I like Alec Bruce the writer, and social commentator.

He’s a professional writer and is making a living in a tough business.

He is finding a voice for thoughtful pieces on New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada in terms of asking where are we going and why, let alone how are we going to get there with either a handout, or a handup from sustainable, self sufficiency or not; and in the process through his writing evaluates some of the present group-think we are experiencing from our political and community leadership. He does so with a skeptical, if not bemused sense of narrative humor.

He comes from a distinguished clan of thoughtful writers whose choice of modern weaponary is a keyboard.

He makes me chuckle, on occassion. As I age less gracefully than most, I find it a rare experience to chuckle from a read. If you have read Christopher Hitchens recently for instance, a global commentator who is questioning the very essence of any religion as a scam, let alone growing up Baptist in a fundamentalist culture that frowned on anything other religion that was Catholic, long before we got to the exotics like Pentacostals whose practice of speaking tongues out of cheek scared the children(me), and onto Muslim, Hindu, Buddah, and Scientology; Alec Bruce is a great pick me up on how it is really silly to worry about the future, or religon and how to get there. What me, worry ? 

It is hard making public policy amusing and even harder to make ponderous statements by equally ponderous politicans humerous, as the focus of a pithy debate-with-myself style of writing that Bruce deploys in his online and offline print articles. That he wrings out some clever humor, is well, clever writing.

I am not alone in this affection for his commentary writing either.

As the visitor stats show on his blog of articles he publishes around the region in leading daily newspapers and business magazines, his sometimes quirky take on simple political policy decisions is both entertaining and often provocative in holding elements of governorance up to a critical and bemused perspective. And he just got a great recognition of that writing style and passion for perspective and hold-on-a-minute-let’s-look-at-this-another-way style of writing.

 Now one of Bruce’s column’s for the upstart here magazine, a provincial weekly entertainment guide Tab newspaper has won an award at the 2006 Atlantic Journalism Awards for his wry and satiric take on a much vaunted New Brunswick Prosperity Plan, which is one of many wordplays that ambitious politican’s roll out with the help of their marketing-in-policywonk hench(wo)men to create a sense of economic momenteum, as a proclaimed sense of well being inducement, despite growing evidence to the contrary.

So join me in a salute, Hat’s off to Alex Bruce and his wonderful writing machine and long may he sally forth with adjectives, pronouns, mixed and assorted metaphors ablazing to bring insight, understanding, enhanced comprehension and ridicule where it is deserved to the social, political and economic discourse that is the mother’s milk of political governorance.

Here is the official press release. And to read the assorted and compiled work’s of our 2007 Meritorious Award winner for “Excellence and Achievement” in commentary writing, in the words of the judges, is the clickable link to his collected works on his blog, which he has cleverly titled  The Bruce Report. 

So please, spend awhile getting to know Alex Bruce the writer, if you don’t already know him as a reader. He will entertain you while adding to your comprehension of the economic and social-political forces around you that are shaping the community and region that we continue to decide to live in, as the cod, lobster stocks, children, and tall spruce and conifer industry trees leave us baiting tourists and federal transfers.  

As a bonus, he will lighten your day, if not your step.

  Alec Bruce, Moncton Writer Earns Gold in the 2006 Atlantic Journalism Awards

(MONCTON, N.B.) – A.V. Bruce & Associates Inc. is pleased to announce that Alec Bruce has taken top honours at the 2006 Atlantic Journalism Awards (AJAs) in the “Commentary” category.

At a ceremony in Halifax, N.S., on Saturday, May 12, 2007, Bruce received the Gold Award for “excellence and achievement” in journalism.

Bruce won for his February 16, 2006, column in [here] magazine, “For sale: one prosperity plan; only one driver,” in which he questioned the Government of New Brunswick’s economic development policies under then-premier Bernard Lord.

Bruce is a regular columnist for the Moncton Times & Transcript, and Progress magazine of Halifax. He also contributes frequently to other publications in the Atlantic region, across Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Click this Link to “For sale: one prosperity plan; only one driver”:

Sphere It

Jim Sellars of Wealth Management Canada, in Moncton, and his wife and family are living the good life in Panama this winter and send along this travelogue update of escaping -30 windchills and ice to explain how their ice is in their drinks on their patio overlooking Panama canal in Central America.

