one region - one vision / une région - une vision

OK, I’m going to try and make some sense out of the last day and a half at the “one region – one vision” Greater Moncton economic summit…obviously, this is my personal perspective, so it will inevitably vary from the way others perceived the experience. I’ll give a bit of an overview of each of the presentations with my personal thoughts interspersed.

 

We began this morning with an excellent presentation by Don Mills, from Corporate Research Associates, called “Setting the table…Get your act together or else!” I had already heard his presentation a few months ago, but still, it was very informative.

 

Basically, the news was not good. We are experiencing a prolonged period of weak economic growth, stagnation really…we’ve had less than 1% growth over the last 5 years. If we continue to do things exactly as we have done in the past, then we will continue on this path...and that isn't good. However, Moncton leads the province (and also Halifax) from a consumer confidence perspective. There is a downward trend in housing starts in all of NB, so no one is getting wealthy through real estate these days. Jobs dominate New Brunswickers’ concerns. Wealth creation comes from the private sector. The systemic seasonal unemployment continues to extract a toll from the province.  Urban areas of Atlantic Canada are doing well, but the 13 month unemployment average is 10.5%. Not many people are getting raises…which seems to make them blame their government since there is a perception here that the government should be solving these issues…citizens are cranky! (He predicts that the Liberals will sweep the 2014 election…but then again, you know pollsters!) Public sector employment is significantly higher in Atlantic Canada than in other parts of the country…the national average is 20% public sector, but in NB it is 30.8%, which obviously slows our GDP growth. We are the least urbanized province in Canada. While the national average is 19% rural, NB is 47% rural…and we are last in terms of population growth.

 

So, the opportunity is for urban centred economic development…the 100 km radius around Moncton represents 265,000 people, so businesses need to think about this.  

 

He then went on to dissect the Moncton Miracle 2.0:

1. We need a clearly articulated economic strategy that must be defined and understood by all key stakeholders (especially taxi drivers!).

2. Greater Moncton must act as a single economic unit and the private sector must support EGM.

3. The private sector must be actively engaged in any economic effort (80-85% of economic development is locally generated).

4.We have tremendous strengths in our local workforce. The bilingual nature of the workforce should be a cornerstone of any economic strategy (leverage the strengths of the post-secondary sector).

 5. Continue to revitalize the DT core...make it a great place to live, work and play.

 6. Greater Moncton must focus on serving a wider geography than the CMA

7. Any economic strategy should have some focus on arts and culture, the things that help make a community vibrant and liveable

8. Greater Moncton should play a lead role in the revitalization of all urban areas in NB

9. We need to brand ourselves for what we are: NB's most entrepreneurial business-friendly city.

10. Include an aggressive immigration strategy to build workforce capabilities.

 

From my perspective, I like statistics and real science, so I really enjoyed this Nova Scotian’s perspective on our area. (He was just the first of many presenters from outside of our province who focused on the strengths that many of us take for granted, such as our bilingual workforce.)

 

We then had a presentation by PEI native Danny Murphy, who owns all kinds of businesses: Tim Horton’s, Wendy's, Leon’s, nine hotels (Future Inn, Hampton Inn, etc.).  He had lots of fun anecdotes including one which focused on Robert Irving telling the owners of Wendy’s "I run a small family business". His message was that all of our products are getting very similar – it is how we differentiate that will make the difference. He has chosen "hospitality like never before". He went on to say that he thinks of Moncton as a "nice-sized" city...and the "Centre of the Universe" in Atlantic Canada…we have the AAA location. He cited the new Cabella's as a great example…apparently they attract 2 million people a day to their stores. He is convinced that it will attract a lot of new people to Moncton…he is even thinking about putting another hotel out there.

 

Paul Martin, from Martin Charlton Communications in Saskatchewan  talked a lot about football…and that the best thing about having a CFL franchise is that national media has to mention your name once a day! (Neat fact: Riders sell more gear than the entire league combined and they are third in merchandise sales only to the Leafs and the Canadians.)

