If you outsource to a big fish they’ll offshore all the work anyway, hardly an economic development win.

David, I think you make an excellent point (the jerk angle is just one of those effective ways to package the message as an attention grabber (sadly, so necessary now-o-days)).

But when reading the comments… I’m especially perplexed by the style of some arguments, more importantly, the use of premises. For instance the “we don’t have access to appropriately skilled labor” statement; especially when I can find (within a few minutes of surfing) examples such as a company in Fredericton that claims to be Web Marking and Technology company, but which has a blog with a single (6 month old) entry that has the initial “welcome wordpress” message. Such lack of attention to detail is just what Steve Jobs was not able to stand for, from himself nor from his employees.

Also, how should we define a “good” employee (and by extension, a “good” labor pool)? If a “good” employee is defined as one that can make the greatest contribution to company success, then is this “goodness” wholly defined by technical skill? Does a successful company become successful through hiring based on capacities (i.e. behavioral indicators), or per-obtained technical proficiencies? Do we accept the former, or latter? What responsibility to success should we assign the leaders/founder within these companies?

Even if we do not accept my model – what is “it” that is lacking when companies imply that their lack of success is associated with deficiencies in the labor force?

I’m not claiming I have the answers – but I welcome a rigorous dissection of our framing of the problem. Without such rigor, we will remain prone to collecting into herds that chase solutions to problems that most likely don’t even exist.

I disagree… and of course agree. There are several people I am sure would say the same thing about me, I try, test and move on often. I try to fit in, and be nice… but at the end of the day, I have a goal to achieve… and will. Though I learned to do it with as much tact as I can. I am by no means near the level of Jobs, Irving, Olands, or well… any higher level.

The difference though, between Toronto and New Brunswick, is simply resources. I can be a demanding, narcissistic boss no worries… I imagine I could be rather good at it. But, the problem comes down to resources. Hiring employees here in NB, even though there is a pool of potentials, would be the issue. Unlike Jobs, who can burn through 3000 people and get away with it, knowing there are 100k of people he can burn through next week, we don’t have that option.

If we burned through a good 60, that could dry up a pool of great people.

BUT I would think it is our ability to develop tact, grace, and understanding, that will help us in the long term… train, develop and work to not only make us as owners happy, but our employees whom, I would imagine, embrace family life more than work life.

Pat

Our present system does not fight poverty. It institutionalizes it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/01/should-we-revisit-the-negative-income-tax.html

http://reviewcanada.ca/essays/2012/12/01/scrapping-welfare/

For some reason THIS is a very important topic that deserves considerable government and public attention, unlike all those other things mentioned above. So, no, they don’t ‘tell us’, in fact they probably don’t know. And even if they did, why would it matter? While the temporary workers program is likely to be an election issue, EI in NB probably won’t be.

I’ve done a fair bit of research on this, and it seems everybody ‘knows somebody’ who is a problem-that there are men in their thirties still working five months all so they can collect pogey and go hunting. There is very little evidence of this, its all anecdotal. However, IF its true its easily rectified. ALL people on EI HAVE to look for work. So if its true what Valcourt says and that in Richibucto they have to truck in romanians because people on EI there WON”T work, then its an administrative problem, not a systemic one. Obviously those who work at EI are not checking whether these people are actually looking for work.

I suspect its more complicated than that, as the current TWP ‘scandal’ shows. I still can’t find it, but I remember that when the omnibus bill came out in the fall there was a CBC show that talked about how, buried in the bill, was a program change which would make it easier for employers to bring in temporary foreign workers rather than go through all the hassle of advertising for local ones.

The rest of the world is just now catching up to New Brunswick, getting close to about the same level of inequality-all thanks to the ‘jerks’ out there.

But like I said, that is beginning to change, and people who hold up ‘jerks’ as ‘straight talkers’ are definitely dwindling. A mentor is NOT somebody who ‘talks straight’-those are called CRITICS. And I’d like to repeat my old story about a fourth year marketing course at UNB, where a group of MBA ‘mentors’ had purchased the old clock factory in Marysville and had a long list of reasons why the old mom and pop who ran it were outdated. They had lots of predictions about the market, and two years later were out of business. They lost their shirts, while ‘mom and pop’ took their money to retire in Florida.

And oh, I think you have it a bit wrong, its CANADIANS who are considered ‘laid back’-except maybe Toronto. I’ve got news for you, outside of New Brunswick, NOBODY knows a thing about New Brunswickers. However, given the level of protest at the legislature on any given month, I’d really have to disagree that NBers are so laid back. Now, maybe if a government would try to fire up some of that gumption for something positive, then things might turn around. But that hardly takes a jerk. Take the greatest motivators you can think of, how many of them were jerks?

Our motto is that we will help you Fail fast so you can fix fast and it seems to be working for us…

There was more to Job’s success than simply being a Jerk. As you mentioned he was an outlier. Job’s was an absolute genius. He was a visionary and he bull-dozed over anyone who did not share his passion and his vision or stand in front of it. Everything else was noise to him. What made him successful was his tenacity and relentless pursuit of perfection and realization of his vision…oh and the Iphone went gang busters! He also knew when to listen to some people too ( I also read the book) like Woz or Ivey. So I guess my opinion is do we need more Jerks? No. Do we need more people to challenge the status quo to implement their vision? Hell yes! But to be clear, in NB, these people would be viewed as Jerks…which might be your point.

This suggests to me that our system is broken, because a large number of the people it enables to be highly successful are jerks. A well-designed system would grant success to skillful and well-meaning people with a sense of social responsibility.

In Atlantic Canada and in Canada generally, we suffer from an imbalance in these roles, a frightening vacuum of vision and a crippling absence of strategic co-ordination that leaves our tremendous economic potential largely unharnessed.

When governments fail in their role as strategic enablers of effective partnerships, we all pay.

As an HR person, I’ve had my share of recruiting and interviewing. I think we have our share of energetic people in the workforce. What we need is a culture that will channel that energy in the right direction and for the right reasons; i.e the good of the majority of the team.

I compare the problem employee (the jerk) to bad breath. Everyone knows it’s there, everbody talks about it, but who has the courtesy to offer a mint; or share the fact that he is disruptive to the team.

I enjoyed your article
Thanks
Gary

And if you look at the content of many business and technology schools this is largely changing. Environmentalism and ethics are large parts of most academic training nowadays, which means the next generation of entrepreneurs are getting into business for very different reasons than their predecessors.

Singlemindedness doesn’t necessitate being a jerk. A perfect example of that is this blog. I’m thinking that at least SOME measure of your success has been attributed to this blog, which has been going on for quite some time-almost single mindedly posted almost every day (until recently). Although many critics have panned you for some of your views which they may disagree with, the word ‘jerk’ probabably doesn’t come up often. In short, I’d call you a success story, but not a jerk (now, Charles Leblanc on the other hand..mind you, he’s at least seen some political changes according to his blog, so maybe being a little bit of a jerk isn’t such a bad thing).

I think the LAST thing our society needs is more enhanced emphasis on people becoming jerks simply because it MAY make them more successful.

Attempts (many of them perhaps misguided) have been made to do just that. I’ve concluded that the best approach might be to find a way to increase the local concentration of nitrous oxide. That way, we can at least laugh at ourselves.