The other afternoon while resting on a shaded patio at a great little Italian restaurant, I happened to meet Roberto Duran, the hall of fame, former boxer and multiple world title holder.

He shook my hand and smiled, and we exchanged a few words. I’m a fan so you had to see the look on my face to get the value of the moment.

Panama exudes a tone of calm determination to prosper.

Recently, in 1999, when the Americans largely withdrew, there was an economic fallout that caused some serious difficulties for the average Panamanian. They simply began showing the world that they, not their neighbors were the “real” Switzerland of the region.

Welcoming visitors and passing laws that encourage relocation. Eliminating taxes on foreign sourced income, installing world class healthcare, education and banking, and finally banning the military forever, are some of the steps that have made this little country the prize that it is.

For that past number of years, five or six for sure, International Living has found Panama to be the best place in the world to retire, for the reasons I have just explained.

What is interesting to consider is the sub-set of families looking to buy a home in my “neck of the woods” in Canada and compare that sub-set to the group of families who are looking at buying a home in Panama.

What with the “baby boomers” retiring in greater and greater numbers everyday planet wide, and the people looking for a better plan that are currently living in Columbia with all it’s problems or Venezuela more recently with it’s set of struggles, not to mention the people leaving Costa Rica in droves, things are booming in Panama.

A year ago I could have purchased a condo on the seventh floor of a ten floor building, that’s the whole floor over 2500 sq. ft. of space for $100k. Today that same sort of place is going for $130k to $140k.

Meanwhile new construction is springing up like mushrooms as the demand simply can’t be contained. I have been out looking at retirement homes and condos, and have lots to report. First let me tell you about finding a place where ocean front land on the Pacific coast of Panama can be purchased for pennies.

Last Saturday I drove about 3 hours up the Pan American highway to Santiago and then turned left down the peninsula that makes up Veraguas province. My guide Daniel de la Guardia explained that he had really never been down this road and didn’t know many people who had; perhaps you could drive right off the edge.

This is a province of Panama that is uncharacteristically arid, but prosperous as the roads were great and everywhere there were cattle in great numbers grazing on the lush pastureland. The view from the highlands was spectacular, and there was the prize, miles and miles of undeveloped beachfront.

There was no evidence of subdivisions or land development at all as we worked out way to the end of the road some 40 miles down the peninsula, just opportunity to buy undeveloped land and make a project of your own, mile after mile down this smooth winding road. It made me think of the road on the west coast of California 50 years ago or more; when the road would have been nice and the view unobstructed. It screamed for a Porsche, with the top down.

Back in the city I have been looking at buying a condo for retirement purposes and have seen a couple just the other morning that ran around 140 mt2 at around $135k. there are an abundant number of interesting possibilities in the various neighborhoods. Some of the properties are newer and some older and in need of renovations but in spectacular locations.

It is all about making up your mind that you have found something you could buy and enjoy. We made a couple of offers last year on interesting spots and missed them because although we had found a deal, we hadn’t moved quickly enough, allowing someone else to jump on it when they saw it. That says it all for me because it has happened again.

This opportunity is a 14th floor condo, three bedrooms, a balcony, 145 mt2, with a fantastic view of the old city and the entrance to the canal right in the core of the restaurant and banking district, all for $115k. Should have jumped on it, ‘cause it sold out from under us too.

I think I’m loaded for bear now though, I have made my mind up that I will not be coming home empty handed. “I comes here to see a high diving act and I’se agonna see a high diving act, if’n it kills me”.

Yah, Panama is really a great idea for the person who would like to look at making “more from their less”. The other afternoon we went to an Orthodontist, for a final consultation about braces for my 13 year old son.

The U.S. trained specialist said if it were his son he’d wait for a year, but yes we can take care of the problem and it will cost for the complete treatment over an 18 month period, $2200. I was confident that they were professional and skilled but I did have the view in the back of my mind that they would like more business if they could get it. I could hardly have been further from the truth.

My wife and I subsequently went to the “John Hopkins Medical Center”, a brand new hospital facility within walking distance of our condo, to see about a comprehensive physical exam.

We met a young internist, Dr. M. Gonzalez. He explained in perfect English, that this new hospital complex had as yet not received it’s full certification. It had to be operating for two years before it could qualify but that they had an executive program for providing service to people with insurance or the means to pay for first world care, that would be able to provide us with a thorough exam all in one day complete with lab work ups, x-rays and any other exams that are deemed necessary. What a beautiful facility and what a service.