 

Twenty years ago he was writing the stories that we are writing now in NB…about out-migration and keeping our youth here. There was a huge level of frustration in the community…until 1999 when they got together and decided that they would get things going in time for their 100^th anniversary in 2005. The first thing that they did was speak with Grade 8 kids without any other adults around and asked them when they started talking about moving to Alberta and discovered that they did…at age 12. Obviously, the kids were not reading about this in the G&M…they were getting this at home. So, they decided that they needed to change attitudes and did a lot of "summit-type” events, where inevitably an entrepreneur would get up at the back of the room and say very heatedly, "What's the government doing to build my business?" -- no one had the market covered on government like Saskatchewan! Unfortunately Statistics Canada no longer keeps stats on such things, but at this time in Saskatchewan only 1 out of 7 people drew more from the government than they put in (I wonder what our numbers are?). They also found out that as a province, they had a basic bias against success -- they hated success and people and businesses that were successful.  So, if nothing else, they got the community ready attitudinally to accept success. They currently have 90,000 unfilled jobs. He encouraged us to use population as a measure of success…if people want to live here then things are good…if they are all leaving, then obviously things are bad. Almost all of their growth is coming from immigration -- 12,000 per year, primarily from the Philippines.  It is now much easier for them to attract youth back home and their population has gone from 980,000 to 1.1 million. When you move that many people in, you have a lot of construction activity, but unfortunately they also have a lot of infrastructure catch-up. While they have added 110,000 people they have not added one hospital…and it is now $350/sq foot for new construction.  Their economy has gone from a 7 billion platform to 21 billion.

 

How did all of this growth come about? Growth in the middle class in India and China! They wanted protein and Saskatchewan provided…food, fuel and fertilizer.  So, their economy grew like crazy and now they have young men from all over driving jacked up pick-up trucks (OK, this part I’m not OK with…personally I would have loftier goals for the youth in our community…doesn’t seem terribly sustainable to me…but this seems to be what happens when provinces get into the fuel business…education is thrown out the window with the big salaries…).

 

We then broke into 12 different sector groups. I was in “community development”. Our presenter was Brock Dickinson from Millier Dickinson Blais (Canada’s largest economic development consultancy, Toronto). He gave us a quick overview of the history of economic development, which used to be “smoke-stack chasing”, but this is not the best strategy anymore (look at the rust-belt in the US). He acknowledged that sometimes we are all paralysed by the size of the problems, but it is time now for Economic Development 2.0.

 

Reality check #1

A new kind of economy requires a new approach: "We are entering the world of the invisible". In the past we could see the change happening...could see horses to cars...more smokestacks,  etc. However, today’s growth is in on-line, digital, virtual, nano-technology,  or biotechnology...changes take place inside plants, animals or our human bodies. Sometimes the scope of the change catches us by surprise. Gilder's Law: The cost of transferring one bit of information falls by 50% every 12 months. (Think about how much it used to cost for a 3 minute conversation with a friend in Europe…now it is free with Skype!)

 

Reality Check #2

No one's coming to save you. The sources of new jobs in North America come primarily from existing businesses (76%) from new entrepreneurs (9%)…only 15% is true investment attraction. So, obviously I believe, we need to support our local businesses, encourage their growth, which will in turn spin out some excellent new entrepreneurs. And of course, great success with our local businesses will in turn attract other businesses.  We need a new focus on local business retention and expansion, nurturing ongoing relationships and encouraging people to stay and build community capacity. How willing are we to put in the time?

 

Reality Check #3

There is only one source of competitive advantage.  So how do we compete in the invisible economy? KNOWLEDGE. Richard Florida: how to nurture, retail and grow the creative class? "People who are paid principally to do creative work for a living" (scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, musicians, designers, knowledge workers).

