A few years ago I was talking to a planner in Ontario about the ambitious population growth projections for the GTA and he told me the provincial government basically went around to all the cities in the region and asked them how much they would like to grow in the next 20 years. Pickering wants to double. Okay, check. Guelph wants more modest growth. Check. Vaughn wants to add 100K. Check.
Obviously they need to have some sense of what the long term looks like for infrastructure planning (high speed rail, etc.) but I just had to chuckle. Imagine if it was that easy in New Brunswick. The Moncton region - we’ll take 50K over the next 20 years. Fredericton wants 40k.
Now I think we have to discuss this seriously.
I just read the target for the Saint John CMA is to grow its population by 25,000 within the next 10 years. I’m not sure about the others but the Moncton CMA is larger than SJ these days so let’s say they want 30,000. And Fredericton? Maybe it wants to grow by 25,000. What about the rest of the province?
My point is that we are at the point and have been for a while that we need to do this kind of Ontario-style planning. We need to have an ambitous population growth target for New Brunswick but it needs to built on the needs around the province.
And, just like Ontario, we need to be planning our infrastructure needs around that growth.
Bathurst? What do you want? Edmundston? Ditto.
I have lived in Bathurst, NB for over five decades and experienced the tremendous growth in the 60’s and 70’s as a result of a strong economy driven by the mining and forestry sectors. Over the past decade the decline of these important job sectors has impacted the Northeastern NB economy very significantly. I believe Bathurst and all surrounding communities require one strong voice, one leader, one goal and one measurable plan focused on economic develop for the area. Job creation is key. We do not have that now.