What Maclean’s Doesn’t Understand About New Brunswick
Last Friday Maclean’s magazine unleashed a predictable furor when it posted a story on its website entitled, “Can anything save New Brunswick?”
Without even reading the story, you knew what was coming next.
An economy in crisis, an aging population and continued outmigration, language tensions about to erupt into civil war, as though the ugliness of the “Comments” section of the CBC New Brunswick web site came to life.
Last New Brunswicker to leave, please turn out the lights.
It’s a story that’s been told often, for decades really. And we eat it up. Plenty of New Brunswickers love to wallow in the negativity.
But maybe things aren’t quite so bad as an Upper Canadian magazine and its Montreal writer think based on a short drive around the province.
It would be foolish to suggest things are good. They’re not. The last round of job numbers are sobering, to say the least, and the recent closure of the potash mine near Sussex was an unwelcome kick in the teeth. The demographic pressures are real, and the language skirmishes are worrying.
But Maclean’s missed something very important. New Brunswick’s economy isn’t in “free fall.” It’s in transition.
Yes the mills and mines that once created good jobs for New Brunswickers, particularly in rural communities, are gone. They’re probably not coming back.
But in their place we are seeing a remarkable surge of entrepreneurialism throughout the province, particularly amongst younger New Brunswickers. And this isn’t the clumsy economic development cheerleading we’ve been subjected to for so long. It’s a fact.
We know because at Huddle we write about these entrepreneurs. Every. Single. Day.
In fact, that’s the reason we started Huddle last fall. No one was telling the other side of the story. I guess negativity sells more papers.
We see a “startup” culture flourishing, not just in technology companies, although they are doing great things, but in food, pharmaceuticals and even beer. These people are creating jobs and generating wealth based on entrepreneurial hustle and knowledge.
They’re willing to take risks and look beyond the false comfort of “safe” jobs with government or the big companies, or leaving the province for corporate jobs elsewhere. These entrepreneurs also recognize that while they want to live in New Brunswick, their ambitions need to be global.
They are New Brunswick’s future.
The 21st century economy is premised on two things: knowledge and globalization. New Brunswickers need to compete with our brains, not just our backs.
That doesn’t mean that natural resource extraction can’t be an important part of New Brunswick’s economy; it just means it shouldn’t be the only part.
Of course, in the early days, these startups and other entrepreneurial ventures may only create a handful of jobs. And will a 55-year-old millwright or heavy equipment operator in the Miramichi suddenly trade his or her hardhat for a hoodie and join a small tech company in Fredericton? No, of course not.
But their kids might.
Particularly when one of the startups pops and creates hundreds of jobs, like Radian6 and Q1 Labs did.
Still, transitions aren’t easy. New Brunswick likely has more pain ahead.
But assuming the only path before New Brunswick is continuing failure to the point of collapse shows a lack of understanding of what’s happening on the ground.
New Brunswick is not about to become Silicon Valley. But we could become more like Boston than Maine. Boston is a hub for knowledge, and with that knowledge, entrepreneurs and investors follow. Companies are launched and jobs are created.
What’s most encouraging about what’s happening in New Brunswick is that it’s community driven. The private sector, not-for-profits and universities are leading the charge, not government. Government can play a supporting role with the right set of policies, but it doesn’t create jobs. Let’s stop pretending that it does.
So Maclean’s, come back to New Brunswick. Stay a bit longer this time, and dig a little deeper. You’ll find the answer to your question, you’ll find the people that are working right now to save New Brunswick.
When they’re done here, maybe they can help Ontario.