There is a provincial strategy for immigration but it needs a serious re-working if we are going to attract enough new immigrants. The government can strongly lobby the federal government to dramatically increase the quota of provincial nominees. We can also do a better job of selling the province in both the rest of Canada and overseas.

In order for this strategy to be successful however, there have to be jobs here that will attract quality immigration. We can’t all be shipbuilders. Governments should not be in the business of creating jobs, but they should be creating the proper atmosphere to attract new business and allow existing businesses to expand.

What we can all do is begin to realize how vitally important immigration is to our survival. It needs to be part of the conversation. Ten or twenty years from now is not when we should begin thinking about this. It needs to start now.

What we are talking about in Canada, in case you missed the Royal Bank scandal, is the problem of skills development, unemployment and location. None of those have to do with urban development. Fredericton could easily be the physical size of Toronto, and immigration could swell its population.

Like Sarah says, any politician that thinks this is ‘good public policy’ needs to be outed straight away. People will fight like grim death to hold onto their schools, so even drops in student population have to be drastic before there are savings to public services. And of course healthwise we are finding out just how wrong that ‘theory’ is. Its not the children and the elderly who are packing up and leaving in droves, its those who pay taxes and use relatively few public services. Now, I would think that that would be ‘common sense’, but somebody let know, because maybe I’m missing something.

Politically, I think you are giving these guys too much credit. You posted the perfect blog the other day about how good the unemployment numbers look when outmigration is ‘emphasized’. However, the fact is, I don’t think politicians in Canada really know how to advance policies that may end outmigration, and like the rest of us, probably don’t understand much about it at all. We have always been a ‘follow the natural resources’ kind of economy, and I think thats all we really understand.

Don’t you think it is possible that that is the exact reason that the government (fed) is making the changes. I think they (fed-cons) want it to hurt the rural economies at the diner table level because it will force people to change and do something different. People will not change unless they are forced to change and yes it is going to suck for a few years, maybe even for a generation or longer but in the long run I think it should be better. Need drives innovation as the saying goes. EI is supposed to be in place so if working Joe or Jane looses his or her job they can get by with a bit of help until they can get another job. You know as well as I do that EI in NB has become a vocation. It is supposed to be a safety net not a vocation. This is not the purpose of EI and never has been. I am happy about the changes because I have been frustrated for too long by watching people milk the system. I think the feds know exactly what they are doing with these changes and I think that the “negative effects” are exactly what they want to happen.

As for Alward I agree that he is siding with the populous on this one because he has too. I also think that delaying action has become his hallmark.

Second, it is not clear that “most of the wealth created goes to employees who live here.” Even if true, it is irrelevant. Wages are low. That’s a fact. We live in a low-paying resource-based province with poor (and declining) services, which is not attractive to industry or immigration. More of the same will not improve the economy.

If we actually look at countries with “enough of a tax base to provide strong social systems and a professional public service,” what we find are not resource-based societies, but countries like Germany, with a high degree of government involvement in the economy, significant union activism, leading-edge environmental regulation, and a strong labour movement.

As one of the people who gripes about certain large corporations, I can say that, contrary to being against change, such people are arguing that there is not *enough* change in this province. This is a province that should be welcoming immigrants and taking advantage of its placement in a clean, democratic, egalitarian and technologically advanced country, not trying to sell its resources at any price and attracting industry on the basis of low wages.

When I leave, and offer my well-educated technical skills to support an advanced information-based economy, I won’t be looking to relocate to a one-industry smokestack town pushing the average wage as low as it can go, no matter how low their corporate taxes get. And companies located in such regimes will find it much more difficult to recruit me.

So… how are your entrepreneurs doing now? They can’t create wealth without labour. And what’s labour doing in New Brunswick? Leaving.

Actually, most of the wealth created goes to employees who live here. You can’t have it both ways – entrepreneurship might be looked down upon by certain civil servants with secure jobs, but it is a key to the development of healthy, vibrant societies. You know, the ones that have enough of a tax base to provide strong social systems and a professional public service.

The same people who gripe about certain large corporations are, in large measure, the same ones who resist any change that might allow other business sectors to establish here. New Brunswick’s biggest problem isn’t the weight of those large evil corps, it is the resistance to any change, anything seen as foreign.

This produces wealth that will be absorbed by large corporations (we all know who they are) and shipped out of the province and stashed in overseas accounts. We in the province are left with the cleanup and (as always) low wages.

Rather, people here understand that the province’s future depends on clean energy, strong social systems, and a professional public service. It depends on enterprises that work for the people of the province, not a few absentee owners. It depends on quality of life, not handouts to corporations and minuscule corporate tax subsidized by exorbitant personal tax.

The NS government must find better ways to encourage immigration. This is a major topic that is never talked about in the Legislature or in the media. Nova Scotia has an aging population and last year we broke even in births and deaths, but lost 3,000 citizens to other provinces.

There is a provincial strategy for immigration but it needs a serious re-working if we are going to attract enough new immigrants. The government can strongly lobby the federal government to dramatically increase the quota of provincial nominees. We can also do a better job of selling the province in both the rest of Canada and overseas.

In order for this strategy to be successful however, there have to be jobs here that will attract quality immigration. We can’t all be shipbuilders. Governments should not be in the business of creating jobs, but they should be creating the proper atmosphere to attract new business and allow existing businesses to expand.

What we can all do is begin to realize how vitally important immigration is to our survival. It needs to be part of the conversation. Ten or twenty years from now is not when we should begin thinking about this. It needs to start now.

Be hard to encourage people to look beyond their own borders, when you aren’t doing the same thing. Limiting yourself and income possibilities seems to be contrary to everything you advise business to do.

The only people protesting medicare was doctors, and equal opportunity ONLY succeeded because of the byrne report, and the protests in Moncton by the french when french was not recognized in city hall even though almost half the population at the time was french.

Today in front of the legislature there is almost weekly protest, something even the stormy sixties never saw in NB (except for more rights for the french). Heck, Robichaud had it easy compared to Alward. The people who were protesting were on HIS side.

Maybe your last shot is aimed at me, even though you don’t know anything about me, or maybe a shot at David or Mr. Austin’s entire enterprise of trying to build conversations with all those people who ‘have achieved little’, but I’m really not sure WHO you think has ‘demonstrable expertise’. Even successful entrepreneurs may know something about how to create a business, but that doesn’t necessarily mean knowledge of how to ‘create an economy’. I’m yet to meet ANYBODY who can make that claim. Heck Richard Florida just commented on the new economy and was universally derided here.

I think the Nova Scotia Commission is at least a step up from not having any conversations AT ALL. And while the public in some people’s opinion is pretty low, it is the public which is the whole point of developing the economy. And having read an awful lot from those who DO have demonstrable expertise, and who HAVE achieved some measure of success, I can say that usually I see very little difference in the views of them and the rest of the general public. Heck Man, Frank McKenna just gave a speech where he claimed that New Brunswick can get $7 BILLION dollars in royalties from gas and oil! And you think the PUBLIC are the dumb ones??

So, we had some people who had the guts to do things back then, even when they knew many would not like what they did. Today, our ‘leaders’ are afraid to say or do anything that might offend, and the commentariat is full of those who have achieved little, have no demonstrable expertise on anything, yet are full of certainty on how to develop the ‘new economy’.

