in these areas if, and only if, the ports and inter-modal connections here are equipped to receive and process the extraordinary volumes involved.

Once completed, at a cost of $7 billion, the new Irving Oil facilities will generate thousands of jobs, and hundreds of business start-ups, locations and expansions – again, if and only if, it catalyzes a fresh spirit of economic development among Atlanticans more interested in developing high-technology, export-oriented industrial clusters than nursing ancient political grudges.

In other words, Panama’s rebuild is no more detrimental to Atlantica than Irving Oil’s expansion is beneficial. Both will proceed according to the stiff, unyielding rules that guide the richest, most entitled, and most courageous in the world to achieve what others believe is simply impossible. And they will do it not for your benefit, or mine, but for their own, simply because they can.

Atlantica: Grow up, get real, and get out of your own way. The world is now waiting to see, not hear, your version of economic coherence. Demonstrate that you know what needs to be done to improve regional conditions for precision manufacturing start-ups, access to healthy pools of equity capital, expanded transportation infrastructure, and a new generation of nimble, export-oriented small- and medium-sized businesses.

Demonstrate, or shut up.

Peering down from 200 kilometres above the earth, Atlantica emerges only at night when darkness defines its boundaries more clearly than daylight ever could.

From this satellite vantage, North America is a lattice of electricity, testifying to the ceaseless march of trade and commerce everywhere between the 20^th and 50^th Parallels. Everywhere, that is, except in one small, far-easterly corner, which sits in blackness as if someone had forgotten to flip a switch.

Atlantica – the cross-border region that comprises the three Maritime provinces, Newfoundland and eastern Labrador, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, northern Massachusetts, and upstate New York – has been, for a generation or more, NAFTA’s lonely orphan relegated to the dim back room of state-sponsored charity. It has survived, if not thrived, at the pleasure of the continent’s more robust economies.

But things are beginning to change. Global trade winds are shifting. Business leaders in New England and Atlantic Canada are pooling their resources and forging strategic commercial alliances as never before. State and provincial governments are starting to heed the call for better, more coordinated action in the interests of regional economic coherence along the East Coast. The question is why, or rather why now?

For 150 years prior to Canadian Confederation, the Atlantic region and New England enjoyed the closest and most profitable mercantile relationship in the New World. Their lucrative north-south trade built the financial, academic, industrial and professional institutions required for, among other things, manifest destiny.

The west’s gain, of course, was the northeast’s loss on both sides of the international border. The ascendance of the Saint Lawrence Seaway and national railway systems to the Pacific coast accelerated the concentration of wealth and political leverage in the interior centres of Montreal, Toronto, Detroit and Chicago, which in turn depended on the elevated importance of the Port of New York as the continent’s chief entrepot for European trade.

What’s changed is North America’s position in the world. Once the predominant producers and consumers of manufactured goods, services and raw materials, the United States, Canada and, to some extent, Mexico, now collectively resemble a large, lucrative island in a global supply chain increasingly governed by the emerging economic powerhouses of China, India and southeast Asia.

And powerhouses, they most certainly are. China, alone, will post annual double-digit GDP growth by the end of the decade, rendering it the most productive (if not quite richest) nation in recorded history. Its workforce (as poor as it is) dwarfs the available pool of labour anywhere else on earth. Its autocratic system of government virtually guarantees the success of its program of centralized industrial planning, at least for now. Beyond this, the nation’s financiers and banks already hold more than $650 billion worth of U.S. debt. And that’s on track to rise to $2 trillion before 2010.

All of which presents an extraordinary opportunity to the long-neglected Atlantica – an opportunity that’s not lost on the growing legion of men and women committed to building long-term prosperity for this corner of the world in a complex and competitive global marketplace. As a good friend of mine who made his fortune almost exclusively on the north-south trade route recently told me, “The rejuvenation of our conjoined region depends almost entirely on presenting a common face to the rest of the planet, regardless of our respective nationalities. We are a gateway in waiting, a gateway to North America. That’s the real opportunity.”

Still, by embracing this opportunity other questions arise. How do we position ourselves as a truly effective gateway for the new foreign trade? What must we do as a cross-border community to ensure that the necessary transportation infrastructure is installed and maintained? How do we navigate the complex web of local, state-provincial, and federal regulations governing the movement of goods, services and people in the post 9-11 era? How do we preserve our traditions of jurisprudence, social responsibility and community economic development when raw, commercial lures demand capitulation to the almighty dollar?

These are the questions we need to address. They are hard questions with no easy answers, but understanding our current challenges spurs us to craft our own future. It will be up to us to determine whether that future will be bathed in light or darkness.

It was cold and wet and tempers were sometimes as foul as the weather, but in Saint John last weekend the first industry conference convened to examine the concept of Atlantica achieved at least one of its purposes: brand recognition.

As widely reported in newspapers and magazines across the Atlantic Provinces – presumably to the bemusement of labour representatives, student radicals and social activists who gathered to protest the proceedings at the city’s Trade and Convention Centre – no children were sold into slavery, no territories were expropriated by the robber barons of free enterprise, and no rights of man were sacrificed to the gods of global commerce.

It was enough for the 400-odd delegates from New England and Atlantic Canada, who attended the “Reaching Atlantica” shindig, to wrap their frazzled imaginations around the problem of getting a road built between Saint John and upstate New York. That, and myriad other distinctly prosaic challenges to cross-border regional competitiveness, dominated two full days of discussions.

There were keynote speeches and presentations on global trading patterns, inter-provincial barriers to commerce and labour mobility, logistical shipping networks, port performance, enterprise corridors, and back-haul export opportunities to the Far East.

There were working sessions on energy, transportation and tourism, calls for greater and better cooperation between New England and Atlantic Canadian economic development professionals and industry organizations, and requests for smoother intergovernmental relations between Canada and the U.S. in the areas of commercial regulation, shipping and shared transportation infrastructure.

All of which is to say that “Reaching Atlantica” achieved its other great purpose: To frame the tough conditions that affect the cross-border region’s economic coherence in a world where the concentration of wealth is inexorably shifting to the burgeoning markets of the Asian Tiger.

