I’ve always been a guy that used numbers to make a point. Almost every one of my Brunswick News columns going back 15+ years now are built around a specific data point. When I started my career in the early 1990s I was hired to use numbers to make the case for companies to invest in New Brunswick. I remember pouring through Census data at the UNB library -all in paper form - hundreds and hundreds of pages of data - all to find a few nuggets of joy. New Brunswick had the lowest labour turnover among the 10 provinces. The number of days lost per year to absenteeism was 20% lower than the national average. The labour market participation rate was 10 percentage points below the national level meaning a surplus of labour awaiting companies looking for a place to set up a new factory.
I can tell you that in Sussex, we went through a soul searching exercise after the closure of the mine and the loss of “good jobs” and the community decided to focus on growth in three areas that include Agrifood and Agriculture, Tourism/Arts and Culture, and Renewable Energy. Ask business owners in those sectors if NBs immigration policy is helping right now. The answer is no! The federal Atlantic Immigration Program is flexible enough to fill their job vacancies and the province put all kinds of additional conditions in place. Not only has NB government policy put us at a disadvantage to Ontario, we are now at a disadvantage to the rest of the Atlantic provinces. Why can’t this government admit that we need front line workers and use the tools available to fix it?
I can tell you that in Sussex, we went through a soul searching exercise after the closure of the mine and the loss of “good jobs” and the community decided to focus on growth in three areas that include Agrifood and Agriculture, Tourism/Arts and Culture, and Renewable Energy. Ask business owners in those sectors if NBs immigration policy is helping right now. The answer is no! The federal Atlantic Immigration Program is flexible enough to fill their job vacancies and the province put all kinds of additional conditions in place. Not only has NB government policy put us at a disadvantage to Ontario, we are now at a disadvantage to the rest of the Atlantic provinces. Why can’t this government admit that we need front line workers and use the tools available to fix it?