If people haven’t learned it yet, they are about to when your ‘report’ gets filed and then forgotten. The point with social media 2.0 is that people DO something, they don’t TALK about something.

A recent CBC report in Toronto talked about how many billions would stay in the local economy if people simply sourced local food. On this website I didn’t even see a MENTION of ‘buying local’. There’s one video from the fruit growers, and instead of saying how wonderful Nova Scotia apples are, its a gripe about how there are too many regulations on fruit growers (which basically tells the viewer that those in the industry want more power to apply whatever pesticides they want, hire who they want and under whatever conditions). Worst of all, she doesn’t even say what the regulations ARE! In short, OneNS features as one of its few videos a warning for people who are maybe thinking about getting into fruit growing-don’t even think about it, there are too many regulations! Yikes!

There are hardly any videos at all, and its interesting to note that NONE of them are of any of the actual participants at the public meetings. Anybody who HASN”T yet gone screaming in the other direction will see the ‘wordle’ stuff and state the obvious that one facebook commenter said “most of these are all the same and will anything even come from this?”

As for Convo, there is little point in developing new social media tools when everybody is ignoring the ones you are using. Its a bad sign when you think setting up a facebook account is ‘unidirectional’ at the outset, but if you think that, there is really NO point in doing all the work to advance to convo in order to, what, get even more unidirectional conversations?

Here’s some helpful advice: if you are trying to talk about a ‘new’ economy, for the Love of God stop talking to old people who spend most of their time complaining about how too much has changed. Get off your butt, grab a video camera or even just your cellphone and go over to the nearest high school and start talking to the people who will be BUILDING the ‘new economy’. Too many people in social media are wonderful with the media, but lousy with the social.

Mikel, who does social media well and what are they doing? What you described (tossing up a Facebook page, posting old-guy videos, and a Wordle) is certainly not enough ..we also patrol obscure New Brunswick blogs for cranky comments deriding our efforts. In fact, we post 2 Wordles per meeting ..50% more than you give us credit for ..and some of the old guys are women not in suits and even youngish.

Personally, as the guy mainly responsible for engaging through social media on this, it seems somewhat fatuous at times, simply a place for ranting, but then we get directed to profoundly interesting resources or hear personal stories that bring data to life. We are not getting a lot of uptake on post-a-video via our website other than corporate vids and the ones we do of talking heads. This is understandable given our rather broad topic (a Commission on shale gas would likely elicit more). ‘Sticking up a Facebook page’ takes little effort and, if an end in itself, is disingenuous uni-directional engagement for optics. Ours has generated many new conversations, user-connections, research trails, interaction between citizen and Commission, broad circulation of event notices, generated private e-conversations, and some laughs. It has also been quite a bit of work. Still, I would like to take it deeper beginning in May with a tool called Convo.

The material generated in meetings and small group discussions is forming the bulk of our interim report/discussion paper.

One more thing: I hope you noticed that the posting about the wind farm was prefaced by a ‘what-do-you-think?’ lead in. It wasn’t an endorsement or opinion post. Intuitively, it does seem odd that so many sites are chosen so close to communities; in the case of the Queens’ County project, cottagers are nearby. Of course, the three most considered factors in these choices for the proponents seem to be proximity to grid, roads for access, and wind conditions.

Thanks for your thoughts ..next time, could you throw in some nifty marketing phrases? Mark Austin, Dir. Research & Defensive Communications, NS ONE Commission, Old Barns, NS

IF that is the point, then you have a problem and I don’t see a real solution. Again, in NB even if there IS tons of gas, the price is so low that its virtually a non starter. The pipeline may be a short term boost, but given how royalties from the natural gas pipeline played out, it certainly is doubtful whether it will be the cash cow Frank McKenna thinks it will be.

IF, however, economic growth means something more akin to ‘prosperity’ then that’s something completely different. Fredericton brags about its new startups, which is a bit of a stretch, but anyway, ANYTHING is a step up-and how many people are out there grumbling about “all these dang computer companies”. What environment are they wrecking? What resources are they using?

In short, I have a hard time believing that people don’t want economic growth just because ‘most are doing all right’. It’s true that they may not want the things that poor government planning brings-namely, increased traffic and higher taxes to service growing government desires-like convention centres and recreational facilities.

I think you may be tainted a little too much by the shale gas issue here, where ‘economic growth’ is practically defined by reliance on shale gas or oil pipelines. Nova Scotia is a little different, so I don’t think people need to be SHAMED into economic growth. I think you are forgetting that economic growth-when it is REAL and RESPONSIBLE, is a GOOD thing. The vast majority would probably LOVE it, if its done in a responsible manner. As a final example, on their facebook page is the mention of a wind farm in Lunenberg. Like NB, there is NO reason why a wind farm needs to be right next to a municipality, there is TONS of crown land out there. In NB the windiest place is around Mount Carleton, where nobody has lived in hundreds of years or within hundreds of kilometers.

And finally, if they REALLY don’t want it to be an academic exercise they should pay more than a token amount of interest to social media. It takes more than sticking up a facebook page, a dozen boring lectures on youtube from old guys in suits, and a ‘wordle’ from each meeting. When your idea of ‘inclusion’ means that when people take time out of their busy lives to attend such a meeting, you do more than put people in a group and ask them to come up with marketing phrases.

I am available at your convenience to walk you through the provincial export strategy. I would be pleased to share with you the supporting rationale and guidance we recieved from both industry and leading authorities on export trade to help formulate the three goals, target markets, exporting company segments, and ten actions. Hopefully this may help clarify a few of the points you have raised.

Best regards,

Joel Richardson
Executive Director, Export Development
NB Department of Economic Development

>>> Wouldn’t point 1 (Develop a Marketing and Communications Plan for Exports) address precisely address that?

As per your question “What company out there doesn’t know how to market their product?” Oh, there are thousands of companies out there that don’t. In fact, I always say that Canadian companies have grown spoiled and complacent because they have for years had the world’s largest market next door. If you want to sell to the US, all you need to do is make sure that you have all the appropriate certifications, a good-looking catalog, and somebody to look after the orders (of course, there is more to it than that, but I want to illustrate my point). If you want to sell to other markets (e.g. Asia, Latin America), it’s a completely different game. And there is more. In rapidly growing Asian economies, the role of government in opening doors (and keeping them open) is central.

Even a cursory glance at seafood shows the government is bending over backwards for them. Environmental laws are practically non-existent, heck, it took the FEDS to investigate environmental laws, and the feds are hardly friends of the environment. It was so bad lobsters were dying all around St.Stephen. I think we all know that when an industry goes to the government with demands it gets them.

Perhaps some said “we’d like an account manager model because every time we call we get somebody else”. That’s fine, but its hardly part of a ‘strategy’, its simply a common sense service request. The networking aspect I mentioned is a non starter as well. Everytime there is a ‘trade mission’ we always hear about the success stories (although never about how they pan out), so it goes without saying that if you want to increase exports, have more trade missions with the government and exporters travelling together. I don’t think we’ve even seen ONE since Alward took over, and you don’t need to ASK exporters “hey, if you take you on a junket to see other markets would you be interested”. But such a thing isn’t even MENTIONED in their entire study, so you can chalk it up to my own ‘alternative export strategy’.