But, of course, now what?

“We are not a natural economic region,” declared Stephen Blank, a professor of international business at Pace University in New York, in a speech to delegates during the wrap-up session. “We’d better get that out of our heads. There is nothing natural about this, particularly in thinking that it’s inevitable. If there is going to be an Atlantica, you are going to have to make it.”

Jonathan Daniels, president and CEO of the Eastern Maine Development Corporation, seemed to agree: “June 12 is the scariest day for me in that we are coming out the other end of this conference and really setting the stage and the foundation for what can be done. It’s up to all of us who are involved, who share this vision, to make it work. We’ve been talking about it a long time. Now that we have a clear vision, the question is: How do we establish that vision. How do we establish Atlantica as a viable region?”

Allow me to offer a couple of suggestions. 

Atlantica now needs respected political champions on both sides of the border; elected representatives who can help liberalize trade between states and provinces, and build new transportation infrastructure that directly connects the cross-border region to the Mexico City-Montreal NAFTA corridor.

Just as important is communicating with those Canadians and Americans who continue to believe that Atlantica, at some level, threatens their economic viability and political sovereignty.

Most of the people who assembled to protest the conference last weekend did not spend money and time they could ill afford merely to secure a bully pulpit for themselves. They were – and remain – genuinely concerned about their futures.

In the vacuum of facts prepared by well-organized groups such as Maude Barlow’s Council of Canadians, adherents of Atlantica not only have an opportunity, but a responsibility, to set the record straight for those who, however misguided, mistrust their intentions. 

That, it seems to me, is the only brand recognition that now matters as we conjure our future together.

In that dark, dirty corner of the universe known as Saint John, New Brunswick, the minions of the Apocalypse are gathering this week to sink their platinum-plated incisors into the quivering flesh of the body politic.

They come as famished predators to feed at the foot of the blood-soaked altar to their god Atlantica, or less specifically to attend the conference “Reaching Atlantica: Business Without Boundaries”.

According to the Legion of Light, also known as Maude Barlow’s Council of Canadians now urging right-thinking citizens to stay away from the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre between June 8 and 10, these fiends are rich beyond accounting, powerful beyond measure and rapacious beyond reckoning. They are the elite of the destroyer class – commercial vampires, industrial cannibals, political ghouls – and they are here to render your future as black and hopeless as their own hearts.

Actually, I caught up with one of them the other morning at the delightful Café Cognito in downtown Moncton. “Hey Lucifer,” I ventured, “How’s planning for the End of Times coming along? Got your hotel room yet?”

“You are so not going to believe this,” he grinned, flashing his fangs between sips of Sumatra dark roast, “but I scored a major upgrade. They misplaced my reservation, so I got one of the presidential suites.”

“You lucky devil.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. . .So am I going to see you there? I’m thinking about laying on an orgy of fried Polar Bear. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Hah. . .Isn’t that the point?”

Meanwhile, the Legion of Light, fearing that the faithful will be co-opted by such heretical Atlantican debaucheries as discussions about “Energy in North America”, “Major Energy Projects”, “Attracting Regional Energy Investments”, “The Foundation of Tourism Growth”, and “Competitiveness for the Region”, wants you to attend its own town meeting, “Resisting Atlantica – Reclaiming Democracy”.

There, apparently, you will hear why it makes sense to oppose something about which you know nothing. There you will be instructed that your ignorance is, in this case, virtuous since the facts you are likely to absorb from the Atlanticans are geared to impoverish you. There you will be told the following, according to vivelecanada.ca:

“Reaching Atlantica is not an inclusive conference. Reaching Atlantica is driven by corporate interests. Reaching Atlantica threatens the ability of governments to effectively represent their citizens. Reaching Atlantica promotes economic integration into [sic] the United States. Reaching Atlantica promotes political integration into [sic] the United States. Reaching Atlantica threatens the rights of workers.”

Now that’s what I call a reach.

Nothing about Atlantic Canada is now inclusive. We treat our immigrants as second-class citizens, forcing even the highly educated among them to seek greener pastures within scant years, even months, of their arrival here. We tell our kids, with nauseating regularity, that they should leave their homes and friends because we’re either too stupid or lazy to provide the economic opportunities they need to survive and thrive here. 

At the same time, no part of this region of the country is devoid of big corporate and government interests. For good or ill, the theatrical dance between the two have kept thousands of people employed in jobs that simply would not have existed without public-private sector collaboration. If there is a better path, it surely lies in the direction of expanded foreign investment, which builds capacity for commercial innovation and export performance.

Beyond this, if Atlantica promotes economic integration with the United States, at least I want to know how. If it advocates political integration, I want to know why. And I won’t understand any of this by ducking the devil; I will only understand by parking my prejudices at the door in order to explore. I will explore later this week when I attend both the Atlantica and ‘anti-Atlantica’ conferences.

In the belly of the beast, I will keep an open mind. I will fear no evil.

Though it does not in fact exist, at least on any map, ‘Atlantica’ is provoking some of the most passionate debate in many years on the future of the regional economy.

As assorted business leaders, politicians and economists prepare for next month’s Business without Boundaries conference in Saint John, a somewhat tighter affiliation of unionists, students and social activists are planning a counter-offensive that may involve protests and at least one stump speech by well-known friend of the everyman Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians.

Writing in [here] magazine last week, commentator Chris Arsenault tidily summed up their – and his own – feelings on the subject by raising the specter of mid-20^th-century totalitarianism. “Italian dictator Benito Mussolini once remarked, ‘Fascism should more accurately be called corporatism as it is the merger of state and corporate power’. If Atlantica becomes reality, we may see Mussolini’s dream waking up in our own backyard.”

As amusing as it is to imagine Brian Lee Crowley, the Halifax-based CEO of the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies and one of Atlantica’s leading proponents, jumping around Citadel Hill in brown shirt and jack boots, what he and his confreres are actually talking about is less a state, than a state of mind; and a sensible, if not a particularly revolutionary, one.

