In mid-January, Premier Graham introduced his “Self-Sufficiency Task Force”.

Its mandate is to assess the economic and fiscal challenges facing the Province, convey those challenges to New Brunswickers and seek input from them as to possible courses of action that could bring the province to self-sufficiency by 2026.

The first step in addressing the issue of self-sufficiency is to develop a consensus on what we mean by the term. Webster defines self-sufficiency as the ability to supply one’s own needs without external assistance. Others define self-sufficiency as the circumstance of becoming economically independent of state subsidies or foreign aid.

Self-sufficiency could also imply construct of an economy that is self-sustaining and independent of outside markets or resources.

In theory, we could isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, pull down the shades and concentrate on food production, shelter and renewable energy. That would mean giving up many of the foods we consume such as citrus fruits from Florida, grapes from Chile and vegetables from California. It would close the door to oil from Venezuela and the Middle East. We would have to find ways of generating electricity without oil from offshore, natural gas from Nova Scotia or uranium from Ontario.

The reality is that New Brunswick is not blessed with huge or indigenous energy resources.

While the definition may not be perfect, I think we need to adopt the definition of self-sufficiency as the circumstance of becoming economically independent of federal equalization payments. That sets the bar against which economic performance can be measured.

The Province of New Brunswick is substantially dependent on the federal government for revenue to fund its programs and services. Nearly a billion dollars comes in the form of health, social transfers and conditional grants. These are programs available to all provinces and might better be described as cost-sharing arrangements.

However, another $1.4 billion comes from the federal government in the form of “equalization” payments. This is money transferred to underdeveloped provinces to enable them to provide public services on a par with the rest of Canada. Equalization payments account for about 22% of the New Brunswick Government’s total revenue and equate to 50% of all taxes collected by the Provincial Government.

Therein lays the challenge.

To be self-sufficient, New Brunswick would have to increase its net tax revenue by 50%. Francis McGuire, Co-Chair of the Self-Sufficiency Task Force has suggested wage increases of 20%, a population increase of 15%, tax-driven investments in technology, plants and equipment, the attraction of large scale global corporations, an increase in exports and an influx of higher-paying jobs might lead us to self-sufficiency. That may be an over-simplification of the challenges ahead.

If we assume Mr. McGuire’s population growth projection would increase the employed workforce by 45,000 (above the current 350,000 employed) people and further that they would be high earners who would pay 50% more in taxes and further we assume wage increases of 20% would result in 20% more taxes paid, we could probably reduce our requirement for equalization by 50 to 60%. That’s not good enough. We need something more dramatic.

A media colleague of mine suggests there must be no sacred cows in this debate. I agree with her. So where do we find the other 40% in tax revenues?

If we struck oil, we might find them in royalties. If we found a way to profitably harness the tides, we might realize royalties from the export of electricity. If we developed the technology to store large amounts of electricity for extended periods of time we could sell or license that technology around the world.

Some have suggested that the only way we can remove the need for equalization is to move toward full economic and political union with the other Maritime Provinces. Others suggest that to attract major investment, we have to create critical mass, a large urban centre that could attract the best and brightest, serve as an incubator for economic development and create markets for our rural economies.

One idea that interests me is the suggestion by a group of ex-patriots that we leverage our resources to create a knowledge economy based on the development of technologies that would address the causes of climate change and the need to efficiently harvest and employ renewable energies (solar, wind, tidal, wave, wind, etc).

It’s hard to argue against Maritime Union but the reality is that it’s a rare circumstance when we can unite our municipalities, let alone three or four provinces in a single venture. That said, I think there is real merit in growing a major, world-class metropolis in New Brunswick that would become the vortex of economic development in the province and eventually all of the Maritimes. Imagine a city of half a million people in New Brunswick and how significant it would be to the attraction of people and investment.

Here’s how we might create such a metropolis:

• move the University of New Brunswick to Moncton;
• move the Provincial Government to Moncton;
• centralize healthcare research and delivery in Moncton;
• build high-speed rail and highway infrastructure to bring the rest of New Brunswick to within 90 minutes of Moncton;
• evolve Greater Moncton International Airport into a true regional airport connected internationally to the United States, Europe and Asia;
• establish a world-class research and development capacity that would focus on clean energy technology and the efficient harvesting of renewable energy;
• partner with global manufacturers of automobiles and aircraft to develop significant and permanent clean air manufacturing technologies in Moncton;
• build a community that embraces the arts and make Moncton the cultural homestead of Atlantic Canada.

A bit off the wall, yes but conventional thinking won’t do the trick.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

Labels: Economic Development, New Brunswick Economy, Self Sufficieny Strategy

For years, we’ve heard the term “sustainable development”. I understand it to mean development that consumes renewable resources at a rate less than nature’s ability to replenish them.

