BioNB celebrated its 25th anniversary yesterday. As you know I am a fan of these intermediary organizations – not government, not individual firms – set up to advance the opportunities in a specific industry. When these entities are working badly…
Continue ReadingFemale immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada
Across the board, self-employment is more prevalent in males than females across Canada. About 14% of non-immigrant males were self-employed at the time of the Census compared to 9% of females. Among those with paid employees, 5.7% of males were…
Continue ReadingComin’ back up the road? Ontario moves east.
The annual population estimates for Canada and the provinces were published this week by Statistics Canada and there is good and not so good news in there for New Brunswick. The numbers are as at July 1st so they are…
Continue ReadingDoes rural Atl. Canada have high unemployment? In most areas, I would say absolutely not
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…
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