“This is all about moving towards greater economic coherence between Atlantic Canada and our nearest neighbours and trading partners in New England and parts of New York,” he says. “We already enjoy good and extensive relationships with the U.S. northeast. Atlantica addresses the need to work together to overcome international and inter-provincial barriers that continue to compromise these relationships.”

In reality, Atlantica derives whatever persuasive force it has from history, not malign dystopian intent. Go back to Confederation for examples of decisions by our own political leaders that have had a lingering and devastating impact on the economies of the Atlantic Provinces. Consider Sir John A. Macdonald’s National Policy, which imposed tariffs that undermined the integrity of existing trade between the region and the United States. Consider the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which supported central Canadian ambitions at the expense of major Maritime ports.

“You can’t really understand any of this without first understanding the past,” says Tim Woodcock, a lawyer, former mayor of Bangor, and Crowley’s closest U.S. counterpart on the Atlantica bandwagon. “Prior to Canadian Confederation, the eastern seaboard of our continent was a powerful, cohesive economic zone, selling its wares to America, the Caribbean, Britain, Europe, Africa and Asia. Goods and services moved in a straight line, up and down the eastern seaboard for departure to points west and east. It was simply the logic of geography.”

Even the most ardent ‘Atlanticans’ stop short of agitating for some sort of quasi-political union between the two international components. But that doesn’t stop them from pondering its borderless dimensions. Home to 43 million people, representing $1.43 trillion in gross domestic product (USD), if it were a nation Atlantica would boast the fourth-largest economy in the world, ahead of Germany, and just behind the rest of the United States.

In the end, though, the Atlantica agenda is preoccupied with the hard, mundane work of facilitating trade and cross border business relationships, which currently generate billions of dollars in revenue a year, one boundary-busting effort at a time. Success is measured incrementally in dollars and cents earned, not ideologically in hearts and minds won.

Recently, for example, the Eastern Maine Development Corporation and Enterprise Saint John helped negotiate significant upgrades and improvements to the border crossing at Calais/St. Stephen. Last year’s U.S. Federal Highway Transportation Reauthorization Bill provided approximately $7 million (USD) to the effort, and another $50 million for a brand new, state-of-the-art facility.

It’s hardly the stuff of social upheaval. But it’s important. And so is the debate Atlantica has inspired about the shape of things to come in this part of the world. At least we’re thinking about the future, though I’m certain Il Duce would not admire our progress.

When Mario Theriault talks about the future, as he often does, he conjures a horn of plenty: an Atlantic Canada where borders between provinces and U.S. states as far south as New York are mere lines on a map; a continental region of such sublime economic coherence that political jealousies and agendas fall daily to the juggernaut of commerce and common sense. Of course, that’s his job. As the founder and C.E.O. of Moncton-based ShiftCentral, a research firm that assembles cutting-edge competitive intelligence for clients in government, industry, and the institutional sector, spinning the delicate threads of possibility into the golden weave of opportunity is just another day at the office. And, frankly, he wouldn’t have it any other way. “We’ve long moved past the point of just fantasizing about the future,” he says. “We now have measurable results that are helping us make all of this real.”

To be precise, “this” is Atlantica – that colourful invocation which, until recently, has been the nearly exclusive property of economic historians, developers and assorted firebrands on both sides of the farthest eastern reaches of the Canadian-U.S. border. “It’s no longer a dream,” Theriault insists. “It’s the past, the present and the future. It exists in tangible, dollars-and-cents ways. Atlantica means prosperity, and lots of it, if we can learn how to nurture it.”

ShiftCentral may well be a case in point. Established six years ago, the company has since become one of the most successful and influential firms of its kind in Canada. Theriault’s moves into Maine and Massachusetts, where he serves clients at both university and municipal government levels, have been instrumental to this growth. Now, with offices and strategic partnerships in Portland, Boston and New York, he is convinced that the future of his company depends, in large part, on the efficacy of his cross-border business relationships. “There really is no disconnect between Atlantic Canada and New England,” he says. “In practical terms, we’re all part of the same economic region.”

He’s far from alone in believing this. Over the past few years, hundreds of Atlantic Canadians have stretched their corporate hands across the border into Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York seeking, and finding, willing partners to fulfill their international ambitions. Too numerous to list comprehensively, their numbers include both the mighty and the humble in the regional business pantheon: Irving Oil, McCain Foods, Corporate Communications Ltd., Bristol Group, Emira, Aliant, Nanoptix, DeltaWare, Sensor Wireless, to name just a few.

Again, their logic appears unassailable. Atlantica – incorporating the four Atlantic provinces, southeastern Quebec, northeastern New England, and up-state New York – is home to 43 million people, representing $1.43 trillion in gross domestic product (USD). If it were a nation, it would boast the fourth-largest economy in the world, ahead of Germany, and just behind the rest of the United States. That it isn’t, in fact, a nation, but only a sensible expression of commercial pragmatism between two peoples who, on any given day, share more in common with each other than they do with the other far-flung citizens of their respective countries is, paradoxically, an argument for its existence.

Despite official wrangling between Ottawa and Washington over softwood lumber, border security and currency valuations, trade between the Atlantic Provinces and the northeastern United States is growing. According to the latest-available numbers from Statistics Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I., and Newfoundland and Labrador collectively shipped more than $1.84 billion (CDN) worth of finished goods to New England this past February, compared with less than $1.75 billion during the year-earlier month. U.S. northeast imports to this region were comparable in both scale and increase over the same period.

Meanwhile, cross-border alliances between like-minded business organizations have sprung up as counterweights against bi-lateral indifference, or even intransigence, to ‘Atlantican’ aims and objectives. The Bangor-based Eastern Maine Development Corporation (EMDC) and Enterprise Saint John, for example, have been working closely  to develop a truly efficient overland trade corridor between their two “sister” cities. Similarly, the Greater Halifax Partnership, again collaborating with the EMDC, has successfully negotiated the first pre-clearance agreement for the Halifax International Airport (a move that will speed the flow of goods and people between these two East Coast ports of call).

