I see that Adex Mining is looking at a 500 job mining operation in rural New Brunswick between Fredericton and St. George.
I have been worried in recent years about the decline in economic activity in rural New Brunswick. We have see mine closures, sawmills and forest products decline, even some ag and fisheries decline.
Nat gas development and mininng provide good, high paying jobs for rural New Brunswickers and a very good source of revenue for the provincial government. Because they involve finding and extracting natural resources we have to be careful and prudent about the development but we need to be able to leverage these natural advantages – just like every other province in Canada.
It’s no secret that the provinces with the lowest natural resources royalties – NB, Manitoba, PEI – also are very big users of Equalization and provinces with very high natural resource revenue – SK, AB, BC, NL – do not.