What ANY company wants from government is a cheque. In case you haven’t noticed, most governments are doing far worse with their own organization than most businesses are, so thinking THEY are the place to go for ‘advice’ or, well, ANYTHING but a cheque makes no sense. In our paper the other day was the announcement that 100 million is being spent in order to make this region a “Quantum Seattle”. Most of the money is coming from the local billionaires I think, but no doubt the government will write a cheque as well. None of the local quantum mechanics went to the government to learn how export anything, they just told them to write them a cheque.

What is there about that phrase that Mikel does not understand?

Each year I go to the Royal Agricultural Winter fair and meet TONS of people from New Brunswick. I go to the booths that feature Prince Edward Island produce, go to the Nova Scotia tourism booth and the Newfoundland cultural exhibit. NEVER in my fifteen years of going there have I seen a single thing from New Brunswick. And next to the calgary stampede, that is probably the biggest agricultural fair in the country. The LEAST the government could do is make it so that when a company says they are calling from New Brunswick, people on the other end don’t assume they are talking about New Jersey.

1. Develop a Marketing and Communications Plan for Exports
What company out there doesn’t know how to market their product? So they’ll go to the people behind “Be….in this place” for their marketing and communications needs?

2. Transition to an Account Manager Support Model
They never had account managers before?

3. Deliver a Suite of Export Training
Because heaven knows that when you need export training…you go to the government! What exactly has the government EVER exported?

4. Provide Export Information and Advice
See above. If you want health advice, do you ask a doctor, or a bureaucrat?

5. Connect Buyers with Sellers
This is actually pretty important and something the government COULD do. That contest they have at least is a beginning. If the government would do what the universities don’t, namely, have more conferences, etc., then something may happen. A big company here in Waterloo got started years ago when the university had such a conference with angel investors. Hardly any professors showed up, but investors did, so they asked the guy who set it up if HE had any ideas, and that idea became a company funded by several hedge funds, the Forbes, and now is publicly traded.

Gogii sells all their games through bigfish games, an operation out of Seattle I believe. Can you even imagine the scenario of walking into the NB government and saying “I have these video games, can you connect me to buyers out there?”. Can you imagine the Sussex Co Op, who make Mrs. Dunsters Doughnuts going into the NB government to get THEIR help in exporting groceries?

How about Covered Bridge chips, who are in specialty food shops here, I may eat my words, but who at the government is the expert in specialty foods across canada? And did somebody from the government call up Vincenzo’s and say “yes, there’s a potato chip maker here who would like to sell chips in your store”. The response, most likely, would be “and the reason they aren’t calling me is…?”

6-10 of their ‘strategy’ seem to be “well, what other generic terms can we throw in there”, so I think you are being too kind in saying “this looks like a policy from twenty years ago”. In fact, I can virtually guarantee you that twenty years ago the government came out with an ‘export strategy’ that looked REMARKABLY similar to this-and probably had the same effect. It looks pretty much the same as EVERY government export strategy.

PS I hope that email you got didn’t come from the government, because I see nothing in your remarks that are sector specific. You mention the obvious, that NB has some engineering firms and most exports are natural resources. I suspect they wanted you to call it ‘sector strategy’ because then nobody would read it.

The remedy for that, of course, is simply to enforce the rules that are there. This woman could be unbearable to work for, she could simply be lying or exagerating, we don’t know. It’s also interesting that maybe she didn’t know the rules, but you would think that an employer would simply call the EI office and ask why the rules weren’t being enforced. Regarding the new changes though, they really don’t focus on this problem. I just thought this was such a glaring example of the other side of the equation that I should send it in.

We need jobs and a thriving economy and perhaps this issue will diminish in importance. If you haven’t noticed when governments get into huge debts we start looking at programs that are wasteful. Plus if you have any sense of pride you won’t be happy about getting $1 billion in EI payments not to mention transfer payments. And dads leaving their families to work in other provinces. So we need to ignore the nat gas naysayers and move on with it fast. Even Newfoundland is going full steam ahead with oil and gas.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/20/richard-florida-concedes-the-limits-of-the-creative-class.html

Wonder if Florida will have to drop his speaking fees?

They say they’d be better off offering credits for university level courses or GED training. I find myself in total agreement with that. It is very ‘unemotional’, and at their most strident they seem to be objecting to the idea of tax dollars being used to fund idiotic courses. They don’t say that these people don’t deserve EI or that they should be cut off, which is far less than a lot of bloggers are saying. So I don’t think media can be blamed when the topic becomes ‘emotional’ or unreasonable.

From my point of view, one of the problems (besides the fact that when it comes to public policy all debate is pretty much meaningless because a majority government can do whatever it wants) with the blog discussions is that individuals go even further right than government. As for ‘discussion’, NO ONE outside of blogs is talking about doing away with seasonal EI. It gets ‘emotional’ because people have extreme views, and that is one of them, a perfect example of what I said-that bloggers and pundits IN the maritimes are usually more strident than outside. In Ontario, the ‘rage’ about EI came when the economic crisis hit hard and fast and a lot of people found out they couldn’t collect EI. The government made quick changes and now its virtually never mentioned.

I think in many cases it is much easier to sell emotion than rational thinking, so we are left with a bunch of speaking points that are a proxy for debate.

If you’re interested, I did my own blog on the topic (http://fasnoncon.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-ei-battleground.html), because I tried to see the rational arguments behind each side’s position, but it is often hidden behind emotionally charged statements such as ‘Seasonal workers are lazy’, or ‘Harper is attacking Atlantic Canada’.

There is no word yet on what the rule tightening will do, it may be that there will be none. My own conspiracy theory is that the feds simply WANT people to move west to where the jobs are. Its pretty much what New Brunswick itself would like, urbanizing workers has been a priority for some time. Combined with the new ‘interviews’ and given the way the Minister talks about those on EI, perhaps they don’t think there is ENOUGH of a stigma, and want to really push people into work-even if it means moving.

The significant difference, of course, is that EI is paid to individuals, while the subsidies to farmers and the manufacturing sector are paid (for the most part) to business.

From a certain perspective, this makes it clear why the government and media are attacking EI payouts, while remaining silent about the other sorts of payouts.

If somebody asked me what I thought of Ontarians and their work ethic I would simply be puzzled. Some are hard working, some are not. Of westerners I would say the same. Asians we’re always told are super hard workers, but in my experience that holds no water at all, so generalizing really doesn’t accomplish much.

Depending where out west that person you mention is living, he may want to rethink that as from what I’ve seen, MOST people now living in the west aren’t from there. But then, this IS Canada, so saying you are from ANYWHERE else than where you are running in is a huge mistake. Heck, if I were to return to NB and try running for office I probably wouldn’t stand a chance because of where I’ve spent the last twelve years (and other reasons).

On the other issue, I’m not so sure that engaging communities in EI changes is of any value if you are simply going to do what you first intended anyway. It IS a big issue, and like you say, its doubtful we’ll see anything in the way of a national discussion. However, evidence is not all anecdotal. The provincial government did a study as soon as the federal changes were brought in which correspond exactly to what you say, and in case people have missed it, the inevitable has already happened and Alward is ponying up the dough to cover the federal shortfall with a new program. So they aren’t falling through the cracks (yet), but the costs have been downloaded onto the province.