Many environmentalists criticize the term as an oxymoron, claiming that economic policies based around concepts of growth and continued depletion of resources cannot be sustainable, since that term implies resources remain constant.

‘Environmental sustainability” is another buzz term.

The antithesis of sustainability is degradation. In environmental terms, degradation occurs when nature's resources (such as trees, earth, water, air and habitats) are consumed faster than nature can replenish them, when pollution results in irreparable damage or when human beings destroy or damage ecosystems in the process of development. Some of the major causes of such degradation include: overpopulation, urban sprawl, industrial pollution, waste dumping, over-fishing, invasive species and a lack of regulation.

A recent editorial in the Times & Transcript led me to a new term “sustainable transportation”.

With all the talk about climate change and global warming, we tend to think the cause is limited primarily to industrial pollution and the greenhouse gas emissions released from the burning of coal and oil to generate electricity. In fact automobiles, trucks, buses and planes account for something in the range of 30% of our carbon emissions.

Jet aircraft pollutants account for more than 10% of global greenhouse warming. Aircraft emissions linger in the clear, cold, calm of the stratosphere and modify earth’s atmosphere about 100-times longer than when they are released near the ground.

There are more than five million civilian aircraft flights in the world every year and nearly 2,800 military flights. A recent report from the British Government calls jet travel a “risk to the planet” and urges travelers to take the train. It estimates that if trips of less than 400 miles could undertaken by high speed trains rather than jet planes, 45% of all flights could be eliminated.

Contrails, the high altitude smoke or vapour that trails a jet aircraft are an important part of the problem. A National Science Foundation study estimates that in heavy air traffic corridors across the USA, “cloud cover created by contrails has increased by as much as 20 percent” since the jet age took off in the 1960s.

As the Times & Transcript pointed out, trucks are a major source of road degradation in New Brunswick (tell me about it). They are also major polluters. Trucks account for less than 6% of miles driven by highway vehicles in the United States but are responsible for 25% of smog-causing pollution from highway vehicles and 6% of that nation's global warming pollution.

The automotive industry has made steady improvements in the area of fuel efficiency, and promises more to come. Automotive engineers have cut the weight of cars by half in the last 25 years and the miles-per-gallon rating of passenger cars has improved 39 percent in the last ten years. Unfortunately, fuel consumption has increased by 19 percent over the same period (sounds like a by-product of Stephen Harper’s Clean Air “intensity” strategy).

The tons of carbon dioxide produced by burning gasoline are a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Trucks, cars and buses contribute an estimated 60-70 percent of urban air pollution.
Coal-fired electric power plants in the United States are responsible for 40% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

The U.S. plans to build 72 more of them.

China is on track to add 562 coal-fired plants, nearly half the world total expected to come online in the next eight years. India could add 213 such plants, according to Future Pundit. In Canada, oil sands production is the biggest source of new greenhouse gas emissions and the Americans want us to increase production fivefold to wean them off Middle Eastern oil.

So what can be done about it all?

For the most part, we use two basic kinds of fuel: liquid fuels (oil and natural gas/propane) power our vehicles and heat our homes. Coal, hydro (water power), natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar are used to generate electricity.

Renewable sources are either intermittent (the wind doesn't always blow and the tides are periodic) or localized (the sun doesn't always shine) so we have to develop more effective means of electricity storage to offset the notion that only coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear can provide reliable "baseload" power.

I suspect it will be easier to find clean, renewable sources of electricity than to find clean, renewable liquid fuels. In the absence of effective storage mechanisms, the most obvious clean source of electricity is nuclear but a massive buildup of nuclear power would be very expensive and it would create a security risk. Nuclear waste is not clean and we still haven’t found a way to permanently dispose of it.

That said it still seems logical to shift our energy use from coal and oil to electricity. We'd probably need greener liquid fuels like ethanol, liquid natural gas (LNG) and gasified coal to bridge us to an electrified economy.

Fully electric vehicles and an electrified, cross-Canada, high-speed rail system would get gas-guzzling-cars and trucks off the road. Electricity generated with clean fuels and renewable resources would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Truck-trailers on the back of high-speed electrified trains connected to regional warehouses would reduce wear and tear on our highways. Short-haul air travel replaced with high-speed rail transport would reduce the impact of aircraft-induced emissions. Houses sealed against the cold and heated with electricity or clean, renewable fuels would be warmer and more fuel efficient.

A pipedream, maybe but if we don’t start moving in that direction, we may be choking on greenhouse gases in the next twenty or thirty years or swimming on Lutz Mountain.

To read more on the sustainable theme and green energy thinking, read my Atlantic Insight's
Go" n Green is New "Blow'n In The Wind" Theme Song of This Generation

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

or How Green is In, and the Mind War for Political Advantage is On ...

