It's The Economy, Stupid

Every since Kelly Lamrock lamented the state of French Immersion education in New Brunswick, there have been a slew of articles, editorials and, yes, even blogs about the subject. Mostly positive stuff but I think that Alec Bruce was on point when he said:

A crucial component of economic self-sufficiency in this province is a literate, bilingual workforce. It provides a competitive edge that few other jurisdictions in North America can boast.

He also made some commentary about the importance of maintaining your French.

That is where I come in.

As of the 2001 Census, only 8% of Anglophone New Brunswickers claimed to use French at the office (Work Language). I am not talking about exclusively speaking French – I am talking about occassionally speaking French at work. Only 8%. Greater Moncton, that bastion of bilingualism was only slightly better with 14% saying that they spoke both English and French at work. Somewhat troubling, almost 12% of Francophones said they only speak English at work.

Now, most people spend 40 hours + at work per week – almost as much time at work as sleeping. If we truly want to be a bilingual society, shouldn’t we encourage more bilingualism at work?

Think about it for a minute. If just the Anglophones in the civil service spoke French at work, you would double that 8% to 16% or more.

In a way, that’s what riles so many Anglos. You ‘must speak French’ to get this job or that job – and then you never speak French for a moment while at work.

In the little office where I work, it’s a model for bilingualism – at least in some sense – even though 95% of our clients are English only. Staff meetings flow in and out of English and French (and there are now three of us Anglos whose French is passable only) and everybody tries and is accommodating.

Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds…

Ooops. I digress.

But my point is valid. If you want these kids in French Immersion to take bilingualism seriously then you should promote it. We should encourage its use at work.

And to all my Francophone friends who think it’s just easier to speak English than listen to me try and babble along like a first grader in French – stop and think. If you give in and don’t help foster a bilingual workforce, who will? You want the Albert Countians to champion the cause?

Bilingualism is not a natural state. It takes effort. You need to know two languages. That takes effort. But Alec Bruce is right. It’s the one thing that we have that very few others have. That’s a strategic differentiator.

So I’ll finish by tying this whole thing into economic development (of course).

We attract almost no French firms – Nova Scotia has more French investment than New Brunswick.

We attract almost no French (from France) immigrants. Manitoba attracts more. Cripes, over 10 years, we attracted 45 French immigrants out of 22,000 to Canada. Wow. Although, I think thanks to UdeM we are attracting an increasing number of French North African immigrants. Additional kudos to the university. One has to wonder where Moncton would without UdeM.

France Immigration to Canada

Cripes, we hardly attract any Quebec migrants. The last data I saw, we attracted less Quebeckers than any other province.

So, my point? Fostering bilingualism is more than just a new textbook in Grade 11. It’s about encouraging French immigration. It’s about encouraging bilingual workforces (not to the exclusion of unilingual English by the way – that would be a huge mistake). It’s about encouraging more real bilingual jobs (we have less French/English translators than four other provinces). Why aren’t we attracting more bilingual economic activity?

Oh, and by the way, a good place to start would be to have an English version of that school book history of Acadie that was published a couple of weeks ago in French only. You want Anglo kids to embrace French – have them embrace Acadie. It’s a part of our [NB Anglos] history too.

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I think this is going to turn into a major zero-sum game.

Saskatchewan is spending $6 million on a campaign to recruit in-migrants from Alberta and other parts of Canada. Alberta is spending a pile to attract workers from Atlantic Canada (you remember the MoveWest initiative). Nova Scotia has a in-migrant campaign. New Brunswick ostensibly has one.

Canada-wide if the economy needs – let’s use a nice round number – one million workers – just spending taxpayer dollars to move people around Canada is not the right way to go – particularly because it is now leading to shortages in the out-migrant locations and more money put into the pot to reverse the trend.

$6 million is a lot of money for an advertising campaign.

I think there needs to be a national discussion on this – maybe the Premier’s council should take it on.

Nationally, the focus should be on immigration and maybe a little more focus on bringing back Canadians living abroad. This is what Waterloo, Ontario is doing in California. I don’t know the total tally but there must be several million Canadians living abroad (remember Lebanon).

Now, this is naive comment on my part. The reality is that Canada’s provinces are likely to increase – not decrease – their inter-provincial people attraction activities. And, if so, New Brunswick has to stop diddling and get into the game. However, see about two dozen previous posts, these activities must be tied directly to real jobs and real careers. Just saying ‘come home’ means nothing.

