Brantville's economy 50 years later
My wife and I visited the Beaverbrook Art Gallery on Saturday. It was our first visit since the renovations. I highly encourage you to go as there is some impressive local, Canadian and international art. We went specifically to see the exhibition of photographs taken by Melina Blauvelt in the early 1970s. When I saw some of the photos online it reminded me of my recollection of that time in rural New Brunswick – tar paper shacks, dirt roads, etc.
As you would expect, I became curious to assess the community’s economic progress over the past 50 years. While the people are clearly of modest means, there are interesting symbols of the early 1970s middle class scattered throughout – multinational brands – Coke bottles, Rice Krispies, SOS cleaning pads, etc.
So how has Brantville faired over 50 years? To set the table for you, Brantville is now part of the Regional Municipality of Grand Tracadie–Sheila in northeastern New Brunswick. In 2021 it had a population of 891.
The Census data reveals a number of interesting facts – good and not so good – and, I think, some insights into the future for places like Brantville across New Brunswick and across the country.
Brantville in 2021
Much older than the province overall with a median age of nearly 53 (across NB 47, some urban areas closer to 40 years).
The median personal income is only 75% of the provincial level. This is not out of whack with other rural, older communities. Note I use 2019 income data to remove any pandemic influences.
However, the median employment income is only 51% of the provincial median. That would put the community among a small handful with the lowest employment income level in the province.
Government transfer income is 55% above the provincial median and Employment Insurance income is 93% above the provincial median. In fact, nearly 46% of all income generated in the community in 2019 came from government sources (EI, CPP, OAS, Social Assistance, etc.). This compares to only 17% across the province and 12.3% across the country.
But the community has very low poverty – as measured by the low-income cut-offs, after tax - only 15 out of the nearly 900 people were living in poverty (1.6%) – less than half the rate across the province.
0% are in core housing need (6% across NB)
97% live in suitable housing.
Only 8% of housing requires major repairs (same rate as NB overall).
Only 6% of households spend 30% or more of income on shelter costs (8% across NB).
Other population characteristics:
There are no immigrants living there at all (0%).
97% of the population is at least 3rd generation Canadian.
There has been very little inward migration of any kind – between 2016-2021 none from outside of New Brunswick, none from outside Canada and only 40 from within New Brunswick (out of 800+).
Among those aged 25-64, nearly half (48%) have not completed high school (compared to 11% across NB). Brantville is not its own municipality but if it was it would have the highest share of the 25-64 population without a high school education compared to all 260+ municipalities profiled by Statistics Canada in 2021. Across Tracadie-Sheila the rate was high at 28% but that is still 20 percentage points below Brantville.
What’s it all mean?
I am glad to live in a country where poverty rates and poor housing have diminished so substantially in a place like Brantville over the past 50 years but, ideally, the private economy would be doing more of the heavy lifting. With government providing nearly half of all income in the community, this is not a particularly sustainable recipe for broader rural development – particularly as we will see many more communities across Atlantic Canada and the country ‘aging out’ over the next 10-15 years. I know Brantville is now a part of Tracadie-Sheila but the municipality needs a plan to attract substantial new population to rebalance the demographics and grow new sectors of the economy. I know there are lots of competent folks working on this.
As for the seasonal economy (only 26% of the workforce was employed full time/year round), as we have discussed here many times, I am not sure of the longer term solution. We have to figure out a way that it is not holding back the region from growth opportunities.
As for the startingly high share of the population without Grade 12 education, I think this is a serious problem. We have talked about this here before. The relationship between education and economy is not unidirectional. Because you may not need a high school or some post-secondary education to work in certain sectors such as fishing, fish processing, etc. doesn’t mean there would not be benefits over time to encouraging a higher level of education in that workforce. It could lead to more innovation, productivity, etc. and it should lead to higher employment income (the median reported employment income in 2019 was $17,000, half the rate across the province – the average reported employment income gap was the same). I don’t have the breakdown among younger Brantvillians but I hope there are efforts underway to drop that rate substantially – even among the adults. In a first world country like Canada to have places with nearly 50% without high school education is not a good look.