Ten days ago, Prime Minister Harper, announced the appointment of Ottawa MP John Baird as Canada’s new Minister of the Environment.

A few days later, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a plan to create the world's first global warming pollution standard for transportation fuels, ratcheting down fuel carbon content 10 percent by 2020. Suddenly green is in.

California’s new standard will have implications for the auto industry and could change the way gasoline is produced around the globe. It will also have implications for Canada because it will count all gases discharged during the full life cycle of the petroleum, a move that puts Alberta’s oil sands at a disadvantage because gasoline derived from oil sands require huge quantities of energy to extract and mine the “sticky” bitumen.

John Baird’s appointment was heralded as a great step forward as he was handed Rona Ambrose’s empty Clean Air Act.

That should mesh well with his clean-air record.

Last July, Ottawa City Council gave the go ahead for an $880 million light-rail transit system, designed to get cars off the road and greenhouse gases out of the air. At the time, Mr. Baird was President of Treasury Board in the Government of Canada. According to a published report by national columnist Lawrence Martin, Mr. Baird cancelled a $200 million federal contribution to the venture. In so doing, he killed the project and helped defeat Liberal Mayor Bob Chiarelli, setting up a victory for Larry O’Brian, a Conservative ally of Mr. Baird. Uhmm…

In a curious contrast to Schwarzenegger’s announcement, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced in Washington this week that the Bush Administration will open 5.6 million acres in Alaska's North Aleutian Basin for oil and gas development. Congress had barred drilling in Bristol Bay in 1989 after the huge Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill damaged Alaska's coast.

Eric J. Siy, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council is quoted in the Washington Post as saying President Bush's decision to lift this moratorium is irresponsible. The Bay has the world's biggest wild sockeye salmon run, abundant red king crab, Pacific halibut, Bering Sea pollock and cod fisheries, he said. This is a place with hurricane-force winds and floating sea ice. An oil spill could be "a nightmare" in an area home to 1 million migrating waterfowl and such marine mammals as endangered right whales, he added.

Then we see President Bush on national television announcing his “new and improved” war in Iraq – 21,000 more troops, a renewed commitment to the “war on terror”, a reconstruction program, a promise to rout out Al Quada and a pledge to protect the territorial integrity of Iraq from Syria and Iran.

Mr. Bush’s speech was set against the backdrop of newly launched U.S. bombing strikes in Somalia and the contrasting popularization of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s growing climate change movement.

Most of the world recognizes the U.S. invasion of Iraq as misguided, illegal and without foundation. The American people voted against the war in November 2006. Bush’s escalation of the war ignores the advice of his generals and the Iraq Study group which had recommended diplomacy and de-escalation. 70% of the American people, according to a recent Ipso poll oppose the troop surge.

The irony is that Bush’s intensification of the Iraqi war sits in contrasted to his repudiation of the war on greenhouse gas emissions. Both have the potential to implode the planet but only one seems to matter to Mr. Bush.

Prime Minister Harper supported the invasion of Iraq. I’m not sure where he sits on the latest move. Like Bush, he also walked away from (Canada’s commitment to) the Kyoto Accord. The difference is that Mr. Harper can read the polls so now he’s scrambling to become a born-again greener.

There is little we can do about the American’s adventure in Iraq but we do have an opportunity to do something about greenhouse gas emissions.

British journalist George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to stop the Planet from Burning (Doubleday, 2006) has a theory.

"We wish our governments to pretend to act. That way, we get the moral satisfaction of saying what we know to be right, without the discomfort of doing it”.

Monbiot's assumptions differ only modestly from those of Al Gore. Both believe the window of opportunity in respect to reversing the causes of global warming is short, and closing. Both believe we must freeze greenhouse gas emissions and then reduce them by up to 60 percent below current levels by about 2030.

Monbiot argues for a global carbon emissions cap allocated on a per capita basis. Currently, global carbon emissions are about 7 billion tons, roughly one ton per person but the average North American generates, directly and indirectly, some 10 tons per capita. To save the planet, he says we must go way beyond the “freezing” of greenhouse gas emissions.

Monbiot concludes "There is no way of tackling this issue other than by reducing the number, length and speed of the journeys (cars and aircraft) we make."

I would argue we also have to green the way we generate energy (residential and industrial).

Is such an attack on greenhouse gas emissions politically possible when the fight is not about having more but doing with less?

Maybe the answer lies off Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic where an ancient ice-shelf, the size of 11,000 football fields broke off the Island in August 2005. Climate change is considered a factor and could ultimately be more threatening to the world than war (short of nuclear) in the Middle East.

If the great “Terminator” Arnold Swartzeneger can launch the fight against global warming, surely we as Canadians can take it forward.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

It was reported this week that Canada’s Department of National Defense (DND) is set to purchase $3 billion in search and rescue aircraft from the Italian manufacturer Spartan.