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There’s a considerable amount of buzz surrounding the Commission on Post Secondary education in New Brunswick. Their report likely won’t be out until later in the Fall, but I have talked with a few folks with the education sector and here are some things I am hearing:

1. One or more of the smaller English universities will be merged into UNB from an admin perspective (STU, MTA or UNBSJ). This is a cost cutting measure.

I severely doubt this will every happen. The Premier, Greg Byrne and Kelly Lamrock are graduates of STU. You think they are going to let it be swallowed up by UNB? Mount Allison has some very heavy hitters as graduates that would not be happy – and plus I hear they would rather ‘go it alone’ than be merged. And as for UNBSJ, how many SJ reps are their sitting around the Cabinet table these days? Enough to veto that.

2. The community college system will become more autonomous allowing local schools to offer whatever training they deem necessary to serve the local market.

This is very problematic from a political perspective but changes are likely needed. The way the system is now, if you want to take a specific course you have to go in the province where that course is offered – Woodstock, SJ, Bathurst, etc. The only problem is that a large part of the target market for community college training is not mobile (for example a married man wants to take a course that is only offered in Edmundston but his wife works in Moncton). So, what is happening is that Francophones are enrolling at the English language NBCC in Moncton so they don’t have to move to another city to get the same course in French. That is just one example.

Politically, to close smaller city community colleges (this would likely be the impact of allowing all courses to be offered in the large southern cities) would be extremely problematic.

3. More integration between the NBCCs and the universities. For example, better credit transfers and more coordination.

Several education stakeholders have told me that this makes sense. Apparently, British Columbia is a leader in this area.

But I want to remind you of a few comments that were made when this thing was put in place:

From a January CBC report:

New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham is planning a major overhaul of the province’s post-secondary education system, and has appointed a commission to travel the province and make suggestions by fall 2007.

“There has to be more than just a tweaking,” Graham said. “We recognize that for our universities and community colleges to succeed, there’s going to have to be some transformational changes brought forward to allow us to be competitive.”

“I’d like to hear from the basic New Brunswickers, who say, ‘you know, this is important to me, I want my son or daughter or grandson or daughter to have a future in this province. And the only way they’re gonna have a future in this province is if we have a robust economy, and the only way we’re gonna have a robust economy is if we have a literate workforce, so this is important to me, so you guys better make some good recommendations,’” Rick Miner, president of Seneca College and head of the commission said.

Miner says New Brunswick has no choice but to overhaul its system if it wants its economy to survive. Within three years, he says, 90 per cent of jobs in the province will require post-secondary education.

Now, you can’t accuse the Liberals of using muted language. Everything is talked about in the context of ‘massive change’ required. Graham wants ‘transformational’ change to the post-secondary system. Politically, cutting too much or merging is likely not going to happen so what is ‘transformational’?

Let’s revisit my position:

1. Between 20% to 40% of all university graduates from NB schools leave the province for work every year (depending on the survey you look at).

2. Out-migrants are historically much higher educated than people that stay in New Brunswick (lately that is changing because of the blue collar out-migration to Alberta).

3. Both the NBCC and the universities are graduating hundreds of folks each year for which there is almost no chance of a job in their field in New Brunswick. I have seen graduate follow surveys for both universities and colleges that showed the #1 reason why graduates took a job out of the province was a lack of opportunity in New Brunswick.

4. Despite high tuition, NBCC and university education is highly subsidized by taxpayers so every graduate that leaves New Brunswick takes thousands – maybe as much as 20k or more of public subsidization with them.

5. Until recently, British Columbia had the highest education levels in the population and the lowest level of university students (they have recently added a large number of seats, I am told). That is because the university graduate pool in Canada is highly mobile. Biz grads end up in B.C., IT grads in Waterloo, nurses in Texas.

So my position on this at the macro level is simple:

Educational opportunities need to be aligned with workforce needs in New Brunswick. Period. No more biology if there are no jobs for biologists. No more aircraft maintenance if all the grads are going off to Montreal or Halifax. No more, you get the picture.

The way you do this is much more alignment between the economic development plan and the education plan.

The post-secondary educational system should continue to foster mobility between the communities. I don’t think we need to have a college and university in every town offering a full suite of programming. So we should be more deliberate about this. However, we also need to be very realistic. For example, anglophones in Moncton now have among the lowest – if not the lowest – rates of university graduates in all of Canada. So to make the point that Moncton kids should go to UNB and move back or whatever – that doesn’t seem to be working.