In every way, then, Atlantica not only persists; it flourishes. Still, a nagging question remains: How does this brave, even noble, groundswell rise from here? Specifically, what future does it promise for Atlantic businesses in communities inconveniently located off the main thoroughfares of burgeoning north-south trade – places like Bathurst and Miramichi, N.B.; Summerside and Charlottetown, P.E.I.; Port Hawkesbury and Sydney, N.S; and St. John’s and Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador?

Elizabeth Beale, President and C.E.O. of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Economic Council, raises an even more troubling point. “Looking outside the Atlantic Canadian region for long-term economic opportunities and linkages is obviously important,” she says. “But, the fact is we still aren’t doing enough to remove the barriers we already have. Right now, we endure inter-provincial obstacles at enormous and intricate levels. We have barriers against supply management in agriculture, barriers that restrict the hiring of skilled workers across provincial borders thanks to provisions of offshore oil accords. And there are many, many others. Under the circumstances, I’m not sure how much sense there is in talking about Atlantica without factoring in these very real and current issues.”

The point is well taken even by those who fundamentally believe that a rising tide raises all ships. Tim Woodcock may be Atlantica’s leading thinker. He is certainly its most articulate exponent. Born, raised and educated in Maine, he is a former mayor of Bangor, a one-time congressional candidate, a lawyer, and a devoted historian of all things related to the east coast of North America. “You can’t really understand Atlantica without first understanding the past,” he says. “Prior to Canadian Confederation, the eastern seaboard of our continent was a powerful, cohesive economic zone, selling its wares to the U.S., the Caribbean, Britain, Europe, Africa and Asia. Goods and services moved in a straight line, up and down the eastern seaboard for departure to points west and east. It was simply the logic of geography.”

Within this context, he concedes, there are problems with the current model. History and politics have made an over-regulated jungle of what was once a single, seamless trading region. He does not necessarily agree, however, that the mere existence of barriers between states, provinces and nations are reasons enough to stall the overall progress towards renewed regional economic coherence. “Experience is our guidepost in this regard,” he says. “Commerce is going to flow into areas that welcome it, despite the obstacles which may be in the way. Economic boundaries painted on a map, like political ones, really make no sense in the long run. They are like rocks in a river. Commerce is always going to find a way to flow around them.”

A more immediate concern, he believes, is the condition of enabling factors, particularly transportation infrastructure. This, he says, is the issue that demands the most urgent attention on both sides of the international border. “You can’t really talk about Atlantica sensibly without examining the state our respective road, rail, air and sea-going systems – the very infrastructure we rely on to move goods and services from producer to consumer. These are the hard lines around the whole Atlantica concept.

“The North America Free Trade Agreement created new facts for the northeast to come to grips with. The emerging economy is even more transportation-sensitive than the old one, largely because it’s being run on ‘just-in-time’ factors. We’ve moved from a ‘push’ economy to a ‘pull’ economy. Automakers represent the classic push economy. In other words, you manufacture a car and throw it out into the marketplace and hope someone buys it. Increasingly, though, commerce is being driven by consumers getting online and custom ordering a product. And when they do, they want what they order not next month or even next week, but right now. You’d better be able to deliver. The question is, given the state of our multi-modal capabilities, can we come through?”

Not entirely. At least, not yet. But there is no doubt that the issue has climbed to the top of the agenda and is perceived, by almost everyone who thinks about these things, as the key to unlocking Atlantica’s potential, not only for businesses and communities located along the main transportation corridors, but for those situated somewhat off the beaten track. In fact, to Brian Crowley, president of the Halifax-based Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, regional infrastructure cuts to the heart of the area’s global competitiveness and, therefore, very survival. “If we were just talking about increasing trade and improving commercial relationships within Atlantica, I don’t know if there would be much to discuss,” he says. “The opportunity we now face is much bigger than internal efficiencies It’s international. The Far East is beckoning, so we’d better get on the ball.”

Indeed, China has recently overtaken Britain and France to become the world’s fourth-largest economy. With a GDP of $1.5 trillion (USD), the so-called ‘Secret Kingdom’ now trails only Germany, Japan and the United States in economic might. Still, this extraordinary expansion – unprecedented among any nation at any time in history – has come at a predictable cost: domestic economic imbalance. A United Nations Human Development report, issued earlier this year, concluded that the urban-rural income inequality gap in the country was the highest in the world. And that’s bad news for the country’s ruling class, which understands that the implications of this trend are escalating social unrest, poverty, disease, and famine in the outlying regions – any one of which would derail, or at least curtail, long-term economic prospects.

Not surprisingly, then, Chinese officials have begun to embrace the notion of  “balanced growth”, which involves moving more of the capital and resources currently trapped in the cities into the countryside. Something short of a nationwide rebuilding effort, it is, nonetheless, a pragmatic attempt to avert a potentially disastrous currency collapse down the road. But to succeed, the country will need more of what it cannot yet produce for itself, and in volumes sufficient to achieve its goals: value-added construction products; manufactured and re-manufactured goods; resource-based raw materials; and, perhaps most importantly, expertise.

Enter Atlantica. “Think about the trade relationship between North America and Asia,” Crowley says. “Right now, consumers are pulling goods out of China. At the moment, though, there’s not a lot of stuff actually going back from North America. So, on the back-haul, there are a lot of empty containers to which we would have access at zero cost when demand for our goods and services in China begins to rise.”

When it does, currently underutilized ports – such as Halifax, with its deep-water harbour, sophisticated terminals, and inter-modal connections – will benefit. In fact, the Port of Halifax is already positioned as key hub along the China-Europe-Atlantica sea corridor. Its most tantalizing opportunities are now linked to Asian trade through the Suez Canal. But these could expand exponentially if, and when, the proposed rebuild of the Panama Canal takes place over the next years. “That’s the bright future for this region,” Crowley says. “But, to make it work, we need to invest in our ports and all the other connections we have. If we don’t do this, then we will not only fail to grow, we will actually fall behind. We will lose business. The biggest concern I have is that there may be some people out there in the region who cling to the belief that we can hold on to the status quo. In the global trading environment, the status quo actually represents a loss.”