I’d also like to know where you get your figures about the trucking industry. How do you find information saying how many truckers are collecting EI? Trucking isn’t seasonal, so that really makes no sense. EI is pretty clear about being ineligible to collect if there are other jobs around. However, I regularly check the job listings for New Brunswick and really haven’t seen many trucking postings. I’ve heard about trucking shortages, but they may be elsewhere in Canada. I’ve also heard about IT and skilled labour shortages, but those don’t correspond to those on EI. In short, the problem is still that those getting seasonal EI simply don’t have access to jobs during their off season.

You must also take into consideration the contract with Umoe Solar. I know for a fact that Umoe had no intention of ever setting up a facility in Miramichi and only wanted rights to the perks that came along with the property. They made a pretty penny selling the scrap and assets on the site, buying time until they could announce that things have changed and there would be no facility.

I received information about this through my international connections who did not know I was actually a Miramichier. Essentially, that contract gave them lots of assets and a money back guarantee. NB gov owes them millions, as it was promised to be paid to them on the occasion that the project doesn’t go forward. Umoe lost nothing, as they made a profit from dismantling the sale-able assets that were there.

During the same time frame you have the whole Atcon thing going on. Did you look at the secured creditors list for those companies? You may find it interesting…. it is public information.
You can secure your own shareholder loan, ensuring you are paid back first (after the CRA) and possibly before your bank (but banks usually require first charge placement). Secured creditors are paid before anyone on the Accounts Payable listing.

Like I said orimulsion to me doesn’t show NBP mismanagement, only that NBP may have very different interests than those of the population, as the wiki post says. That Venezuela bailed may simply be the bad luck that happens all the time in all kinds of industries, and at least SOME good came of it. However, if PEOPLE had had a ‘vote’ on the matter, that policy decision may have been averted. But sometimes jjjj happens. If somebody knows WHY a contract wasn’t signed, that would make me change my mind, but maybe contracts weren’t common.

In short, we can all agree that the primary blame isn’t on Chavez.

So you have come around full circle now, and agreed that NBP mismanagement was the problem.

Ours changed from a standard rate to 6.3 cents per Kw/h from 7PM to 7 AM, plus weekends and holidays. 9.9 cents from 11 AM to 5 PM, and 11.8 cents 7 AM-11PM, and 5 PM to 7PM.

Actually, I was around back then, and my recollection was that no contract had been signed and that the government of the day made a substantial investment in a power plant on the speculation that they would be able to get the orimulsion.

The ATCON deal would probably make an even better book (and had they become a success story people would be singing a different tune), but sadly, there is a real dearth of writers from there. The only political book I’ve seen in the last decade and a half was that CBC guy who wrote about how Bernard Lord brought together COR and the PC’s, which was about as interesting as watching paint dry, and apart from two history books and a couple of Stuart Trueman and picture books, are all most libraries have. Meanwhile, Graham’s bailing on public insurance, the caissie populaire fiasco, Irving’s property tax cap on in LNG terminal-not to mention the wallboard company, and I’m still tired and not even thinking hard! Heck even just the list would make good reading. There are certain guys here who are good writers, maybe they should look into another source of income:)

To me, it shows the real value of democracy and the continuing costs of our form of government. Back in the day, most people were agreeing with the public intervenor and saying it would be crazy to invest in a product that only has one source (for another thing on day two Venezuela could have turned around and jacked up the price).

Meanwhile, we live in an age where the younger generation has been pretty much instilled in the value of the green revolution, and as the wikipedia article says, the current head of NBPower is still thinking about another nuclear power plant when you could be benefitting from dirt cheap natural gas IF a little more investment had been made. Meanwhile, there’s probably another good book in Siemans cash cow from NBPower-the contract to provide all those ‘smart meters’ to all the homes. We’ve had one for about five years now and I haven’t even looked at it since it was installed. Apparantly people are too stupid to figure out “gee, when I’m home and have all my lights and computers on, I use a lot more power than when I’m gone”.

I am sure Mr Tozer might say the same think re ATCON. Not many would agree with him, though. And nor will many agree that the orimulsion deal has any significant redeeming qualities. The political backstory re NBP, orimulsion, and lepreau will make a great book someday.

However, in another article that I found, the ‘cost’ can’t be reflected in that number because apparantly there were a couple of unintended consequences of the refit, first in greenhouse gas emissions which don’t really have a price tag, but more importantly in operating efficiencies. The last consequence was the availability of a byproduct which was then handed over to Irving in the manufacture of its gypsum board at its new gypsum factory in Saint John. So not only did they get federal money for tearing down their shipyard and building a wall board factory, they also got a cheap ingredient for their wallboard.

But there are at least some jobs created there, which means all that money from the orimulsion deal wasn’t simply thrown out the window.

I don’t think it shows poor management, and what you DON”T have is a decent media, because most of that ‘political backstory’ is buried in government documents. Pretty sure I’ve posted this before, but the REAL problem with Orimulsion was there wasn’t ENOUGH politics. The fact was, orimulsion was the cheapest route to cheap energy. At the time, the public intervenor came out and said “hey, why not invest a little bit more money, and refit it for natural gas”. This is what a lot of places did, Maine for one, so now they benefit from cheap natural gas. However, AT THE TIME, natural gas prices were quite high, and NBPower wanted to go with what is cheapest.

That’s sort of like going into the Yugo lot and saying ‘this is what we need’ simply because the price is right. And sadly enough, NOW they are talking about refitting with natural gas. Mind you, what we may very well see is gas prices will go high again just as a gas plant is built. For right now, even the LNG terminal is losing money because prices are so low.

As for the problems, here’s an interesting remark from the wikipedia entry:

According to energy analyst and long-time critic Tom Adams, NB Power “has been the most oil-dependent grid-connected utility in North America”.[21] New Brunswick historically was politically dominated by the Irving family whose company Irving Oil remains the dominant fossil fuel supplier in the province. Conflicts of interest have often been noted between supply-side interests in petroleum or nuclear industries and the NB Power board. The utility is notably lax in energy demand management and other means to reduce energy demand, and under current President Gaetan Thomas has been quoted in the press proposing additional nuclear reactors and other supply solutions to grid management problems. He has actively defended NB Power’s reliance on nuclear power.[22]

NBP financial reports provide debt levels that do not include the debt from Lepreau, so they are a poor indicator of NBP’s debt load.

What orimulsion shows is the poor management of NBP and how that poor management has led to NBP’s current predicament. What we don’t really have yet is the backstory details – how much political interference played in those decisions and how many yes-men replaced the managers who did know what they were doing.

This is the debt levels from the NBPower financial reports:

1998-3.1 billion
99 – 3.0
00-2.8
01-2.9
02-2.5
03-2.9
04-3.2
05-2.4
06-2.6
07-2.8
08-2.8
09-3.0
10-3.4

Pretty warm out today, I guess the cold of yesterday and the day before that was because of Chavez:)

Yes, I see that at least some New Brunswickers REALLY have forgotten about Chavez’s ‘gift’. There was NO contract, that has been established for years and was the main feature in virtually every newspaper article (a heckuva thing to miss). There was only a “memorandum of understanding” which, according to ‘world petroluem law’ is “pure and simply a gentleman’s agreement which does not create any duty or binding obligation to be enforceable in any court of law”.