And this is problematic on a number of fronts. The lack of university education among Anglos in Moncton is dragging down average incomes (still well below SJ and Freddy) and ultimately will be a lid on growth.

However, the good news is that Moncton is starting to attract Anglo university educated folks from across Canada. I know people from Calgary, Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver that have brought their diplomas with them.

To take a ‘suck it up, Moncton’ attitude towards this problem wouldn’t be wise. If Moncton’s Anglo population was as educated as Freddy Beaches Anglo population, New Brunswick’s university educated rate would be close to the national average. Now, it is second from the bottom. I’m not going to say “as goes Moncton, so goes New Brunswick” but Greater Moncton is the largest population base in New Brunswick – so you figure it out.

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I hate it when economists try and boil everything down to a pie chart. The Globe & Mail is reporting this morning on a new report from The Centre for the Study of Living Standards called “The Impact of Interprovincial Migration on Aggregate Output and Labour Productivity in Canada, 1987-2006”. The report concludes:

The increase in interprovincial migration in Canada, and in particular the large net
in-migration to Alberta, has contributed to output growth. In 2006, it estimated that
interprovincial migration added nearly one billion dollars to the Canadian economy when
output is expressed in constant 1997 dollars, and nearly 2 billion when expressed in
current dollars.

Essentially, what they are trying to say is that taking 2,000 people a per year (net) out of New Brunswick (8,000 per year out of Ontario) and moving them to Alberta is really good for the national economy – to the tune of $2 billion per year in ‘output’ (all provinces combined).

Now, this same group a few years ago issued a report that recommended the federal government provide financial incentives to Atlantic Canadians on EI to move to Alberta.

OK, let’s think this through. The CSLS has this as its mandate:

[The CSLS] is a non-profit, national, independent organization that seeks to contribute to a better understanding of trends in and determinants of productivity, living standards and economic and social well-being through research.

Put aside productivity for a moment. How does the CSLS pushing public policy makers to empty out certain regions of the country to fuel the growth of other areas ‘contribute to a better understanding of the determinants of ‘living standards’ or ‘social well being’?

Make no mistake. There is very little ideologically neutral research. This report goes to great lengths to make the case for more mobility of people from poor to rich areas.

I have a little different view. Call me a contrarian.

The Globe’s headline reads:

Migration west adds $2-billion to national economy
My headline would read (if I could get published):

Migration west over time seriously eroding the social and economic fabric of whole regions of the Canadian economy…

..which could lead ultimately to serious social unrest.

You see most (or many) economists just look at numbers. They are not so good at the human side of the equation.

I have said before that the free flow of goods, services, capital, ideas and people within a country is healthy for a national economy. When one area overheats, another one should rise. When there is a surplus here, it should feed a deficit there. I, on an economic level, have no problem with that.

But my position assumes a two-way flow. That there will be ebbs and flows. A sustained one-way flow for years (now moving into decades – New Brunswick has exported more people to other provinces than imported for 14 straight years) leads to serious social and economic challenges.

Consider an analogy from the corporate world (I know, indulge me). If an automobile company starts to lose market share to another (say New Brunswick Auto Co. Inc. NBACI as the former and Alberta Auto Co. Inc. AACI as the latter), it will start to take increasingly serious measure to protect its market share. Eventually, market forces will dictate radical changes or the NBACI will either go bankrupt or be acquired.

Now, consider that the NBACI and the AACI are both partially owned by the Canadian Auto Co. Inc. CACI. The CACI may continue to cross-subsidize the NBACI with profits from the AACI (like GM has done for years with its brands) but eventually if the NBACI doesn’t become profitable, the CACI will shut it down.

Now, in the aggregate economic sense, maybe the CACI is better off with out the NBACI.

But we are talking about freakin’ cars here – not communities of people that have existed for hundreds of years.

So, all this to say that I think the CSLS is a front for the Alberta government. It’s not about social well-being at all because social-well-being is about community and while people may be better off financially by moving to Alberta – you can’t tell me that breaking up families, social networks and communities to the scale that is going right now is good for the social well being of Canada.

Again, I don’t blame Alberta. Giddy up. I blame public policy makers in the poor provinces and nationally who use studies like this to ease their consciences. No pain, no gain. They say.