They will replace the De Havilland Canada CC-115 Buffalo and free up the U.S. manufactured Hercules for regular transport work.

The Buffalo was first acquired by the RCAF in 1967 as a search & rescue aircraft used in tactical transport. The Lockheed-Martin C-130 Hercules tactical transport has arguably been the most successful military transport aircraft in the history of aviation.

It’s considered one of the most versatile of transport planes and is used to airlift troops, equipment and cargo, in search and rescue (SAR) operations and in air-to-air refueling of fighter-jets. The Hercules can be loaded and unloaded quickly, with little equipment, and is especially useful in delivering supplies because it does not need a lot of room to land.

The intended purchase of the C-27J Spartan is not an isolated purchase. Last year, DND purchased four Boeing manufactured C-17 cargo airplanes for $3.4 billion and 17 new C130J Hercules transport planes for $5 billion and 16 Chinook helicopters for $2.7 billion.

The Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas Corp.) manufactured C-17 aircraft is capable of rapid strategic delivery of troops and all types of cargo to main operating bases in war zones or directly to forward bases in a war zone. The C-17 can carry virtually all of the Canadian Army's air-transportable combat equipment.

The design of this aircraft lets it operate on small airfields and can take off and land on runways as short as 3,000 feet and as narrow as 90 feet wide.

The new and improved Lockheed Martin C-130J is used by the US Air Force as its principle tactical cargo and personnel transport aircraft. The C-130J is the latest model Hercules, featuring digital avionics and a new propulsion system. As reported, the improvements enhance the performance of the aircraft in terms of range, cruise ceiling, time to climb, cruise speed and airfield requirements.

It’s a new generation of tactical military transport that reduces operating costs and crew size while offering significant performance improvements. It’s built to meet requirements for combat delivery, aerial refueling, weather reconnaissance, search and rescue and electronic combat.

I offer these facts to provide context for discussion of some serious issues:

It would appear that Canada is quietly buying military aircraft for combat deployment.

Theoretically, we are in Afghanistan as peace-keepers and builders, not as military combatants. That has been our military role in the world for decades. I have no quibble with the idea of equipping our military with the latest and best equipment but I worry that we may be moving towards the George W. Bush model of peacekeeping.

My second concern relates to purchase of the Italian Spartan C-27J aircraft as search and rescue aircraft. We have a Canadian aircraft manufacturer (Bombardier) that is more than capable of building search and rescue aircraft. They build the Dash 8 aircraft which grew out of the original CC-115 Buffalo aircraft. They make passenger jets and executive jets. They build trains and subway cars. They certainly have the capability to build military and/or search & rescue aircraft.

One would assume that Bombardier’s Dash 8-300 could be modified to provide search and rescue capabilities. It doesn’t have a rear military loading/off-loading ramp but surely that would be a doable alteration.

To be fair to the Italians, the Dash 8-300 take-off weight is only about two thirds of the Spartan’s take-off weight and its cruise speed is 532 km/h versus the C-271 Spartan at 602 km/h. Perhaps more significantly, the Italians offer an aircraft with a range of up to 5900 km while the Dash 8-300 maxes at 1,625 km.

One of DND’s specifications for its search and rescue aircraft is that it must have the ability to fly quickly from a base in southern Canada, conduct a search and rescue in the Arctic and return to base. The Italian advantage in speed and range seems obvious.

However, with all due respect to the Italian advantage, we’re talking here about the purchase of some 90 aircraft and a twenty year service contract. $3 billion - that’s a lot of jobs. Surely Bombardier could meet the speed and range specifications if given a little time. De Havilland Canada (part of Bombardier) was a pioneer in the development of STOL (short Take-Off and Landing) search and rescue aircraft. It should be encouraged to continue its tradition of innovation.

My other concern is with the collective expenditure amounts. The 2006/07 federal budget assumes revenues of $227 billion and expenses of $223 billion. After debt payments of $3 billion, that leaves a surplus of little over a billion dollars. DND equipment expenditures for the fiscal year will be in the order of $14 billion. That’s 6% of our budget, no where near the American ratio of defense expenditures but possibly setting us on the road to deficit.

The Harper Government has directed the purchase of some $11.1 billion in military aircraft to the United States in the last six or eight months. Now they want to ship another $3 billion to the Italians. Worse, the selection process has excluded all but the Italians from bidding. What is wrong with these people?

In my opinion, the Department of National Defense should not be buying offshore if it could be buying Canadian. That is not to suggest that the Department buy inferior products. It is only to suggest that Canadians be given the opportunity to sell to their government.

As I understand it, the Italian purchase still has to be approved by Cabinet. Members of the Cabinet would be well advised to move cautiously on this matter.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com