If this is, indeed, what’s ultimately at stake for Atlantica, it has not escaped the attention of dozens of men and women on both sides of the international border who are now working together to ensure the region’s long-term competitiveness, one barrier-busting effort at a time. Consider, for example, the comprehensive joint venture between Enterprise Saint John and the Eastern Maine Development Corporation to fashion a true gateway for both trade and extensive bi-national economic development and cooperation. “We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the EMDC that essentially makes us partners,” says Steve Carson, C.E.O. of Enterprise Saint John. “We share office space, and we collaborate extensively on issues of mutual concern. Up until a couple of years ago, that cohesion just wasn’t there. We aren’t partners in name only. We’re a dynamic team of people who share bonds of history and economic interest.”

Jonathan Daniels, EMDC’s president and C.E.O. couldn’t agree more heartily. “In the past, Bangor would compete for business in Atlantic Canada,” he says. “That was clearly a zero-sum game. Now we are looking at industrial partnerships. In the process, we are working to strengthen business partnerships on both sides of the border. We are spreading the message, and capitalizing on existing relationships in Atlantic Canada to move the culture away from the industrial raiding model to the business-to-business matchup model.”

The approach is already paying dividends. EMDC and Enterprise Saint John were instrumental in negotiating significant upgrades and improvements to the border crossing at Calais/St. Stephen. Last year’s U.S. Federal Highway Transportation Reauthorization Bill provided approximately $7 million (USD) to the effort, and another $50 million for a brand new, state-of-the-art facility. Even more importantly, perhaps, the U.S. Congress also approved a ‘Highway Priority Corridor’ designation for a route from Calais to Watertown, New York, a first for the entire northeastern United States. This designation represented a tangible and significant step towards establishing a trade corridor extending from Saint John and Bangor to New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Quebec and Ontario. Among other things, the designation will provide the proposed International Northeast East-West Corridor with priority access to future U.S. federal planning, transportation and infrastructure funding. “This is a huge advance,” Carson says. “It’s an example of connectivity in action. And it wouldn’t have happened without Canadians working with Americans to break down one, very real barrier to regional coherence.”

According to Derek Oland, Chairman of Saint John-based Moosehead Breweries, it’s about time. “To say that this is a positive development is to understate the case, I think,” he says. “It’s more important now that at any other time for companies to have easy access to both Canadian and U.S. marketplaces. This sort of infrastructure improvement is precisely the kind of thing that facilitates business growth and cross-border partnerships. It’s the kind of thing that translates the ideals of Atlantica into cold, hard facts.”

Stephen Dempsey, Chairman of the Greater Halifax Partnership, thinks the number and effectiveness of initiatives such as this will only rise in the years ahead. “When people ask me what we are doing to build the Atlantica region, I talk about the fact that we’re working to ensure that our border with the United States is the best that it can be for business and trade,” he says. “Inevitably, people will object and claim that Nova Scotia doesn’t have a border with the U.S. That’s when I say, ‘yes we do; it just happens to be in New Brunswick’.”

Dempsey recently worked hand-in-glove with the EMDC to score another victory against the forces of institutional border control. “We partnered with them to persuade Washington to provide the Halifax International Airport with pre-clearance rights. Now, that would never have happened without serious collaboration on both sides, at the local level.”

All of which suggests that the “logic of geography” is slowly, surely exerting its inevitable influence in the Atlantica region. Hastened by shifting global patterns of trade, emerging economic dynamos like China, and the historical ties that inexorably bind the Atlantic provinces to New England, the shape of things to come is getting easier to perceive. Change will not come swiftly, but it will come, and when it does it will not merely affect communities and businesses along the main trunks of trade and commerce, but everyone, regardless of where they live and work in the region.

Says Crowley: “It’s a multiplier effect. If we can increase traffic within the region, the cost of doing business here will drop. As it drops, we attract more investment, hence more traffic, hence more and greater commercial opportunities. And these will spread to all parts of the region. And that’s what economic coherence is all about.”

Mario Theriault certainly doesn’t doubt it. “As far as I’m concerned, Atlantica is already here, and I am a part of it.”

To the astonishment of exactly no one, China has officially overtaken Britain and France to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.

With a GDP of $1.5 trillion (USD), the so-called ‘Secret Kingdom’ now trails only Germany, Japan and the United States in economic might. Moreover, according to Newsweek’s International Editor, Fareed Zakaria, “If you want a glimpse into the not-so-distant future, note that China is growing more than four times as fast as Germany and Japan and more than twice as fast as the U.S.”

Note also, however, the gathering clouds on the Far Eastern horizon. The extraordinary expansion – unprecedented among any nation at any time in history – has come at a predictable cost: domestic economic imbalance.

Observes Zakaria: “Every time you see a gleaming new highway in China, remember that there were homes, shops and farms where it now runs. Every time you see a new factory, remember that the community around it might have protested, but that rarely stopped construction. Every time you see a dam, remember that it displaced whole villages and towns. It is the very fact that local or political forces cannot stop development that explains China’s supercharged growth.”

In fact, a recent United Nations Human Development report concludes that the urban-rural income inequality gap in China is now the highest in the world. That’s bad news for the country’s apparatchiks who understand that the implications of this trend are escalating social unrest, poverty, disease, and famine in the outlying regions – any one of which would derail, or at least curtail, long-term economic prospects.

So, why should this interest us, beyond the obvious humanitarian concern? Not to blunt a point, but China’s emerging tribulations may well represent real opportunities for economic development right here in Atlantic Canada. Here’s how.

Chinese officials have begun to embrace the notion of  “balanced growth”, which involves moving more of the capital and resources currently trapped in the cities into the countryside. Something short of a nationwide rebuilding effort, it is, nonetheless, a pragmatic attempt to avert a potentially disastrous currency collapse down the road.