I realize that the de facto public policy advocated both federally and provincially for at least the last 15 years was to slowly empty poor regions of ‘surplus’ people to areas of Canada that need them. This is obvious by the way governments’ are spending their money and writing their policy.

But I am not sure they haven’t replaced one problem with another. Communities with high unemployment and low productivity because of very high seasonal employment are a drag on public finances (directly and indirectly). That labour would be better used in Alberta (from a technical perspective). But what is the bigger goal here? What do you do to a country when you slowly erode whole regions to feed others?

I gotta go but I’ll make one last point because it is huge.

When you read this report, you will likely say ‘yikes’ when you see the Ontario out-migration figures. An average of 8,000 out per year since 2001.

Well, don’t lose your shorts.

Ontario receives more immigrants per year than Alberta, Manitoba, SK, NB, NS, PEI and NL combined.

Heck, Moncton has a positive in-migration from Ontario (the last time I looked was 2004). When you are bringing in hundreds of thousands of immigrants, losing a few people to Alberta is not that bad.

New Brunswick, however; and many other provinces, has the out-migration and virtually no immigration.

This is a massive difference.

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FatKat’s at it again. You gotta like it.

New York-based Animation Collective and Canadian-based Fatkat Studios, today announced a co-venture for the new, 26 half-hour episode action-comedy, animated series, “Three Delivery.” The announcement was made at COMIC-CON International, a comic book and entertainment industry trade show in San Diego. “Three Delivery” was created by Larry Schwarz, Animation Collective’s founder and C.E.O.

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I’ve said it before, guys like Donald Savoie are few and far between in Atl. Canada. The TJ has an article today that covers his thoughts on self-sufficiency. Now in all fairness, I like Savoie because I like his ideas. If you don’t like his ideas it’s likely you won’t feel the same way as me. But regardless of ideology, you have to appreciate his 38 books. His appointments. His respect in a wide variety of circles.

Premier Shawn Graham needs to be “…. the province’s best salesman.” \
I agree. However, unlike McKenna, I would recommend that Graham build a very strong team of sales people for New Brunswick. This can’t be a one man show.

Savoie conceded that “the bar [self-sufficiency] is set very high.” “But I’d rather set the bar high than just give up. That’s why I’ve been supportive of the self-sufficiency agenda.”
Contrast this with Jeannot actually ‘laughing’ at the self-sufficiency agenda.

However, like me, Savoie is not tied to arbitrary dates – rather to measurable progress.

But Savoie said he doesn’t believe in either magic bullets or in artificial deadlines. What’s needed, he said, is a sense of urgency and to have multiple initiatives – from tax incentives to infrastructure investments to having the federal government onside to, of course, salesmanship – all heading in the same direction. “If at 2026 we’re not there yet, we just keep going,” he said. “2026 is not Christmas. It’s just another year.”

I like the Telegraph-Journal. Sure, it has an Irving bias but I guess that’s to be expected. However, they have been publishing some smart stuff lately – thinking man’s stuff – about the self-sufficiency agenda. Contrast that with the dopey, mealy mouthed stuff we see in the T&T.

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You see, now this is an instructive example. The Canadian government sets up something called Sustainable Development Technology Canada to invest in clean technology development.

I, among others, have said multiple times that part of the ‘energy hub’ concept in New Brunswick should be clean energy technologies and related products. But, of course, not one project in this round of funding goes to a New Brunswick project.

In fact, since April 2002, SDTC has completed ten funding rounds, committed $285 million to 125 clean technology projects. Guest how much has gone to New Brunswick projects? $2.3 million. 0.8% of the total funding. Less than one per cent. Of course, 0.8% is better than the 0.2% from this fund.

The truth is simple. New Brunswick spends all its time begging for more Equalization and social transfers while all the Federal funding programs designed to stimulate economic development go virtually untouched.

This is nothing short of a shame. Billions of Federal dollars – SDTC, TPC, NSERC, NRC, on and on – New Brunswick gets a fraction of anything close to ‘per capita’ dollars but for welfare, we get well above ‘per capita’ dollars.

And now, Daulton McGuinty has fought for and won the new federal policy of serving up Health and Social Transfers on a ‘per capita’ basis.

One has to wonder if old Daulton would agree to all the SDTC, TPC, NSERC, NRC, etc. dollars to be divvied up ‘per capita’ (Ontario gets the lion’s share of virtually all these programs – Quebec second).

