Hi Bill
I’ve been reading your articles today and am quite intrigued by the straight forward logic of the articles. As an individual who wants to move to NS in a rural area such as Annapolis Valley I find many of the issues being dealt with are common to all provinces. Just because the prairie provinces resources are in demand doesn’t mean economic difficulty won’t come their way. Saskatchewan has been a no have province for decades until the world decided it needs its resource of potash, oil sands and grain. As an economics student of the early eighties I always found it odd that Canada considered themselves a resource nation and relied so heavily on resources as the main export of our nation. Although resources are for the taking, the employment opportunities are short lived. And when the favour of the resource reaches its peak the employment created to extract the resource runs dry real quick. Manufacturing, which should be the back bone of any advanced society should never have been given up as easily as it has. A worker in a manufacturing plant should never consider themselves to be worth more than someone in another part of the world doing the same job. Sorry, I don’t want to make enemies but we live in a global economy which means the wages become almost global as well. The point with this comment is that unionized manufacturing workers will continue to make concession to keep their jobs if they want to keep plants open in Canada.
Which leads me to gov. employees. God help us if the public employees continue to rule the government coffers. Public employees are a vital contribution to the government. But as a percentage of the local population they should be no more than 10% of the total work force if not less. Also, public employees should be paid less than their private counter parts since they have better job security and benefits that the private sector is unfamiliar with in the past 2 decades.
The next 2 decades will be full of changes for the public employees sector as well as the manufacturing sector. Expect more lay offs for both and the entry level positions to continue to receive less promises and perks.
Reality sucks, but is not all bad. Competition will make provinces that except this reality become more lean and willing to join in the competition of the rest of the world. We have really smart people in Canada and I don’t see the government willing to engage in investment with born and raised Canadians to mitigate the risk of starting a manufacturing facility in Canada. And I don’t mean manufacturing as in plants with 200-300 employees, I mean the reality of the modern plant of 10- 20 employees; specialty manufacturing which adds value to a natural resource coming from Canadian soil. When was the last time you saw a Canadian furniture plant? We have lots of wood but it gets shipped half way around the world to create furniture that is sold to a cunuck. Talk about weird.
I ranting, sorry. I can write more but Bill seems to do a fine job.
Thanks Bill.
I hope (Wish) government follows the conversations on this site.
A proactive approach would sure be preferable to the current “putting out fires” reactive response.
The increasing Provincial debt represents nails in our provincial coffin when rates begin to rise.
Government should be first being the one party that acts as a body that over sees the industries by watching which ones are working and which are not and then where to best invest the public dollar .
We have all these universities and yet how do we use them when it comes to helping with economic issues. Use them as research labs but also as think tanks .
Government can’t make good investments unless it has it’s own market analysis and research capacity . Government has to have it’s own plan on an industry by industry basis . The municipalities seem to stay away from being aggressive at managing their localized economies .
Here we are starting to dabble with changing the way we determine who should pay but don’t seem to have defined the problem or recognized the fact that they are often the culprits by not making sure every property is properly assessed , i.e all the illegal tourism rentals, then they don’t make allowances by using tax discounts or deferrals as a means of investing . It takes a big advantage for a major firm to relocate as did Electrolux , but they are a global company just as was New Page and had no real reasons to do anything that didn’t suit them. We have NS companies that should be our first place to invest . The province just decided to buy office supplies from an out of province source . Unless the savings are in the 10% plus range , likely a very risky decision as they’ll be loosing a certain amount of tax dollars and jobs as the NS suppliers in that market start to shrink and they’ll never come back .
Interesting to note that the Electrolux move was to a “right to work” state.
A very common occurance today in the US
Note Boeing to Georgia.
With respect to Illinois topping up Sears last year, they must be daft. Sears had a $29.40 loss per share in 2012. But then again Illinois is not a right to work state.
With respect to our DSME windmill venture,our gov’t of the day just made (another) bad deal with a smart principal..Maybe you could label that 3(b) and require that it be a good idea first.Maybe put a ribbon on it so the gov’t can recognize it.
Permanent jobs go where they are wanted. Investment comes first. Expending is not investing. Government dont create jobs. They do provide the climate. Obviously that hasnt been the case for a generation or two. Do people want jobs or positions?