NBPower tried to sue them for 2.2 BILLION, plus 500 million for ‘administrative costs’ of the lawsuit. The ‘cash settlement’ which came from arbitration was 330 million, which kind of tells you what the courts thought of NBPower’s argument that an MOU was legally enforceable. From Venezuela thats just ‘shut up and go away’ money.

As for China, orimulsion is a heck of a lot better than coal, which China heavily relies on. They also purchased it in such quantities that it makes economic sense and more importantly, they built their own processing facility in Venezuela. Venezuela is currently no longer producing it.

AIMS, of course, used the political angle in describing NBPower’s utter stupidity in “relying on a military strongman”, when, to be fair, there were at least seven other countries that were in negotiations, including Florida, where it was finally stopped by environmental activism (and politics no doubt, but when it comes to cheap fuel, politics tends to take a backseat).

The Oil and Gas journal (part of the conspiracy?) states that the technology was once ‘the pride of Venezuela’s engineering industry’, and that it fell out of favour because engineers were one of the most vocally celebratory groups when Chavez was ousted in a coup and was ‘disappeared’. When he got back, he wasn’t quite so pleased. And by the way, if you’ve never watched “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, its probably one of the best documentaries ever made, along with ‘Sir, No Sir’ (and its free on youtube). Plus, OPEC was continually complaining that orimulsion was not calculated with other oil products in their quota system, throwing the system out of whack. And of course orimulsion is made with a surfacant which is EXTREMELY nasty if it were (when it does) come into contact with marine life.

I think the conspiracy angle comes out when you say “HE cancelled the contract”. Again, there was no contract, and there is no evidence that Chavez himself played any part in the (lack of) deal. The way you write your article makes it sound like he was sitting in his evil mansion plotting his malice on New Brunswick, when its doubtful he ever even heard of the place.

Your blogs are usually pretty heady on details and statistics, it really doesn’t look ‘professional’ when it consists of “I don’t really know much about this but here’s what I think..” I expect that from Fox News, but you are usually much more professional than them (not that you aren’t entitled to your own opinion, but its usually a BIT more informed).

The IT startups also have little to do with the universities, but more to do with your raison d’etre-large scale partnerships. Introhive is Jody Glidden, who sold Chalk media to RIM. After working for RIM he met enough connections with executives to enable him to start another company. That’s not all good news, since Mr. Glidden now lives in Miami, so its very possible the company will relocate there. Userevents is a pretty tiny operation, but Zaptap looks like a very interesting up and comer, however, its owner went to school in Quebec but then worked for Bell and then Irving. So again, the universities had nothing to do with that.

The problem with Fredericton schools is there is very little emphasis on developing technology. Saint Thomas is an arts school, so hate to say it but churns out graduates to directly move to China or Japan to teach english. Having Masters degrees has little to do with entrepreneurship or innovation except in engineering and life sciences. Thanks to generous labour contracts, you will find a good percentage of teachers now having Masters degrees.

Given that the school has two universities the number of tech startups is quite low and should be a cause for concern. Also, when you look at the makeup and description of these startups they all bear striking similarities.

In an age when most universities are overflowing with students, its pretty concerning that enrollment is dropping. Here in Waterloo buildings are going up faster than they can stuff people in them, and like I”ve said before, there are virtually NO new industries here, all that growth is university oriented.

Part of the reason I’m posting is that I’ve never heard Mr. Campbell mention Richard Florida in an almost POSITIVE light:) That’s nice to see, but knowing a fair number of artists in Fredericton, that ‘industry’ is certainly not in any real ‘entrepreneurial’ mode. And a number of fingers can be pointed at David Alward for his attack on the fledgling film industry, which has now been pretty much decimated.

That’s not meant to be negative but simply realistic. Fredericton is a far uglier city now than it was in 1987 with much more poverty and much more noticeable poverty.

The positive side is that like any government centre there is lots of potential IF that potential can be activated. I’m writing this to be realistic because perhaps if more students were more fully aware that practically their ONLY opportunities if they want to live at home will be entreprenuerial ones, them more people will make that attempt. Its not easy, but nowadays its probably on par with finding a job fresh out of school.

The other positive is that as an economics prof once repeatedly said “there’s money in Fredericton”. And people like to root for the home team. The Zaptap story is instructive since the owner said that he EASILY raised the first financial hurdle, so raised the bar some more.

For public policy there really needs to be an attempt to recognize this and plan for it. All it took was a newspaper story for a cancer researcher in Moncton to get all the financial backing he required, yet when I did a search for ‘angel investors’ there was nothing in New Brunswick, and only a remotely connected one in Nova Scotia. So even if the government could do something a little more proactive than running a Breakthru competition then perhaps the number of tech -or any progressive startup, can enter double digits.

Still it is good news that hi-tech firms are being successful, and that the unis are contributing to that success. High wage jobs and the discretionary income that goes with them translate into work for cultural sector employees.

Given govt austerity and that impact on univ budgets, I think we will need to see some rationalization there to keep the innovation flowing. Can we still afford two separate universities ‘up the hill’?

Sensitive aren’t we? Fact is, you don’t live here or vote here. So it isn’t your government. You are free to comment, but your statement referring to ‘our government’ is not correct. Heritage has got nothing to do with it, neither does the number of comments on websites. Your govt is in TO.

I am not sure why you are obsessed with McKenna. But Hatfield’s accomplishments like McKenna’s are few and far between. Certainly in comparison to LJR’s. Hatfield was basically a caretaker – he helped settle things down after LJR’s revolutionary changes. He was a decent man and meant well, but he did not really achieve all that much.

“Candidate gene studies of human behavior are gaining interest in economics and entrepreneurship research. Performing and interpreting
these studies is not straightforward because the selection of candidates influences the interpretation of the results. As an example, Nicolaou et al. (Small Bus Econ 36:151–155, 2011) report a significant association between a common genetic variant in the DRD3 gene and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. We fail to replicate this finding using a much larger, independent dataset. In addition, we discuss the candidate gene approach and give suggestions to avoid the publication of false positives.”

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/227088850_Candidate_gene_studies_and_the_quest_for_the_entrepreneurial_gene

Economically, it was his government that built Point Lepreau. True,Mckenna had the confederation bridge, but that was a private deal with mostly federal funding. Hatfield was also responsible for funding and building Market Square in Saint John. Mckenna twinned a highway, but more highways have been twinned since he’s been gone.

Hatfield also reformed most of the important financing legislation, and brought in the Access to Information Act as well as most human rights legislation.

Most of the city hospitals were built under his watch, and much of the expansion of the universities. McKenna, well, I guess you could say he’s most famous for reminding everyone that they are poor and should act like it.

And ask any old artist about Hatfield and they will tell you that unlike McKenna, who only travelled to try to bring short term jobs, Hatfield was a tireless salesman for artists in NB, most of whom most NBers wouldn’t recognize on the street, but who have (had) worldwide audiences and could stay and live in the province permanently thanks to him.

That’s probably being way too hard on Frank McKenna, but ‘history’ is most likely to remember him for his economic initiatives, which have been short lived, and others, like legalizing gambling long before other provinces, and impoverishing the poor even more, his ‘workfare’ program which forced welfare recipients to gather brush and do other menial jobs (rather than be given an education), but which went on to become popular with most right wing governments in the 90′s.