Some enterprising and cranky researcher should do the math. Take the billions in R&D the feds spend in Ontario. Take all the economic develpment programs (like those mentioned here) spent in Ontario. Take all the federal government employment in Ontario. Divvy that all up ‘per capita’ (like old Daulton gets for health and social transfers) and see if New Brunswick comes out ahead.

That would be a lot of work but an interesting project. I, for one, would take economic development leveraging funds over EI or even Equalization any day.

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I can say the self-sufficiency plan is likely too ambitious. So can professors at UNB. So can pundits and journalists. But the Leader of the Opposition has to be a lot more politically correct, in my opinion. Here’s an excerpt from the TJ article this morning:

New Brunswick will find it next to impossible to achieve the economic growth Premier Shawn Graham’s self-sufficiency agenda is counting on, argues Opposition leader Jeannot Volpé – who says New Brunswickers intuitively know it.

“That theme of self-sufficiency – a lot of people are starting to laugh about it now,” Volpé said Tuesday.

“I don’t think we can attain this kind of growth in New Brunswick,” said Volpé, who was finance minister for several years under former premier Bernard Lord.

You see, the problem here is that Volpe is suggesting that New Brunswick can’t achieve strong economic growth. That we can’t compete. That we can never be self-sufficient. In fact, he thinks people are even laughing at the idea.

Under Volpe’s tenure as Finance Minister, Canada went through an unprecedented level of economic and population growth. In New Brunswick, all we could manage was a slight population decline and a significant increase in dependence on Equalization (the opposite of self-sufficiency). So, it is only natural for Volpe to be skeptical – even laughing – at this objective.

But politically, the Tories need a leader that can cast a vision for New Brunswick that is growth oriented. That talks to rebuilding our communities. And, yes, to getting the province on a more stable, own source revenue-driven fiscal situation.

Casting a ‘can’t do’ vision for New Brunswick should not be the goal of the Opposition Leader.

He/she can disagree with how the governing party is doing things – in fact that is in reality part of their job – but they must provide an alternative view.

I think New Brunswickers are sick and tired of being the arse end of Canada economically speaking. I think they are tired of watching their friends and neighbours going down the road. I don’t think they are overly militant or passionate about it – after all – most of us that are left are working – but I think New Brunswick’s political parties – if they want to attract voters – need to start seriously addressing these issues.

I think this is key for the next Tory leader.

And I think this is key for Shawn Graham. I predict that if after four years we are no further ahead on self-sufficiency; if our population is still stagnant and if the vast majority of our communities are still shedding population; his government may be in jeopardy.

I think that gone are the days of an automatic 10-15 or even 17 years for a Premier in New Brunswick. Look at 2003. After only one term, former Premier Lord just hang on by the skin of his teeth.

I predict the same fate awaits any Premier these days that talks up a storm (prosperity plans, etc.) but is seen to be doing very little.

So, I am looking forward to the Tory convention and election of a new leader. We need to get beyond the Volpe years.

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The TJ is running a story today called “Province needs to grow like Alberta” which concludes that:

Self-sufficiency Analysis shows gross domestic product must outstrip Canadian average by 1.5 points to achieve 20-year goal. “To achieve self-sufficiency, New Brunswick will have to dramatically improve its productivity and obtain sustained GDP growth rates comparable to Alberta’s – at least in comparison to the current national average,” UNB’s Foord and McLaughlin say in the analysis.”

To me this is self-evident (and I discussed this in several blogs). I have said several times that Alberta-style growth would be required to meet the self-sufficiency targets.

But the other statement that I find interesting is:

Under that scenario [current trend] , “New Brunswick receives payments for hospitals, schools, colleges and universities, and in return offers up its youth as surplus labour for deployment in other parts of Canada and elsewhere,” say Foord and McLaughlin.

You say potato, I say potahto. This is my labour market incubator theory (or rather historical observation).

In fact, a cynic might say that this model works just find for the ‘have’ provinces. Pay us Equalization to cover the cost of developing tens of thousands of workers for their labour markets.

The opposite – a model where New Brunswick is actually attracting workers from Ontario, et. al. while still receiving Equalization – would like to lead to additional stresses on Confederation.

It would upset the apple cart so to speak.

But at least more and more folks are starting realize this stuff.

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I’m watching the kids this week while my wife is away. My son tells me that I am doing both the ‘dad’ and ‘mom’ thing this week.

So, he says, are you a combination of ‘dad’ and ‘mom’ or dom (pronounced dumb) or ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ or mad.

Hmmm.

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