Wake Up Call: McKenna Sends Urgent Message To NB Businesses
SAINT JOHN – Former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna sent a strong message to New Brunswick business people on Thursday – ‘This is our last chance.’
McKenna was the keynote speaker at the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC) annual Outlook Conference. The theme this year was businesses embracing emerging technologies.
It’s something McKenna says the region needs to start doing if we’re going to survive. Literally.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that we’re literally facing an extinction event in Atlantic Canada if we don’t take action,” McKenna said during his address.
“We cannot credibly ask for more unemployment insurance, community centres and wharfs. If unemployment insurance is the road to riches, we would all be billionaires in Atlantic Canada.”
McKenna argued that instead, Atlantic Canada needs to coordinate its approach. This includes enhancing innovation and working to improve partnerships between post-secondary institutions and government. He pointed to countries like Japan and India who have little natural resources, but are world leaders in technology and education.
“Why? Because they got their back to the water and their face to the sand, surrounded by enemies without natural resources,” McKenna said. “They did it for survival.”
He also says innovation is needed in the health care sector. Since the region has an aging population yet is stretched thin on health care funding, he says Atlantic Canada needs to do something different.
“I believe that the government of Canada should look at Atlantic Canada as a test bed for the application of healthcare technology,” McKenna said. “We should become a virtual laboratory for money-saving and health improving technologies.”
McKenna also said the region needs to work on integrating utilities and making the Energy East pipeline a reality. He says all of this would take major help from the Federal government, but not necessarily the kind you think.
“Ottawa, we’re not looking for your money. We’re looking for your leadership on this file,” he said.
The biggest, perhaps most urgent problem Atlantic Canada must address is population. McKenna says immigration is key to solving this, and that it is in the control of the federal government. He says it should be one of the first things on the Trudeau government’s agenda when it comes to Atlantic Canada.
It was an issue that greatly worried him when he was premier in the 1990s.
“I was alarmed then, but it goes beyond alarming now. It’s close to apocalyptic,” McKenna told Huddle after his address.
“We’re seeing such declines in our population. We’re seeing the very difficult and controversial measures playing out in closing schools or hospitals because of lack of population to support them. These are really tough political issues . . . It’s hard to get the public excited until we’re at a critical stage and I think we’re at the critical stage now.”
This all sounds like pretty scary stuff – because it is. But McKenna says the good news is all of Canada’s poltical forces are aligned, especially for New Brunswick. With the Liberals in power on both levels of government and with New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc as Government House Leader in the House of Commons, he says there is a big opportunity for progress.
“It’s an opportunity and we will see what comes of it, quite frankly. But where there is an alignment at political level, there is usually more dialogue and more scope for collaboration.”