Election ideas we won’t hear

With a provincial election pending on September 22, there is a great deal of discussion regarding New Brunswick’s frightening economic condition.
I don’t think there is any silver bullet to reverse the international trend from country to city. However, I do see have some thoughts on how the Maritime economy might be improved.
1) isn’t it ridiculous to have four Atlantic Provinces for fewer that 2,000,000 people? The economy could be more competitive with one. I love New Brunswick but no one even knows we are here.
2) Imagine if health care were a national, instead of a provincial, program. Maritimers have, I think a special culture of care giving. If health care were national, the Maritimes could market itself as a retirement haven. As it is, old people are a huge liability to New Brunswick.
3) The St. John River valley has been generally more prosperous than the Northern and Eastern areas. One reason is that the major industry on the West side is McCains. They process potatoes and grow some but contract with private, independent farmers for most of the crop. What if the Province of New Brunswick sold all the Crown Land to private, independent owners with the proviso that forest products processors like sawmills and pulp mills could not own forest land they don’t already? I think it might work better if processors had to negotiate for supply with woodlot owners and the market would decide who got the wood instead of bureaucrats and politicians. Sounds radical but private ownership works in many other parts of the continent and the world. As it is, I don’t think the Province realizes much profit from owning Crown Lands. Selling it and taxing it and regulating it would probably be better financially for the government.
4) Currently the province spends money on all kinds of economic development which again involves politicians, bureaucrats and local committees making decisions about handing out money. I think programs that encouraged all businesses, rather than the chosen ones, would make better economic sense.
One example is the shameful double property taxation of commercial properties. All businesses pay more for less service than residential owners do. They pay provincial as well as municipal property taxes and don’t even get garbage removal included. Thus every small business that owns or rents pays roughly double property taxes. Residential apartment tenants do that too which is shameful. Doing away with that would benefit all business and make them more competitive locally and for export.
The plethora of economic development programs includes local ones that are supposed to stimulate local business development with grants. The problem there is that a great many of these grants go to businesses that compete with existing, often struggling, businesses already in the market. It is harmful and discouraging to local businesses to have their own tax money used against them.
Business Improvement Area taxes were originally conceived to provide money for independent merchants to provide attractions and promotions like mall tenants could with their communal funds. What actually happened is that many of the merchant groups used the tax money to set up offices and hire staff leaving little or nothing for actual promotion and marketing. One even had its members selling cookbooks to provide money to sustain the office that wasn’t doing anything that made the members’ cash registers jingle.
Doing away with the BIAs would save every business money.
5) Why does a a province with 750,000 and shrinking people have so many police forces? Why not have one with detachments across the province. It could be more efficient and sophisticated and would give individual officers the opportunity to work their way up without having to change employers.
6) Why does the province own retail liquor stores? If they got out of the business, it could help many of the convenience stores and gas stations survive which they are finding very difficult. Letting Walmart and Costco and the supermarkets carry liquor would mean we could get the benefit of their buying power and the variety of products they could provide as they do now with the products they sell. An added benefit is that it would reduce the potential for corruption. As it is now, a committee decides what brands of liquor and wine are available. That kind of structure is a magnet for corruption.
7) Why is Atlantic Lotto immune from transparency? Surely any publicly owned body with control over so much cash ought to be most transparent. Again, a cash cow that big is a magnet for skulduggery. Each of the four Atlantic Provinces finance ministers cops out saying they would be all for it but the other three don’t agree. Time to call that for the nonsense it is and make every Atlantic Lotto transaction and contract and hire wide open to the public.
8) One of the things that holds New Brunswick back is the myth that we are Canada’s bilingual province. We are not. We are dualingual, duacultural and dual governed. What this means in practical terms is that for many Anglo and Franco people employment opportunities are severely limited. That is one of the factors that drives so many young people away. Even if one partner in a couple is bilingual, if the other is not, they may have to leave for a place where both can find work. It is in the national constitution that New Brunswick has go provide services to its citizens in the language of their choice. Time to get serious about making all of our citizens able to do that. Segregationists currently call the shots and protect their little enclaves. It is time to get past the idea that French and English cannot become bilingual in the same school system and find a way that they can. We simply cannot afford the historical prejudices that made that true and continue to make Francophones accept it as gospel. It is a mountain that has to be climbed.
9) I believe New Brunswickers can do anything. Just browsing social media reveals all kinds of talents that are world class but under utilized and unable to earn a living wage in our tiny markets. More proof of this is the great success of the people who have to leave the province they love but have huge success all over the world. One thing we ought to be doing is asking these people to mentor us. I know they are willing to do it and it is shameful we don’t ask. I personally know of several provincial expatriates who know the routes that lead to success.
To sum up, I think government’s role ought to be to provide as efficient an infrastructure as it can for citizens and business so they can compete with each other and in the wider market place most efficiently.
On we go! DAC