But to succeed, China will need more of what it cannot yet produce for itself, and in volumes sufficient to achieve its goals: value-added construction products; manufactured and re-manufactured goods; resource-based raw materials; and, perhaps most importantly, expertise.

Says Brian Crowley of the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies, “Think about the trade relationship between North America and Asia. Right now, consumers demanding access to them are pulling goods out of China. At the moment, though, there’s not a lot of stuff actually going back to China from North America. So, on the back-haul, there are a lot of empty containers to which we would have access at zero cost when demand for our goods and services in China begins to rise. That’s the opportunity for this region.”

The opportunity is even more compelling when you consider that Atlantic Canada’s seaports – notably Halifax, Saint John and St. John’s – are among the most efficient and sophisticated on the continent. This, along with growing intermodal connections, business alliances and economic development partnerships with “sister” hubs in New England render the entire northeastern seaboard an attractive gateway for renewed export trade with the Far East.

But is it workable?

Yes, Crowley, and others, say, “If we make the necessary investments in infrastructure, business development, alliance building.”

That, of course, is the billion-dollar question.

It delights Gordon Mouland to point out that headquarters for his thriving engineering consulting firm in the heart of Saint John is the old YMCA building, where he once played basketball and attended dances as a kid growing up in the port city. It appeals to his sense of what he likes to call the “interconnectivity” of the area.

“Now, over there,” he says, gesturing to a cavernous room dotted with make-shift work stations, “used to be the gymnasium. Today, it’s where we house most of our technical staff. And out there, in front, used to be where all the big receptions were held. That’s where we’ve put all our fancy meeting rooms, and such. . .I love the way things have changed, even dramatically, over the years, but in a way they’ve stayed the same.”

The statement is as good a description as any for what’s been happening, recently, in the economy of New Brunswick’s largest urban center. In 2004, alone, Saint John created 2,000 jobs, and experienced an unprecedented building boom. Over the past decade, retail sales have risen 38 per cent to $1.5 billion in 2005. Unemployment levels now hover at historic lows; and business start-ups, expansions and modernizations are running at an all-time high.

Still, the source of this apparent prosperity is neither new, nor unfamiliar to those who have watched the city steadily take its place as one of the region’s sturdiest economic dynamos. “There is nothing ‘overnight’ about Saint John’s current success,” Mouland says. “If anything, it has to do with long-term, strategic planning and wise investments in key infrastructure. It has to do with a tremendous degree of interconnectivity within and without the local economy. In short, it has to do with our energy industry.”

Indeed, according to Tim Curry, President of the newly constituted Atlantica Centre for Energy – whose offices are located on the third floor of Mouland’s Fundy Engineering Group – the Saint John area’s mature and sophisticated energy assets are driving both an unprecedented expansion of the industry, itself, and the collateral growth of other key sectors.

“Over the next three or five years, energy projects in this area will generate $3 billion in economic benefits,” he says. “By 2009, the Greater Saint John area will have significant assets in petroleum, natural gas, nuclear, hydro and traditional thermal power. The potential of the so-called ‘multiplier’ effect is enormous, as the area becomes a true energy hub for the 21^st Century. And we’re already seeing the effects.”

The list of major projects, either planned or underway, tells the tale.

The refurbishment of the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station, with a planned project cost of $1.4 billion, will extend the life of the facility for another 25 years. During normal operations, the plant employs 700 people and generates $70 million a year for the local economy.

Most significantly, perhaps, is Irving Oil’s contract with Repsol YPF, the largest oil exploration company in Spain, to construct a Liquefied Natural Gas terminal and regassification facility at Canaport. The project is expected to generate up to 700 construction jobs at its peak, resulting in direct labour expenditures of $26 million and indirect benefits of close to $14 million. Roughly 40 full-time employees will be required to operate the facility once it’s operational in 2008. The project will also generate more than $3 million in port and related fees.

Beyond this, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline will build a 30-inch-diamter underground natural gas pipeline running approximately 145 kilometers from the Canaport LNG facility to join its principal trunk in Baileyville, Maine. At a total cost of some $300 million, construction is expected to begin in 2007 and end the following year.

“Clearly,” Curry says, “the LNG terminal is a foundational investment that will lead to other major investments in Saint John. Power generation and plastics are natural offshoots of having a liquefied natural gas terminal next to a high performing refinery. This would attract further investments from companies further down the supply chain, such as injection moulding plastics and fabrication companies. These types of energy related investments would then create additional jobs in many different sectors of the economy, such as construction, transportation, hospitality, services and restaurants, to name a few.”

Kenneth Irving, the youthful and energetic president of Irving Oil Ltd., tends to agree. “We very much believe in the concept of an energy hub,” he says. “And, when I say ‘hub’ I am talking about something that extends well beyond immediate advantages and attributes. I am talking about the ability to take raw materials and move them through the various stages to produce a variety of finished products, which can then be exported.

“The LNG terminal’s proximity to our refinery – in fact, to all sorts of key infrastructure – is important to the whole energy hub concept. It allows for sharing of resources, and that’s important when we are looking to develop new business opportunities down the road.”

Given the fact that Irving Oil already accounts for 20 per cent of New Brunswick’s GDP, and 44 per cent of the value of annual exports from the province, the prospect of intensive, energy-related, value-added manufacturing in the near future is, indeed, tantalizing. Still, Irving cautions, the real pay off for the region is long term growth, not short-term boom.

“To be truly competitive, energy investments on a scale such as these require a lot of lead time,” he says. “For example, most of the economic benefits we are now experiencing were conceptualized in the mid-1990s, and even before. We’ve gone through several generations of retooling and preparing ourselves for the next generation of business opportunity.

“We spent upwards of $1 billion upgrading the refinery between 1998 and 2000. This, of course, included the installation of our catalytic reactor, which basically lets us take raw crude oil and turn it into a variety of high-value products, including light, engine-ready gasoline. Essentially, it gives us more bang for our buck from every gallon of oil we refine. Since then, we’ve been investing $100 million a year in various refinery projects. And just this past year, we had 1,500 extra trades people working at the refinery. So, you can see how capital intensive all of this really is.”