Hi Bill
I’ve been reading your articles today and am quite intrigued by the straight forward logic of the articles. As an individual who wants to move to NS in a rural area such as Annapolis Valley I find many of the issues being dealt with are common to all provinces. Just because the prairie provinces resources are in demand doesn’t mean economic difficulty won’t come their way. Saskatchewan has been a no have province for decades until the world decided it needs its resource of potash, oil sands and grain. As an economics student of the early eighties I always found it odd that Canada considered themselves a resource nation and relied so heavily on resources as the main export of our nation. Although resources are for the taking, the employment opportunities are short lived. And when the favour of the resource reaches its peak the employment created to extract the resource runs dry real quick. Manufacturing, which should be the back bone of any advanced society should never have been given up as easily as it has. A worker in a manufacturing plant should never consider themselves to be worth more than someone in another part of the world doing the same job. Sorry, I don’t want to make enemies but we live in a global economy which means the wages become almost global as well. The point with this comment is that unionized manufacturing workers will continue to make concession to keep their jobs if they want to keep plants open in Canada.
Which leads me to gov. employees. God help us if the public employees continue to rule the government coffers. Public employees are a vital contribution to the government. But as a percentage of the local population they should be no more than 10% of the total work force if not less. Also, public employees should be paid less than their private counter parts since they have better job security and benefits that the private sector is unfamiliar with in the past 2 decades.
The next 2 decades will be full of changes for the public employees sector as well as the manufacturing sector. Expect more lay offs for both and the entry level positions to continue to receive less promises and perks.
Reality sucks, but is not all bad. Competition will make provinces that except this reality become more lean and willing to join in the competition of the rest of the world. We have really smart people in Canada and I don’t see the government willing to engage in investment with born and raised Canadians to mitigate the risk of starting a manufacturing facility in Canada. And I don’t mean manufacturing as in plants with 200-300 employees, I mean the reality of the modern plant of 10- 20 employees; specialty manufacturing which adds value to a natural resource coming from Canadian soil. When was the last time you saw a Canadian furniture plant? We have lots of wood but it gets shipped half way around the world to create furniture that is sold to a cunuck. Talk about weird.
I ranting, sorry. I can write more but Bill seems to do a fine job.
Thanks Bill.
David Kopriva | May 15, 2013 |
I hope (Wish) government follows the conversations on this site.
A proactive approach would sure be preferable to the current “putting out fires” reactive response.
The increasing Provincial debt represents nails in our provincial coffin when rates begin to rise.
Peter McCurdy | May 5, 2013 |
Government should be first being the one party that acts as a body that over sees the industries by watching which ones are working and which are not and then where to best invest the public dollar .
We have all these universities and yet how do we use them when it comes to helping with economic issues. Use them as research labs but also as think tanks .
Government can’t make good investments unless it has it’s own market analysis and research capacity . Government has to have it’s own plan on an industry by industry basis . The municipalities seem to stay away from being aggressive at managing their localized economies .
Here we are starting to dabble with changing the way we determine who should pay but don’t seem to have defined the problem or recognized the fact that they are often the culprits by not making sure every property is properly assessed , i.e all the illegal tourism rentals, then they don’t make allowances by using tax discounts or deferrals as a means of investing . It takes a big advantage for a major firm to relocate as did Electrolux , but they are a global company just as was New Page and had no real reasons to do anything that didn’t suit them. We have NS companies that should be our first place to invest . The province just decided to buy office supplies from an out of province source . Unless the savings are in the 10% plus range , likely a very risky decision as they’ll be loosing a certain amount of tax dollars and jobs as the NS suppliers in that market start to shrink and they’ll never come back .
ps | May 4, 2013 |
Interesting to note that the Electrolux move was to a “right to work” state.
A very common occurance today in the US
Note Boeing to Georgia.
With respect to Illinois topping up Sears last year, they must be daft. Sears had a $29.40 loss per share in 2012. But then again Illinois is not a right to work state.
With respect to our DSME windmill venture,our gov’t of the day just made (another) bad deal with a smart principal..Maybe you could label that 3(b) and require that it be a good idea first.Maybe put a ribbon on it so the gov’t can recognize it.
Bill | May 3, 2013 |
Permanent jobs go where they are wanted. Investment comes first. Expending is not investing. Government dont create jobs. They do provide the climate. Obviously that hasnt been the case for a generation or two. Do people want jobs or positions?
gordon a.... | May 3, 2013 |