In September 2006, the New Brunswick Liberals narrowly squeaked out a win over the incumbent Conservative Government led by Bernard Lord.

Full of energy and optimism, the Liberals bounded into government determined to change the world. Their mantra was self-sufficiency – great start. The problem was they failed to define “self-sufficiency” and they neglected to set targets or milestones that would allow viewers to measure their performance on the way to self-sufficiency.

The goal is noble and one that I subscribe to without hesitation. The problem is that without definition, there is nothing to reference when it comes to decision-making. Businesses have “visions” that dictate standards for decision-making.

For example “Our vision is to become the world’s leading provider of fresh, unprocessed water”. With such a vision, investment decisions, business acquisitions, employee hires, research, the adoption of new technologies, equipment purchases, distribution channels, selection of resource and other decisions are all referenced to the vision.

In the last two years, the Government has stumbled on a number of issues, in part because it did not offer self-sufficiency rationales for decisions relating to those issues.

For example, how does the reduction of provincial excise taxes on gasoline move us towards self-sufficiency?
How does bail-out of the Shippigan Caisse Populaire move us towards self-sufficiency? How did tax-increases move us towards self-sufficiency?
How will the removal of early French immersion move us towards self-sufficiency?
How will the rationalization of post-secondary education institutions move us towards self-sufficiency?
How will uranium exploration move us towards self-sufficiency?
How will tax-reform move us towards self-sufficiency?
How will the rationalization of our health system move us towards self-sufficiency?

There are positive answers to most, if not all of these questions but they go without speak. The self-sufficiency agenda has been driven by the notion of a Saint John “energy-hub”. As recently as this week, the Premier was pitching the idea to New England Governors and Eastern Canadian premiers. Good on him but an energy hub by itself will not lead us to self-sufficiency.

Some would argue that dependence on the U.S. market for the sale of our energy products will lead to a market dependency that may be quite different from federal government dependency but still a dependency.

There is some legitimacy in that argument but surely market dependency is better than government dependency. Market dependency encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, business development, competitiveness and a host of business and personal reactions that are absent in a government dependency.

In a small, economically dependent province like New Brunswick, it’s easy to settle into the comfort of federal government largess. The reality is that Canada’s economy is changing and federal largess is diminishing. The great “have” province of Ontario is no longer the hub of our national economy. Alberta has taken the lead with its gas and oil exports and its oil sands development.

The U.S. economy is in a shambles. Financial institutions are crashing. The U.S. deficit is advancing towards the trillion dollar mark. Our own federal government has moved us perilously close to deficit, if not into deficit. Self-sufficiency in New Brunswick is more than a noble objective. It may ultimately be the necessity of our survival.

New Brunswick has never been self-sufficient, at least not for the last 150 years. Our forestry industry, our fishery, our agricultural industry, mining, manufacturing and IT industries (as currently configured) will never make us self-sufficient at present levels of production and scale. Our only hope for significant growth, in the short-term, is energy, energy production, alternative energy production and the sale of energy products.

Self-sufficiency is a worthy goal but as I suggested earlier, it needs definition. If self-sufficiency means the absence of need for federal “equalization payments”, Newfoundland has arrived but New Brunswick has miles to go.

In the next few years, Shawn Graham and his Liberal Government will tackle the issue of tax reform and energy-related development. There will be issues surrounding the construction of a second oil refinery in Saint John and the possible construction of a second nuclear plant at Lepreau.

Depending on the outcome of our federal election, there may or may not be issues related to the environment and how our energy-production program fits with the environment and concerns about climate change.

To me, self-sufficiency is not about equalization payments, it’s about being in control of your destiny. It’s about paying your way, earning enough money to pay your bills and avoiding dependency on another person or another entity. It’s also about creating a sustainable and friendly environment.

Shawn Graham should be talking about the building of an economy that will employ New Brunswickers in a way that will make them personally self-sufficient and environmentally friendly.

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 mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com