Ultimately, Irving says, it comes down to installing a more complex development model than the more ruggedly resource-based practice of ‘digging’ for oil and shipping the crude: “Why supply your raw materials across the border, when you can transform them into other more diverse, exportable products? That, I think, is the right model for an emerging energy hub such as ours in this part of the Atlantic region. And that goes for oil and natural gas.

“I keep thinking about Fort McMurray, Alberta. I mean, there you have all these people feverishly working to ship out the raw materials. But, when that so-called boom ends, what do you have? A lot of people standing around wondering what they’re going to do next.”

In reality, nurturing the growth of a diverse, sustainable energy cluster – one that will spur long-term economic development in the Greater Saint John area and among existing and potential trading partners in the northeast United States – is essentially the mandate of the Atlantica Centre for Energy, which was formally incorporated in December of last year.

“We really are a creature of the Greater Saint John Growth Strategy Initiative, led by Enterprise Saint John,” Curry says. “The whole process to get up and running has taken about two years, and has involved a wide variety of public stakeholders.

“We take our marching orders, as it were, from a strategy development report that was rolled out, identifying key initiatives that have to be undertaken before the Greater Saint John area will achieve its full economic. In order to drive development in the region, we have to emphasize those sectors with the most potential for long-term commercial and industrial success. Those sectors are: information and communications technology, health and medical, life sciences, tourism and, of course, energy.”

According to Curry, the Centre supports the development of  “sustainable, environmentally responsible business activities based on the energy sector resources and expertise in the region; the development and application of world-class, innovative energy and environmental technologies; and a culture and climate of efficient and responsible energy use.”

To this end, the Centre is currently working on a comprehensive plan for the Greater Saint John-northeast industrial corridor. The analysis will attempt to identify energy assets, costs, and the impact on broad economic development; understand the Kyoto protocols and their effects on the ‘Atlantica’ region; and locate key industry players, investment strategies and challenges.

“We’re also looking more closely at the potential spin-offs from the new LNG investment, and at the regional impact of the Point Lepreau refurbishment project,” Curry says. “Other areas of interest include evaluating the potential of a more extensive nuclear energy cluster in the area, and ways to identify and communicate human resource issues in the energy sector.”

Where all of this will eventually lead remains an open question, but Curry insists that the time is right to get a firm handle on the future of an industry that’s taken years, if not decades, to mature into a robust generator of long-term jobs, earned incomes, and economic progress along the northeast coasts of Canada and the U.S.

“Much of what we’ve observed over the past few years has been piecemeal and anecdotal evidence of the energy sector’s affect on the region,” he explains. “The Irving organization has been very helpful and forthcoming in helping us frame the bigger picture. But, until recently, we’ve really only had the odd story about the local pizza joint having to hire extra staff to fill the late-night orders of growing numbers of refinery workers. . .You know, that sort of thing. We really have to be able to quantify the impacts, so we can understand the true dimension of the potential we are facing. That’s why I perceive the Centre to be a true industry association.” 

So, in fact, does Gordon Mouland, who is one of the Centre’s unofficial founding fathers. “I was a member of the team that got things cooking,” he says. “I’ve lived and worked in Saint John all my life, and I believe that we’re just beginning to see a real, sustainable growth curve in the economy of the area – not just locally, but internationally as we forge closer commercial ties across the border. The burgeoning energy sector is, perhaps, the biggest catalyst of this activity. I’ve seen the results in my own business.”

Established in 1989, Fundy Engineering has blossomed from a handful of professionals into a staff of more than 30 scientists and engineers, technologists and support personnel. Much of this growth, Mouland says, can be attributed directly to commercial expansion within the energy cluster and to its multiplier effect on other, unrelated industries.

Today, the firm provides environmental permitting and project management; phase I and II environmental site assessments; site-based professional services; clean water initiatives; mechanical design and inspection services; electrical design and inspection services; geotechnical design and inspection services; biological engineering; and a wide variety of miscellaneous tasks for clients in both private and public sectors.

Says Mouland: “There’s no doubt in my mind that much of our company’s growth and diversity has been directly or indirectly linked to the substantial amount of energy development in this area over the years. And it’s continuing.

“Home Depot has begun construction of its newest big-box store in the city’s East Side, and CentreBeam has announced a new expansion at its North American Solution Centre on King Street. I don’t believe that this sort of construction activity is accidental, and neither do most of my colleagues in the engineering consulting industry who are also benefiting.”

All of which is to say that for Mouland, Curry and Kenneth Irving, “interconnectivity” is more than a word; it’s a state of mind peculiar to doing business in a part of Atlantic Canada where rational, long-term investments in energy development are proving to be crucial drivers of sustainable prosperity and economic progress now and in the future.

In Saint John, it seems, if you build it, they will surely come. And, quite possibly, they always will. 

The birthplace of the “Global Country of World Peace” is a tiny, granite-strewn  archipelago just off the coast of Canso, Nova Scotia.

George and Piscataqui Islands have little to recommend themselves, except that they happen to be located exactly where the rising sun first kisses the shores of mainland North America. Apparently, this is important to their new owner-cum-potentate.

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is a very rich, very old man whose ersatz Hindu devotees (meaning trust-fund-bearing baby boomers from places like San Bernardino, California) have long pined for an idyllic setting from which to spread the guru’s message of “harmony-through-Transcendental Meditation”.

When completed, sometime next year, the spiritual enclave will feature living quarters for hundreds of acolytes, fully stocked larders, pantries and kitchens, and extensively enclosed recreational facilities (a wise move, as anyone with an intimate knowledge of northeastern Nova Scotia winters will tell you).

Still, according to the movement’s web site the singular preoccupation will be mastering the art of “Yogic Flying”, a complex set of muscular manipulations that enables practitioners to bounce on their bums until they achieve enlightenment (which, I guess, makes the new Global Country of World Peace, quite literally, a leap of faith).