So let’s review; the climate is wonderful, there is monetary stability in the US dollar, medical care is second to none, lifestyle costs are about 30% of Canada, and there is no tax.

Now the truth is the city is busting at the seams with all the growth in commerce and residential construction, but the restaurants are fabulous and cheap and the people are genuinely friendly and welcoming, they are aware that they have built something the world is seeking, and “They will come Jack, they most certainly will come”.

Are they ever coming!

So can the average Canadian move here and live?

Can they buy a home in this friendly modern city, for half what their home in Canada sells for, and find a pleasant way to tough it out through the winter?

Is it possible to catch the satellite TV coverage of “Hockey Night in Canada”, and make it in shorts through January, February and March?

The devil is always in the details, but be assured you won’t be the first here, if you give it a try. Happy Valentines!

We may get more from Jim Sellars on these topics as a roving correspondent on retirement planning and the ever hopeful phrase wealth management.

Ifyou missed the first post, please click on Jim Sellars: Panama, Living the Good Life.
Sphere It

I have been plagued all my life by people who remind me of what a slothful, ill-advised and generally regretable planner I am for the eventual, inescapable, and hugely punitive ageing future that those that do not put away enough nuts in a tree stump for the winter; metaphor warning, truly are.

Patience, we are going to get to wealth management and living the good life in Panama, or skip down to the heading of the story below.

As a child, I heard the repetitive radio song about some chipmunk or squirrel with too much discipline, lord it over the other lazy wanna-be rodents who did not put away enough acorns or nuts or seeds, or whatever, and were starving the next winter, while the Duddly Do-Right Wombat sang the annoying song. This was back when CKCW was 1220 AM and broadcast music for all ages and during the 50’s, chipmunks and semi human rodents singing like a church choir on dialuds was Top 10 Hits, in Moncton.

You could only hear Elvis during the afternoons on Saturday to fire up the Saturday night birth rate initiations. But back to Jim Sellars of Wealth Management Canada, as the sign on his Queen Street office building announces.

Somehow during the forgetable 50’s, as I was trundling open water buckets in freezing cold, balancing them on a techerous ribbon of ice towards a distant captive barn animal with the guileless ditty richoting aruond, in what passed for my teenage brain, even then I knew I would be one of those without enough nuts in place when financial judgement day came along. That was in addition to the failings pointed out in the Baptist Sunday School, where escaping damnation was top billing and Hell never froze over.

And to think I never went to therapy that I noticed.

Well here I am, turned 58 last week, on an all expenses paid business junket to -40C. Sudbury, Ontario, and along comes devishly clever financial planner and genial black belt in some martial, if not marital arts form of persuasion, Jim Sellars, with a missive from his patio’s pineapple fruit delight on a warm plaza in Panama, the country, not the hat. I got the hat and he got the country in February. So I decided to take note.

Now let this be a cautionary tale to all of you wanna be retired-at-50, twenty somethings out there that it takes memorizing the damn put your acorns away for a winter day mantra to get the benefits of the view from a warm Panamanian plaza with a gorgeous wife and dutiful children in tow for three plus months as a business expense. Children, mind you who are compelled to do their homework and clean their rooms with alacrity in the rented condo, because the alternative to smiling compliance is being sent to their rooms….in freezing Moncton.

One can assume that his wife Barb, a lifetime Monctonian and genial stylist, remains genial having escaped winter.

Ever notice the trouble you can get in as a man with a woman by not taking bad weather alternatives seriousely. Jim-Boy has got that covered too. Its part of his business plan. That’s what I mean by walking his talk. Makes you want to take advice from someone that has it figured out; no harried last minute RRSP harrassment season for him.

So I asked Jim, who has been trying to be my financial saviour if not apostle of planning and captial equity perservation and tax recovery diversions-admittedly among a small army of warm blooded financial advisors, - who keep me as a client to point out to younger wanna be entrepreneurs what can happen if you don’t take their sage advice; to send a field report from his angle of repose in Central America, enschonsed on the Panamian Pacfic coastline.

So here is Jim Sellar’s report from Panama in two parts.