 

In 1900 less than 10% of the US workforce was in the creative class, but today across the industrialized world it is 33%, accounting for 50% of all wages. This is continually expanding and is well-compensated and driving the economy. "THE MOST CRITICAL RESOURCE WEARS SHOES AND WALKS OUT THE DOOR AROUND 5:00 EVERY DAY". The importance of talent came up over and over all day long. So how do we build knowledge assets? We concentrate on youth, immigrants and skilled labour. We need to strengthen educational institutions and develop infrastructure for knowledge transfer incubators, accelerators and generators.

 

Reality Check #4

These trends collide and mix in the new economy. We need to reflect on our core strengths and advantages. (OK, maybe I fell asleep here…there was more, but I can’t remember! I think it was basically to break down the silos and get people working together.)

 

Reality Check #5

The building blocks of economic development are not put in place overnight...they emerge from a long-term process that takes time, patience, and consistent effort.  Slow and steady wins the race and there are unfortunately no shortcuts. However, there are multiple ways to get there!.We just need to figure out which ones are the key pieces, so that ten years from now we can be celebrating this process.

 

Reality Check #6

We are not alone. We have a social fabric that knows we have to work collaboratively. Municipal boundaries are invisible to a new investor (they have NO idea where the boundaries are between Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe!).  A new economy requires a new strategy for economic development.

 

How do we celebrate a culture of positivity? There are LOTS of great success stories in Moncton, but we don’t always hear about them. Nadine Duguay from 21 Inc. had lots of success stories to share about 20-30-year-olds in our province. Success stories that need our support. It’s funny how so often so many things come down to communication…both internal and external.

 

This was my favourite session of the day. The discussion (led by David Hawkins) was excellent and for the first time in the last day and a half, provoked a lot of future-thought. There was some talk about immigration and the possibility of tax incentives to attract business-minded new immigrants. I just keep thinking about how yesterday Francis McGuire said that we had to take off our jackets and roll up our sleeves and get to work…and then he basically said that shale gas was our only hope. Personally, I think that shale gas would be the easy way out. I think we need to roll up our sleeves and work harder, dig deeper (OK, not literally!) to find other solutions that aren’t just about non-renewable natural resources. I read recently that if just 20% of all the food that New Brunswickers consumed was produced here we would create way more jobs than shale gas could ever hope to create. I know that we need a multi-pronged approach to economic development, but I truly don’t believe that there are any easy answers. I also believe that we need to hear from a lot more youth on this…only 23 out of the 340 people in attendance were under 40. As well, while women represent 52% of our population, Aldéa Landry was the only female business professional to present.

 

So, I think we need to support our existing businesses. Nurture them, encourage them. Invest in them. $140,000 in angel investment money was raised by the end of the day today, so that is a good start. But we have to do more. And, over the course of the 13 hours of presentations, it is obvious that we can’t and shouldn’t depend so heavily upon the government for support.

 

Then it was time for lunch and Bruce Fitch spoke briefly about his government’s complete support for shale gas, followed by a business panel.

 

Pierre-Yves Julien from Medavie Blue Cross spoke about the top questions that people ask when they are considering moving here: how is the education system? How is healthcare? However, to attract really skilled high-level executives, they want and interesting and unique challenge. He also spoke about the need to re-vamp our excellent healthcare system and make it more efficient.

Keith Parlee from Apex Industries ($40 million in sales) spoke about some of the difficulties in finding skilled labour and how industry in general needs to do a better job of informing youth about some of the opportunities (i.e., their aerospace and R&D sector).

 

George Donovan from Gojii Games talked about the opportunities for extreme growth in his sector (he doesn’t have one client in Canada!). We need to have small investors and mentorship is critical. As well, any business that is relying on the gov't for capitol is doomed!

 

Jim Spatz from Southwest Properties (owns Marriott and Keg) talked about how the City of Moncton was extremely accommodating when they wanted to build – they had approval in two weeks for the hotel. He too spoke about Moncton’s ability to embrace diversity, our bilingualism and the special buzz that is going on here, particularly regarding our entrepreneurs. We need to build on this (and reduce government dependency and permit the entrepreneurial sector to grow). When he built Bishop’s Landing in Halifax in 2000, 1/3 of the subtrades came from Moncton. He also spoke about the skill shortage and high unemployment and how we need to address structural unemployment.

