Until quite recently, I never thought I’d see the day when Maritime roads would fall into private hands. This is a region where politicians know they must deliver big-time largesse. And they know their voters are slow to warm to new ideas.
If you’re excited about the economic potential for our major ports, such as Halifax and Saint John, you should be mad as hell right now. Ottawa is missing a golden opportunity to give our ports the kind of structure that has helped turn CN from basketcase into economic powerhouse. Instead, we’re in line for business pretty much as usual in the never-never land of government dominated businesses.
Ottawa-bashing, long a favourite local sport, is about to be given a new lease on life by offshore natural gas. At least that is where we seem to be headed in the controversy about how the tax revenues from this natural resource should be shared between Ottawa and Nova Scotia.
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Research will "change the way we all think about the economy of Atlantic Canada"
In AIMS' first book, Fred McMahon shows in a detailed and well-documented way what many people in the region had suspected for years, namely that the huge government presence in the region politicizes the economy, inflates the region's costs and leads people and businesses to look to government support rather than to their own abilities. He then goes on to show how orderly reform of federal transfers will help to overcome these challenges.
Government could increase the use of venture capital in Atlantic Canada, at little or no cost to itself