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David Campbell – A blog about economic development in Atlantic Canada

Month: November 2019

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Is institutional memory holding back New Brunswick’s growth potential?

Posted on November 29, 2019 by David Campbell

One of the challenges of the modern time is the lack of long term planning.  It was not uncommon in the 1950s and 1960s for businesses and governments to have multi-decade plans.  Some capital intensive industries (e.g. power generation) would…

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Can you imagine? In the near future boats could be made from wood!

Posted on November 20, 2019 by David Campbell

There is a great article in the Economist this week about giant 3D printers.  In Maine researchers printed a fishing boat in 72 hours. But what was really interesting is that they are looking in the future to print the…

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Setting government targets? To paraphrase Meghan Trainor, its all about the base (line)

Posted on November 16, 2019 by David Campbell

I received several calls and emails this week about Saskatchewan’s new 10-year growth plan.  In case you didn’t see it, as described by the CBC the growth plan “includes goals of increasing the population by 226,000 and creating 100,000 more…

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The Brunswick Smelter closure: An absolute tragedy

Posted on November 13, 2019 by David Campbell

The closure of the Brunswick Smelter announced today is a tragedy.  For those of you who say good riddance, don’t kid yourself.  The smelting will be done elsewhere – possibly in jurisdictions with less environmental standards than New Brunswick.  All…

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Is New Brunswick’s IT trade deficit limiting GDP potential?

Posted on November 13, 2019 by David Campbell

Herb Emery offers another insightful column today questioning why we haven’t seen much growth in ICT (information and communications technology) GDP despite all the hype.  He contrasts New Brunswick with Nova Scotia and PEI and doesn’t find a favourable trend.…

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Sour Grapes: Did we miss an opportunity?

Posted on November 11, 2019 by David Campbell

Canada’s Defence Minister, Harjit Sajjan, got this one right. On Saturday, Canada’s grumpy coach/commentator Don Cherry, lamented the lack of people wearing poppies and went on to make a snarky comment about immigrants. Of course this led to the now…

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The reasons people leave their jobs: You might be surprised

Posted on November 9, 2019 by David Campbell

In preparation for the big workforce summit next week I have been crunching a ton of labour force data.  If you haven’t registered for the summit, I think it is closed but you might try to find a way as…

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NB government’s economic dashboard: A good first step

Posted on November 8, 2019 by David Campbell

The New Brunswick government’s Economic Dashboard is nice – it covers a lot of interesting data points.  I hope it sticks.  The Lord government also published an economic scorecard that was supposed to be a report card on the economy…

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Putting the ‘season’ in seasonal employment

Posted on November 6, 2019 by David Campbell

I was chatting with a colleague recently about seasonal industries and the seasonal workforce in New Brunswick.  There are various data sources for this.  We can use the unadjusted Labour Force Survey data to compare the highest employment month to…

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Exporting professional services: An important way to boost exports and economic growth

Posted on November 1, 2019 by David Campbell

When most people think of exports, lobsters, French Fries and 2X4s come to mind.   But we can’t forget about services-based exports as they are becoming a much more important part of the export picture.  Services exports range from hotel accommodations…

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