What Brantville’s Economy Tells us About Rural New Brunswick

David Campbell is a Moncton-based economic development consultant and co-host of the Huddle podcast, Insights. The following piece was originally published on his blog, It’s the Economy, Stupid!, on Substack.

My wife and I visited the Beaverbrook Art Gallery on Saturday. It was our first visit since the renovations. I highly encourage you to go as there is some impressive local, Canadian, and international art.

We went specifically to see the exhibition of photographs taken by Melina Blauvelt in the early 1970s. When I saw some of the photos online it reminded me of my recollection of that time in rural New Brunswick: tar paper shacks, dirt roads, etc.

As you would expect, I became curious to assess the community’s economic progress over the past 50 years. While the people are clearly of modest means, there are interesting symbols of the early 1970s middle class scattered throughout: multinational brands, Coke bottles, Rice Krispies, SOS cleaning pads, and others.

So how has Brantville faired over 50 years? To set the table for you, Brantville is now part of the Regional Municipality of Grand Tracadie–Sheila in northeastern New Brunswick. In 2021, it had a population of 891.

The Census data reveals several interesting facts – both good and not so good – and, I think, some insights into the future for places like Brantville across New Brunswick and across the country.

Brantville in 2021

The community is overall much older than the province, with a median age of nearly 53 Across New Brunswick it’s 47; some urban areas are closer to 40 years).

The median personal income is only 75 per cent of the provincial level. This is not out of whack with other rural, older communities (Note I use 2019 income data to remove any pandemic influences).

However, the median employment income is only 51 per cent of the provincial median. That would put the community among a small handful with the lowest employment income level in the province.

Government transfer income is 55 per cent above the provincial median and Employment Insurance income is 93 per cent above the provincial median. In fact, nearly 46 per cent of all income generated in the community in 2019 came from government sources (EI, CPP, OAS, Social Assistance, etc.). This compares to only 17 per cent across the province and 12.3 per cent across the country.

But the community has very low poverty as measured by the low-income cut-offs: after tax, only 15 out of the nearly 900 people were living in poverty (about 1.6 per cent). That’s less than half the rate across the province.

Other population characteristics

There are no immigrants living in the community at all (0%). Meanwhile, 97 per cent of the population is at least third-generation Canadian.

There has been very little inward migration of any kind; between 2016-2021, none from outside of New Brunswick, none from outside Canada, and only 40 from within New Brunswick (out of more than 800).

Among those aged 25-64, nearly half (48 per cent) have not completed high school (compared to 11 per cent across New Brunswick). Brantville is not its own municipality, but if it was it would have the highest share of the 25-64 population without a high school education compared to the more than 260 municipalities profiled by Statistics Canada in 2021.

Across Tracadie-Sheila, the rate was high at 28 per cent, but that is still 20 percentage points below Brantville.

What does it all mean?

I am glad to live in a country where poverty rates and poor housing have diminished so substantially in a place like Brantville over the past 50 years. But, ideally, the private economy would be doing more of the heavy lifting. With government providing nearly half of all income in the community, this is not a particularly sustainable recipe for broader rural development – particularly as we will see many more communities across Atlantic Canada and the country ‘aging out’ over the next 10-15 years.

I know Brantville is now a part of Tracadie-Sheila but the municipality needs a plan to attract substantial new population to rebalance the demographics and grow new sectors of the economy. I know there are lots of competent folks working on this.

As for the seasonal economy (only 26 per cent of the workforce was employed full-time, year-round), as I have discussed here many times, I am not sure of the longer-term solution. We must figure out a way that it is not holding back the region from growth opportunities.

As for the startingly high share of the population without Grade 12 education, I think this is a serious problem. I have talked about this here before. The relationship between education and economy is not unidirectional. You may not need a high school or some post-secondary education to work in certain sectors such as fishing or fish processing, but that doesn’t mean there would not be benefits over time to encouraging a higher level of education in that workforce.

It could lead to more innovation and productivity, and it should lead to higher employment income (the median reported employment income in 2019 was $17,000, half the rate across the province. The average reported employment income gap was the same). I don’t have the breakdown among younger residents but I hope there are efforts underway to drop that rate substantially – even among the adults. In a country like Canada to have places with nearly 50 per cent without high school education is not a good look.

Huddle publishes commentaries from groups and individuals on important business issues facing the Maritimes. These commentaries do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Huddle. To submit a commentary for consideration, contact our editor, Trevor Nichols: [email protected].