The one Maritimer who isn’t chuckling about all of this is Canso mayor Ray White. That’s because into his rocky, sand-ridden, pebbles-in-the-shoes, no-fish-to-catch, no-boats-at-the-pier material world, the Maharishi has dropped a bucket-load of cold, hard cash – $1.2 million to start, and as much as $10 million more to follow – to get the proverbial party started.

“Laugh all you want,” White recently told a reporter. “But I don’t see any fish plants being built here. If you have any better ideas, please let me know. The fact is that this new development puts our community on the world map.”

Well said, Mr. Mayor. In fact, your “out-of-box” thinking leads me to take a long, hard look at another leap of faith – this one, completely home grown.

In recent years, the rumblings of what one writer called, back in the 1970s, the “Urgent Conversation” have returned with the gathering force of a political movement. Alternately referred to as Maritime Union or “Atlantica”, its proponents insist that Canada’s most easterly provinces must join, economically, to prosper – indeed, to survive in a nation that’s grown indifferent, even hostile, to their interests.

In this, I perceive some interesting correlations between Atlantica and the Global Country of World Peace. Neither jurisdiction, for example, actually exists (yet). Both, on the other hand, benefit from the unswerving passions of true believers. The Global Country preaches prosperity through peace. Atlantica promises peace of mind through prosperity.

The transcendentalist movement is an avowedly spiritual affair, but who says that, at its root, Atlantica is not. As one commentator recently opined: “This is an idea that is 142 years overdue. The premiers of the three provinces last met to discuss a union in 1863 in Charlottetown, though the meeting was quickly taken over by John A. Macdonald and his horde of pushy Canadians. We’d probably be better off today if Tupper, Tilley and company had completed Maritime Union before Canadian Confederation.”

How much better off is, of course, a matter of opinion. But it is clear that a unified economic region on the East Coast would be devoid of deleterious inter-provincial trading barriers, free to negotiate lucrative, long-term trade and investment deals with New England, Europe and the Asia-Pacific Rim, and emboldened by a streamlined public sector focused on the collective needs of 1.8 million “Atlanticans”.

If this still sounds crazy, consider the impact of much more dramatic economic reformations already underway in China, India, Australia and Northern Europe. Nobody’s laughing at Ireland, Scotland, or Scandinavia anymore.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle Atlantica supporters face is public opinion – particularly among those who see crackpots where visionaries might tread. In fact, I’ve been skeptical (and in these very pages), not so much about the idea; more about the lack of hard-nosed planning needed to fulfill its promise.

But with the announcement last week of Atlantica’s first, full-court summit (scheduled for Saint John this spring) designed to address most, if not all, of these nuts-and-bolts issues, I’m keeping an open mind.

I may even attend if only to send up a cheer for the Yogic Flyers of Maritime Union.

The Halifax-Moncton Growth Corridor is an idea, many say, whose time has come. Brought to us by a group of vocal business organizations and private citizens, the concept calls for a zone of industrial opportunity, free of festering rivalries, unhealthy competition and inter-provincial trade barriers, stretching like a golden ribbon between the two cities.

According to Donald Savoie, long considered by those who think about these things to be the “father of economic development” in Atlantic Canada, “The corridor makes sense. I see it as a pooling of resources, a pooling of our strengths. The world has shrunk.”

The world, maybe; but our regional affection for utopian scheming clearly has not. Stephen Dempsey, president of the Greater Halifax Partnership, enthuses: “Our individual populations are not sufficient to put us on the radar screen, but there is strength in numbers. Together, our critical mass puts us in the top 10 largest cities in Canada.”

And here’s what Neville Gilfoy, former president of the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce and current owner and publisher of Halifax-based Progress magazine, had to say in his latest issue: “If we connect our key assets with multi-modal transportation corridors, we can compete with New York/New Jersey or Baltimore – or anywhere else – for a much bigger slice of an ever-growing economic pie.”

For the record, I agree with Gilfoy (of whom, in the interest of full disclosure, I have been a friend and colleague for more than 20 years). I, too, believe that cooperation and collaboration will produce tremendous benefits for businesses on both sides of the provincial border.

Still, I have trouble with the breathless implication that with a little more faith and public relations we can turn the dream of a growth corridor into reality. The examples of successful economic zones routinely trotted out to support the pitch for one of our own – such as Montreal International and southern Ontario’s Technology Triangle – underscore our essential deficiencies, not capabilities.

For one thing, a cohesive economic region requires superb transportation infrastructure to ensure that goods and personnel can move unfettered along all points in the continuum. And while the Halifax-Moncton route now benefits from improved highways and intermodal rail service, comparable infrastructure in New England and Quebec is still far more advanced and reliable.

Related to this is the ability to attract or develop industries that cluster knowledge in commercial enterprises along the corridor. The Toronto-St. Catherine’s “Golden Horseshoe” is a good example. There, auto parts and precision manufacturing reign supreme, effectively branding that region as a global player in these revenue-generating dynamos. Here, though, it’s hard to point to any industrial cluster that convincingly establishes the Halifax-Moncton corridor’s value to exporters, importers and foreign investors.

A successful economic zone also needs a reservoir of educated, skilled workers – people who are able and willing to move up and down the corridor as opportunity arises, but not, in fact, out of it. We certainly possess the capacity to produce this calibre of labour. Unfortunately, we seem to lack the ability to retain it. Our out-migration rates are the highest in the country, especially among college and university-trained young people and landed immigrants.

Crucial to the prosperity of any growth corridor is, of course, the availability of private equity for investment. In central Canada and the west, the sheer weight of heavy industry has permanently installed a culture of institutional venture. As a region largely dominated by big banks and small businesses, access to capital in Atlantic Canada remains woefully insufficient.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, regional economic zones – particularly those that intend to function seamlessly across political boundaries – need powerful champions in both the private and public sectors. More than this, they need a consolidated organization; a structure and process to translate hopes and dreams into solid plans and priorities.
 

Without measures like these, the Halifax-Moncton Growth Corridor will languish, not so much as an idea whose time has come, but as an idea that’s ahead of its time.