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…
Continue ReadingThe pandemic has been good to Atl. Canada’s Gotham
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…
Continue ReadingEngineering economic development (or not). A lament for New Brunswick’s waning engineering cluster
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…
Continue ReadingIs having democratic, local government in NB too much to ask for?
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…
Continue ReadingAtlantic Canada’s Lord Voldemort. EI: The Government Program Who Shall Not Be Named
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…
Continue ReadingEvolving the Growing Pains podcast
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. …
Continue ReadingHow did I miss this? How did you? New Brunswick’s housing crisis
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…
Continue ReadingTop down or bottom up? Two different approaches to economic development.
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…
Continue ReadingThe cool kids are all over on Substack. I guess I should be there too.
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…
Continue ReadingWill Shawn Graham’s 2026 population target actually be reached?
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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