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It's The Economy, Stupid

David Campbell – A blog about economic development in Atlantic Canada

Year: 2021

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Does rural Atl. Canada have high unemployment? In most areas, I would say absolutely not

Posted on April 11, 2021 by David Campbell

I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations in the past week about my position on the Employment Insurance situation in Atlantic Canada.  Ultimately, I don’t think there will be any big change to the program itself – i.e. far fewer…

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The pandemic has been good to Atl. Canada’s Gotham

Posted on April 11, 2021 by David Campbell

From 131st to best-place-to-live without breaking a sweat It has been a good year for Halifax. Atlantic Canada’s largest urban centre by a wide margin (more that double the population of St. John’s) was tied with Oshawa for the fastest…

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Engineering economic development (or not). A lament for New Brunswick’s waning engineering cluster

Posted on April 11, 2021 by David Campbell

When talking about long term successful economic development in New Brunswick I used to turn to the engineering sector. For me it was an important story. UNB chronically overgraduates too many engineers relative to the demand in the province to…

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Is having democratic, local government in NB too much to ask for?

Posted on April 11, 2021 by David Campbell

Part 672 in my series Everyone Deserves a an Elected Mayor (whether they like it or not) There seems to be some impetus to do something on local government reform in the coming months. I thought about writing something on…

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Atlantic Canada’s Lord Voldemort. EI: The Government Program Who Shall Not Be Named

Posted on March 30, 2021 by David Campbell

You have to tip your hat to Premier Higgs. No other premier has ever taken on the Employment Insurance program as he has. Most NB politicians avoid publicly taking on the program because so many voters use it. Just ask…

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Evolving the Growing Pains podcast

Posted on March 27, 2021 by David Campbell

Coming Soon: Insights with Don Mills and David Campbell part of the growing Huddle Podcast Network. For the last eight months the Growing Pains podcast has engaged leaders from across Atlantic Canada on issues related to the region’s future prosperity. …

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How did I miss this? How did you? New Brunswick’s housing crisis

Posted on March 22, 2021 by David Campbell

Annual housing starts in New Brunswick dropped by between 30% and 45% between 2015 and 2019 compared to previous periods. The good news is that 2020 saw a rebound. This at a time when population growth was starting to take…

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Top down or bottom up? Two different approaches to economic development.

Posted on March 17, 2021 by David Campbell

I get a fair amount of questions from reporters and others about the impact of federal fiscal policy, the role of monetary policy to shore up the economy or the impact of governments running large fiscal deficits.  Sometimes I get…

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The cool kids are all over on Substack. I guess I should be there too.

Posted on March 17, 2021 by David Campbell

The cool kids are all over on Substack so I have decided to take the plunge. Most people don’t realize that I have been writing the It’s the Economy, Stupid! blog for over 16 years. I started writing in 2004…

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Will Shawn Graham’s 2026 population target actually be reached?

Posted on March 7, 2021 by David Campbell

One of the things I (and many others) complain about is government ‘targets’.   I am concerned about economic and demographic targets but this applies to any target set by government (e.g. we will reduce surgery wait times by x).  I…

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