Hatfield’s list of ‘endowments’ are extensive, from recognition from native groups, all universities, and numerous artists organizations. Frank, well, frankly given his history SINCE being Premier it puts all his globe trotting into another perspective and he makes a lucrative living sitting on boards for various corporations. Hatfield was in for 17 years, longer than any NB Premier, McKenna’s popularity went increasingly downward and he mostly survived because conservatives were divided into two parties.

Oh yeah, McKenna is also well known for sicing the RCMP’s dogs onto women and children who were protesting education cuts. While I can understand why those in economic development may be keen on him, like I said, history has a long memory – well, not anymore, so it may well be true that most of the next generations won’t have any idea who ANY Premiers were (or who the current ones are).

If anything I’d say Hatfield was simply before his time. A gay pot smoking Premier? Man, if ONLY we could come up with modern politicians HALF as interesting.

Hatfield’s accomplishments make McKenna look like an amateur. Do you really think history is going to look back and say “well, Hatfield was more influential on the national stage..”. Who cares at what stage they are? Hatfield took on the auto pact in trying to get Bricklin going, what did McKenna EVER put his neck on the line for? In fact he was so gutless that he let bureacrats kill his home care initiatives, about the only thing he was noted for besides getting other provinces upset at NB by visiting and trying to steal their jobs. He was most famous for being one of the first politicians to start waging war on the poor.

And who cares if Hatfield went against the wishes of the rednecks of his party in establishing equal language rights? That makes it all the more honourable. Frank barely managed to change anything with EVERY SINGLE seat in the parliament which essentially gave him dictatorial powers. The fact is that Hatfield got it, and got it put in the charter. He also went up against both white racists and native men in getting women’s indigenous rights established in the charter, something nobody else gave a rats ass about. All Frank ever did was follow on his coattails and get them enshrined by the Supreme Court.

I can go on some more, but some of us have to work to pay for those transfer payments that pay a third of YOUR budget so that you can question other people’s heritage.

Hatfield’s initiatives were fairly modest. He solidified the gains made by Acadians under LJR – largely by refusing to listen to the many members of his Party who wanted some of those gains reversed.

Hatfield was prominent on the national stage, but that was largely image – I don’t believe he had a great deal of influence – although perhaps he did do something for pot legalization. His economic achievements were also fairly modest. Perhaps McKenna’s are unwinding, but Hatfield did not leave much behind to unwind. More of a friendly, congenial caretaker that help keep tensions down.

BTW I thought the funniest part of the Ryan transcripts was where he told DM Levesque to speak up ‘I can barely hear you, Mr Levesque’.

“our government”?

Moreover, after reading half of the report it seems clear that HE didn’t need a lawyer. The commissioner said quite clearly that he thought Graham was pretty forthcoming-on his own. Cop shows are usually pretty fictional, but I still remember one line from somewhere: “if you are innocent, tell the truth-if you are guilty, get a lawyer”.

However, only being halfway through convinces me that its ‘corruption’ very clearly, but maybe people have too grand a view of that word. To corrupt a process is simply to alter it in a negative way. I would have to agree that its NOT the corruption a lot of CBC commenters think-in that I doubt very much that the reasoning behind it was for Graham to try to help daddy, a guy who very clearly needs no help.

BUT the point is that it is POSSIBLE. Without a criminal investigation we simply don’t know. Graham senior could have called his son and said that he gets paid 200 grand as a consultant and really needs that cash. I DOUBT it, but its possible and given politics in this day and age, its hardly a stretch of the imagination. If you really do need to stretch your imagination then you are pretty politically (and economically!) naive.

What the first half does show any reader is just how lousy our government actually usually operates. The biggest complaint from most citizens is that there are one set of rules for the rest of us, and a different (if any) set of rules for those with power. This VERY clearly shows that-it shows that virtually ALL the negative things people believe about their political system is true, and thats a HUGE issue. For one thing it perfectly explains who so many are so vehement against shale gas-it shows that you can pump your chest and say you’ve got all kinds of rules and regulations, but in the end the most important decisions are made in a secret room with a cabinet that makes decisions which not only can you not disagree with, but you can’t even KNOW.

PS-IF we are the employer here your theory isn’t really that sound because if you embezzle money from your employer its not too many employers who are going to foot the bill (not that I’m saying he’s an embezzler, but X tax dollars DID go to Atcon, and some of that money could have gone virtually anywhere).

“Normally, Business New Brunswick did “not assist with
construction contract financing or performance bonding.” (Exhibit 118 Privileged) Here, it did.”

“Alan Graham was a Director of Vanerply AB for
approximately nine or ten years resigning in May
2009. He was never a shareholder. I had no
knowledge of my father’s responsibilities or his
remuneration.”

Which means he resigned just as things were going south for Atcon-which seems ‘convenient’. It’s also ‘interesting’ that Shawn Graham KNOWS that his father was never a shareholder in the company, but doesn’t know what he was paid or what he did. That’s some pretty selective conversations going on there.

“I verily believe the Premier knew or reasonably should
have known that his decisions to use New Brunswick tax dollars directly advanced the financial and business interests of his father
[Alan] Graham”

This is the crux of the issue, and the report agrees. I don’t believe that’s ‘incompetence’, but I do believe its ‘corruption’, although some pretty lighthearted stuff. Only the future really says, all these ex liberals seem to show up on the boards of all kinds of resource companies, we’ll see what kind of ‘payback’ is in Shawn Graham’s future. I sympathize with him, from what I’ve heard he seems to have been NB’s George Bush (complete with tax breaks for the rich but fortunately never invaded PEI), a nice guy who really didn’t have the brains or political acumen to do the job. And now if he goes back into teaching, people will say its political favouring, and probably the ONLY other job he can get is like Bernard Lord, some kind of political job in another province, because in NB it will also be seen as favouritism.

“The evidence shows that the diligent employees of Business New Brunswick were hampered in every way in trying to get current information from Atcon…The situation was so ridiculous that there was not even a proper application for the guarantees by Atcon.”

“My demands to inspect the documents were vigorously defended by way of argument and the filing of briefs.” -here was that $72 grand of your tax dollars at work. Interesting that MANY pages of the report were legal arguments simply to GET these documents.

“In the case of one high ranking New Brunswick employee..the
employee was given a summons and promptly deleted the e-mails.”

THAT is ‘corruption’ right there.

“[53] After 56 years as a litigator, lecturer, trial justice, appeal court justice and conflict of interest commissioner my experience is that the deputy minister, in so testifying, did not feel any sense of wrong doing, having persuaded himself that he was doing it in a good cause. He was wrong ”

Anybody who HASN”T read the report should download it just to read the squirming politician who is being interviewed above.

“[62] April 23, 2009, Cabinet including Premier Graham who chaired the meeting met and amended the offer of financial assistance by deleting the words “portion of a revolving operating” as they appear in paragraph 3 of Order in Council 2009-130 replacing it with a
$20 million dollar guarantee of a 4-year term loan.”

