What About The Rest?

Posted November 12, 2012

Unemployment in Halifax in October was 5.4% compared with 9.2% for the province as a whole and 7.4% for Canada. No sizable city east of Saskatchewan had a lower unemployment rate. It is nice that Halifax has had some announcements about more jobs but the rest of Nova Scotia might be wondering why it is getting the attention.

It is nevertheless true that a strong economy in Halifax is good for the rest of the province. More importantly, the kind of job programs being announced for IBM and Projex are difficult to locate elsewhere because it is harder to attract employees. Some of the jobs announced for Yarmouth by Register.com went unfilled because people with the right skills could not be hired. Sydney was included in the IBM deal under pressure from the province. This is not peculiar to Nova Scotia—high tech workers everywhere tend to prefer large urban environments.

Some observers like to point to Michelin as an example of what is possible for other parts of the province, and it is certainly to be hoped that Michelin will be here for a very long time. But it stands almost alone in contrast to a long list of expensive failures that were supposed to make things as diverse as televisions, Volvos and heavy water for Candu reactors. Most recently, the $60 million invested in DSME Trenton has produced very disappointing results. And even Michelin has required frequent additional incentives.

The vibrant rural economies that exist in Canada are typically based on resources—for example, mining in British Columbia and Labrador; oil and gas in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland; grains in the prairie provinces; hydroelectricity in Manitoba and Quebec.

For many decades forest products were very important to Nova Scotia. Unfortunately a depressed US housing market and a long term decline in the paper business have led to chronic weakness in the forestry sector. This is likely to continue in spite of the hundreds of millions that have been spent propping up the industry.

So we need to look elsewhere, specifically to areas where the province has natural advantages. In seeking to support growth the policy context is usually more important than handouts from taxpayers. The government has a mixed track record.

  1. The province has been resolute in its support of the aquaculture industry. Those who argue that it should be confined to land-based pens would throw away the natural advantage that our extensive coastline provides, and would make the industry a high cost producer. Aquaculture does need regulation, particularly to prevent it from harming productive lobster waters.
  2. Wind is now a useful part of our electricity generation. The pricing regimen for tidal projects has encouraged experimentation. But the obsession with Muskrat Falls power means that there will be less interest in developing the tidal resource and less opportunity to use it if a viable technology is found.
  3. Offshore oil exploration is showing some real life as a result of the investment in hydrocarbon basin modelling. But the moratorium on fracking considerably diminishes onshore exploration.
  4. Mineral exploration, chiefly for gold, is encouraged by a program of small grants. On the other hand  uranium exploration, which has been a major contributor to Saskatchewan’s economic success, is banned in Nova Scotia.

Almost every form of resource development has its detractors. Sources of employment that have been opposed include quarries, open pit mines, salmon farms, oil drilling, tree harvesting, wind turbines, and mink farms.

Resource development always comes with environmental issues and needs appropriate regulation. Rural communities that want a viable economic future must be willing to embrace the opportunities. Government needs to be an active promoter.

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Most Recent Comments

  • Good article in today’s CH . Here’s how to use DSME Trenton and avoid non compete with the Aecon Fabco’s: Build tank railcars like they used to at Trenton Works and bring Bakken crude to Esso Dartmouth for refining – just as Irving is doing today. When the Oilsands pipeline reaches Montreal and eventually Saint John shift them to those locals.
    At 1000 barrels of crude per car Esso would need 88 cars per day. With a 10 day turn-around round trip out west(?) approx 880 to 1000 cars would be needed for the refinery.
    DSME could licence a tank car design in a heart beat.

    Dave | November 14, 2012

  • “The rest?” ‘Fresh air”.
    A lesson must first be learned from back when the success of the wooden shipbuilding era did not enthusiastically and aspiringly shift its talents to iron. Accordingly, today, those rurals who are digitally accomplished, have no great need to be in what will become the bureaucratically scleroticized cities.
    If unimpeded in their investment around their natural advantages (resources), rurals should be able to create real jobs around the province. Government investment? No. We’ve tried that and with nobody really in charge, know those are just ‘costs’ (mostly of ‘positions’ rather than ‘jobs’). Individuals tend to look after their investments, while governments just spend and disappear.
    The importance of support from the employees in such communities will either make or ‘brake’ the investment. There may be the rub, eh? Now, that’s perhaps the appropriate place for government to reappear.
    Isn’t it eventually going to be simple? Rurals either want/need jobs or they continue to move to the cities, which will be full-up with ‘positions’ and unquenchable cost.
    The digital era is here. Let the rurals take proper advantage of it.

    Gordon a.... | November 13, 2012

  • Your article in today’s Halifax Herald contains a statement that “aquaculture should develop but be regulated to prevent it from harming productive lobster waters.” Let us look at a few facts.
    There are probably more salmon cages in Grand Manan than all of Nova Scotia, one can almost walk across bays and inlets on them. I know, I was there a couple of years ago.
    Grand Manan has its own lobster district, district number 38. In 2000 the total landings were 826 metric tonnes, ten years later in 2010 they were 2027 Tonnes with a steady progression in between. District 36, the NB shore from St. Martin to St. Stephen went from 878MT to 1594 MT in the same time period. They have the bulk of the salmon cages in NB.
    The farming covers but a very small portion of the coast line. There are no salmon farms in cape breton and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, nor will there be since the water is too cold in the winter.
    Lobster fishermen will quietly tell you the best place to fish lobsters is next to cages since lobsters are feeders on what gathers on the bottom as debris.
    There is no sea lice problem in Nova Scotia, hence no chemical treatment needed. Salmon boats moving to work from NB to NS have to be disinfected and cleaned before moving back and forth.
    Closed containement farms are more costly to operate and have a spotty track record, but in any event, if built, they would not be in rural NS, but rather close to Boston, New York and Toronto since they must be near markets to reduce transportation costs. Not much benefit there to rural NS!
    I am one of the silent group who support responsible open sea farming, and my source of landings data is DFO statistics.

    Pierre Comeau | November 13, 2012

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