 

Aldéa Landry (Landal Inc.) spoke about the “world of the invisible” and how it took two Nova Scotians to identify our competitive edge, which is bilingualism. We need to become more business-women friendly! (I completely agree! There were many women in the audience…1/3? But not many on stage.) She also wondered why we have such a hard time selling ourselves. I personally don’t know why…maybe because I’m a “snobby Upper Canadian” but I think we live in one of the best places on the planet…we just need to let others know about it! I think we take a lot of the amazing things we experience every single day for granted. She (and many others) spoke about the need to re-introduce the word “hub” into our vocabulary.

 

There was SO much more (I think that someone will be reporting on all the other 11 sectors), but I really have to go to my son’s hockey game now!  Happy Friday everyone!

 

 

 

 

A Janus Tribute: To the Past and the Future

Due to the length of my rants and my inability to edit my thoughts down, I have given in to the idea of a blog. It’s long and rambling (consider yourself warned!).

While I personally prefer September as a time of year for setting goals and resolutions, the approach of January is a great time to reflect on the past year and ponder lessons learned that might help in the future.

I recently finished reading Michael Ignatieff’s book, “Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics”. While I found it to be an extremely frank memoir about the trials and tribulations in the struggle for power, there is one quote that kind of encapsulates some of my learning from the last year (and for those keeners out there, I’ve included some other great quotations from the book at the end of this post):

“Once you see a country as a sustained, everyday act of will, you understand why politicians matter. They bring people who want different things into the same room to figure out what we share and want to do together. Countries are “imagined communities” and politicians are the ones who represent what we share then figure out the compromises that enable us to live together in peace…I talked about the “spine of citizenship”…It meant for government to do what it could to strengthen the common experiences, sense of shared history and common rights and responsibilities that make us into a people. It’s only when you’re in politics that you understand both the divisions of a country and the hunger for unity that transcends those differences. Politicians have to find ways to articulate what is common and then build that common life into the fabric of its institutions.”

Obviously, municipal politics is not on the same scale, however I have fully realized in the last year the enormous diversity of opinion out there…and that my role is to represent all citizens, whether they vote or not…and to find the reasonable solution that is in the best interest of the greatest number. I appreciate so much the feedback I get on social media –it helps me to make informed decisions, but I also appreciate all the people who I speak with every day, who write notes or call to let me know their thoughts on a particular issue.

 

I’m convinced that despite the abysmal turnout during elections, democracy still matters and that the more informed citizens are about the issues (yes, sometimes they are complex) the better off we will all be. There is a tendency sometimes for all of us to feel overwhelmed by the “big, thorny issues”, sometimes the media feeds into this feeling of apprehension for the future and citizens feel a lack of power and an inability to change things. But, from what I’ve seen this last year, citizens have ENORMOUS amounts of power to affect change in our world. In fact, in my opinion, that is where the great changes are coming from. And of course, I do think that getting kids involved earlier in citizenship/leadership roles is absolutely vital to the future of democracy. Kids don’t see any limits to making the world a better place, so we need to lead by example and free-up opportunities for the kids to participate.

(Don’t let the doom and gloom get to you! Not to be the Pollyanna here, but check out Margaret Wente’s article from Saturday’s Globe and Mail … there are a lot of ways the world is getting better…sometimes I know I need to hear this amidst all the negativity.)

I am very positive about the future of Moncton. We have a lot going for us at the moment with really strong economic indicators in a lot of sectors…and with the upcoming Economic Leadership Summit, I’m optimistic that we can come up with some concrete plans to keep that sustainable growth going. The City is in a solid financial state (despite all this snow!) and we are benefitting from some excellent leadership over the years. This last year has seen such a spectacular turnaround on our river and its vital importance to all of us from tourism, economic, cultural and just plain pride perspectives...which all bodes well for the ongoing improvement in our river’s health. Our downtown is on the cusp of great things, I’m convinced. Right now I’m reading an excellent report on “Financial Incentive Programs and Strategies that Cities utilize to incite Downtown Development and assist with the preservation of Heritage Properties”…I’m looking forward to co-chairing the Downtown Revitalization Committee and solving three major DT stumbling blocks: parking, unsightly premises and incentives for DT development and heritage preservation.