“[71] During the month of June 2009, Atcon prepared a document entitled Certificate of Pending Litigation which showed millions of dollars in litigation against Atcon companies. Should Business New Brunswick’s “due diligence” not have exposed this financial cancer before any monies had even been paid? ”

Actually, thats some pretty heady stuff but only goes to HALFWAY through the report. But like Bernard Richard’s report, it will probably be quickly forgotten, even though there is LOTS of pretty important stuff in there. Like the fact that cabinet meetings have no minutes recorded and there is no record of votes taken when decisions are made. Since Cabinet is in effect ‘the government’, the idea that these men meet in secret meetings which are closed to everyone and have ZERO transparancy, pretty much makes a mockery of this thing we sometimes call ‘democracy’.

As for ‘corruption’ it really depends on how you define it. For a good percentage of New Brunswickers, simply the fact that Graham hired a lawyer at the taxpayer’s expense for $72 grand is ‘corrupt’. And for what? Heck, over at Charles’ Leblanc’s blog he is routinely chastised (often by me) for having the gall to criticize Bernard Richard’s report when he refused to talk to Richard without having a lawyer present. So it seems ‘the common folk’ are not allowed legal representation during investigations resulting from aggression AGAINST them by government, but elected officials who are the TARGET of such investigations can bill the province almost three quarters of a hundred grand! If thats not clear, poor victims of government aggression don’t get legal representation, already wealthy (respectively)and crooked (possibly)politicians do.

And having your father being a consultant AND sitting on the Board of Directors of company x and sitting in a Cabinet room deciding against all evidence to hand over a huge chunk of cash to a company very clearly going under-well YOU may think that is ‘zero proof’, but I can’t remember the last time a sitting or ex politician was actually FINED for conduct during office. Heck, even Mayor Rob Ford has never had to do THAT. The fact that he was fined for ‘conflict of interest’ certainly counts as proof for SOMETHING. What we can’t measure without a criminal investigation is the INTENT and what people said behind the scenes.

We can IMAGINE though, and from what we DO know, ‘outright corruption’ is not a far stretch. I suspect your bias may be showing a bit more and your line between ‘politically motivated decisions’ and ‘outright corruption’ may be pretty thin. For one thing, in economic development wouldn’t you agree that NO financial decisions involving taxpayer money should be made on ‘political grounds’ but rather economic ones? I thought that has been your theme for YEARS.

Its worth pointing out that this is hardly unique since almost ANY economic development deal has political aspects, and in fact the Caissie Populaire fiasco of several years ago seemed to be SO sensitive that BOTH political parties quickly buried it without investigation.

And I have to say that I haven’t even read the report yet, I’ve noticed that often these reports are quite whitewashed, like Bernard Richard underplaying that Fredericton police told the IP company they were investigating Charles Leblanc for child pornography when it was a libel case against one of their officers. These things are often HUGE, but when written by lawyers and politicians they sound almost banal.

Irregardless, OUR point was simply that you mention Atcon simply as another economic development deal in a blog about Graham ‘crumbs’, which kind of seems to be like talking about crumbs and missing the cookie.

You are far to forgiving. Suspect your bias is showing, like Mikel suggests.

The point is, its the GOVERNMENT that has let it get to the point where people are pissed. And as far as ‘ignorant’, get real, I’ve read articles by self educated people that make the Minister of the Environment look like an idiot. And of course the minister BEFORE him was pretty close to being one, at least on this file. The assumption here is that ‘government knows best’, when they have very little idea.

And that’s part of the problem, those who AGREE with government policy will of course preach to ‘get on with it’, which of course means that protestors have to become more and more extreme. IF things like this were dealt with as they came up,then people wouldn’t be ruled by emotions.

Anyway, its all hypothetical, and essentially a non issue. There is little evidence that there is much gas in the ground anyway, and the government is turning its head toward a gas pipeline.

We have talked it to death, so let’s get on with it. If somebody’s land has issues (assuming they allow a baseline test on their property beforehand), we can deal with it. There are pipelines and frac’ing going on all over the place. Everything has risk. If you don’t trust the govt well we can’t help you. When people oppose everything they oppose nothing. Whatever have to pragmatists? Now even NDP and Liberals are against it and want to do moratoriums.

On the other side, these ‘tough new’ regulations still aren’t in place, according to CBC they’ve dumbed down the regulations that previously had the onus on companies to pay for damages UNLESS they could prove they didn’t cause it, to now the government says IT will pay landowners and then try to sue the company itself. Now, if you believe THAT scenario will work as well in practise as in theory, then you are probably about six years old and still far too naive.

Every time I TRY to give the government the benefit of the doubt, they come out and TALK, and always seem to sound dumber than the last time. I’m HOPING that the media was just playing it up, but it sounded like the energy minister was touting up their ‘time out’ practise which he was saying they’d “stack up against any ‘time out’ policy in the hemisphere”. Who the heck has ever even heard of such a thing? He even goes so far as to say “if they don’t comply we’ll have no trouble sending them to their room”. Who does he think we are, six year olds? What is the policy, don’t hand out crappy metaphors.

When I tried to compare these ‘time outs’ (you would think that the government would be able to simply stop work rather than tell a company ‘you can’t work for two hours until we find out how many laws you’ve broken’- all I came up with were environmental organizations trying to ‘take a time out’ from fracking altogether, and an interesting story from Arkansas where it seems its become SO clear that fracking fluids are causing earthquakes that they are stopping it altogether (and this is just a YEAR after the whole earthquake issue began and people figured it would take decades to show cause and effect). Maryland is taking a ‘time out’ from fracking, and I saw organizations in virtually every state calling for the same.

Anyway, we’ve talked fracking to death so I just want to add to Darryl’s point on his blog that the government ‘is under no onus to defend its own policies’. That seems ridiculous from the outset, in a ‘democratic’ society the government should HAVE to defend ALL of its policies, particularly since now our elections have become such a joke they aren’t much more reliable than most puppet states. However, I’d go one further and state that you would think the whole point of Alward bringing in a referendum act would be to actually have referenda.

I’ve posted my views before, and the Swiss model seems to have worked for them just fine for the last 300 years, and thats one where citizens initiatives can challenge ANY government policy (even the constitution)and force a referendum. In NB, there is NO reason why a cheap referendum couldn’t have been held during the last municipal elections, since it was such a hot topic issue. IF we had referenda regulations that did that, I’d also support Australia’s rules where people HAVE to vote. In NB I suspect the only reason a moratorium would be enforced is because during a municipal election few people vote, and the anti side is definitely more organized and angry. IF every voter in NB voted, I suspect there would be no moratorium, but of course thats just a prediction.

However, nothing personal but I really need to see some evidence before I buy the line online that ‘some guy said’ how many wells were contaminated. Its a valid point though, I couldn’t find anything online, my searches came up first with ’142 polluted sites that need cleanup’ which haven’t been, and a Sussex well that was contaminated with perchopolyethylene, and others that were polluted with arsenic. On the good side you can expect LOTS of people to get well testing done, on the bad side virtually everything will be blamed on fracking.

However, for this government this is too little too late. Go take a look at CBC where the government announces using environmental funds to ‘study’ fracking, the comments are uniformly (and rightly) vicious. At this point virtually NOBODY trusts this government. They can announce all kinds of regulations, but when nobody trusts the government that will not be enough. In the eighties Reagan simply told companies that environmental laws would simply not be enforced. THere are those who are ALREADY ‘for’ fracking and will be no matter what, and there are those who are against it, and this announcement will largely have zero effect.