There is still a lot of room for improvement on public transit, but I do think we are slowly moving in the right direction. I’m looking forward to continuing the improvements and increasing the $4 million return we get on our $10 million investment. I’m thrilled that the City was able to tangibly commit to helping to stop the cycle of poverty through its donation of land for the YWCA’s Home for Her. It seems that the city will be playing a bigger and bigger role in the reduction of poverty and economic disparity and looking to the future is vital. According to the World Bank, a $1 investment today for a child living in poverty will be a savings of $5 in the future. We simply can’t have kids in our community going hungry…poverty is NOT an immutable fact of life, rather, in my opinion, it is a failure of our collective imagination.

We have finally passed our new Municipal Plan and accompanying Zoning By-Laws…now the challenge will be the implementation of the excellent ideas in the plan. While this has been a long time coming, it is so vital for the future of our city and where it will be in the next 20-50 years and just sets the stage in a very positive way. I know that planning is vital and we do a lot of it at the City, but now, I really think that we have enough plans...the time to make some things happen is now!


So, if you’ve made it this far, thank you. I will continue in 2014 to be there for you, trying always to apply my quadruple bottom line to all of my decisions (economic, social, environmental and cultural) and trying to be a leader, benefitting from your excellent input. Now, back to my pile of novels, because fiction, more than anything else, helps me to make sense of my world (since the role of artists is to articulate the world for us). Happy New Year!

As promised, here are some quotes from “Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics” by Michael Ignatieff (Random House, ©2013)

· “Nothing gets you into more trouble in politics than blurting out the truth.”

· “I saw my country as an example of civility, tolerance and international engagement for people the world over.”

· In his Massey Lecture called “The Rights Revolution”he “tried to define Canada’s political uniqueness: the fact that we didn’t have capital punishment or a right to bear arms; that we believed in group rights to protect the French language and aboriginal title to land; the fact that we believed a woman’s right to choose should prevail; the fact that a bilingual national experiment, always under stress, forced us constantly, as a condition of survival, to try to understand each other and reach common ground. …Compromise was built into our way of doing politics. Or so I thought.”

· “In a time of social fragmentation, where we are ever more walled off by class and income, race, religion and age, where so many people live alone, where the public square feels deserted, a political party is the place where strangers come together to defend what they hold in common and to fight in a common cause.”

· “As soon as democracy loses its connection to place, as soon as the location of politics is no longer the union hall, the living room, the restaurant and the local bar and becomes only the television screen and the website, we’ll be in trouble…YouTube videos and ads are no substitute for an encounter between real flesh-and-blood human beings.”

· “In politics calling a fact a fact can be the equivalent of pulling the pin out of a hand grenade.”

· “Without the enthusiasm of volunteers to inspire them, politicians risk becoming the puppets of their paid strategists.”

· “Compromise is impossible unless adversaries are open to persuasion.”

· “So I wouldn’t say our democracy is in difficulty. It is alive and well in citizens’ hearts, or at least I believe so. Where it isn’t so healthy is in the place that should be the very temple of our democracy, the House of Commons.”

· “Politicians have to negotiate trust against the backdrop of permanent dislike of their own profession. When you represent the people you actually spend most of your time trying to overcome their suspicion that you have left them behind to join a brutal game that will do them no good.”

· “The challenge lies in trying to change what must be changed and preserving what must be preserved, and knowing the difference between the two.”

· “If you don’t believe in the ultimate rationality of citizens, you don’t have the faith needed to make democracy work.”

· “To enjoy politics and to do it well, you have to believe that you serve everyone, whether they voted for you or not…To be a good politician is to be responsible to the people who put you there and to be responsible for your actions.”