Panama Update # 1. Living the Good Life in Panama

Having breakfast the other morning at the famous Café Coca Cola, in Casco Viejo was an experience to be treasured. Liver and Onions with eggs and a huge Cappuccino was part of the pleasure but more was the “people watching”. We, (Barb, my wife and I), were enjoying our food and conversation in this exotic little café tattered around the edges but still proud of an elegant past, when a man from a nearby table spoke to us inquiring where we were from.

Salvatore and Jacomo are Italian men, who happened to meet here in Panama from different pasts and were sharing a “rendez vous” for breakfast, they were young and not typical tourists, but rather very at home in this Latin world.

They were surprised at the fact that I was eating so much for breakfast, and wanted to know if it was good. They preferred a croissant with coffee, but were intrigued just the same. Salvatore was a qualified sea captain, of about 50 years and Jacomo was a traveling painter, photographer, artist, of probably 30ish, who was in love with the architecture of the old city of Panama. Very interesting people indeed, their opinions were fun to hear, and their life stories very exciting for sure.Salvatore is a self professed nomad, who explained a very profound philosophy, that chance meetings were divinely inspired, “coincidence was a word not found in his dictionary.” He had traveled for the past 20 plus years around the world as an adventurer “feeding the freedom” he was still very much enjoying. He concluded after more than an hour of exciting conversation, this meeting must be to confirm the sanity and value of the adventure that I was on with my wife and kids.That seems to be the way it works, these adventures people take. Here we are for the second year, Barbara my wife and I with our two kids, Tyler age 13, and Stephanie age 11, in a tropical city for the winter.Panama, is a beautiful friendly city 2.5 hours out of Miami, and the point geographically where North America meets South America. It is the place where the famous Panama Canal is found, running north and south much to my personal confusion. The little country is approximately the same size as New Brunswick, our home province in Canada, only long and skinny, and running not north and south as my mind’s eye pictures it, but rather east and west.Panama once was a part of the country of Columbia and in 1903 became an independent republic through the encouragement of the United States of America. The U.S. is the country that finished the “Moon Shot” of the times, by finishing the canal begun by a French consortium; finally in 1914.

Sphere It

You will see the headline in tomorrow’s newspapers and on the CBC TV and Live at 5 on ATV tonight, TransAlta awarded 25-year power purchase agreement with New Brunswick Power, expands renewable energy portfolio ; but the big story is that this honey of a project is going deep into Albert County.

Anyone who has ever looked out over Grindstone Island, or hung on for dear life trying to walk the Rock’s on a windy day can atest to the constant breezes coming in at almost gale force strength from the Shepody Bay extension of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Petitcodiac and Memramcook Rivers.

Kent Hills, Albert County is the site of this new wind farm announcement and for the less enabled of you Albert County explorers, it is the giant hill and ridgeline that you see to you right as you drive towards Albert-Riverside just after the Rocks as you travel south on Rt 114. That ridge travels along all the way to Alma as it weaves in and out from the Albert County foothills, which has for some time offered up everything from previous metals and gypsum.

100 years ago, history records that 10,000 men toiled in shipyards from Alma to Hall’s Creek building sailing ships to travel the wind around the World and now another wind based business development is returning to roots in Albert County.

It is ironic that the age of sail power, which defined the early properity of Albert County, allowing it to best Westmorland in the early sledding of the 20th century and before, is once again being fueled as an economic engine in the 21 th century, by harvesting the energy in the relentless winds of that part of Albert County. Now, if we can add a tidal power project at the mouth of the highest tides in the World, well may be we can stop some of those expensive oil barrels from keeping us over a barrel in North America.

For the record, here is the press release regarding the Calgary based company that is partnering up to deliver the capital and technical expertise to bring wind based turbine power to New Brunswick. Not a decade too late, but hey whose complaining. At last we are in the green game with our game face on courtesy of NB Power.

CALGARY, ALBERTA–(CCNMatthews - Jan. 19, 2007) - TransAlta Corporation (TSX:TA) (NYSE:TAC) today announced it has been awarded a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement to provide 75-megawatts (MW) of wind power to New Brunswick Power Distribution and Customer Service Corporation. Aka NB Power, to us New Brunswickers.

Under the agreement, TransAlta will construct, own and operate a wind power facility in New Brunswick. Terms of the agreement are confidential.

The capital cost of the project is estimated to be $130 million. The project is subject to regulatory and environmental approvals and is expected to begin commercial operations by the end of 2008.

Natural Forces Technologies Inc., a local Atlantic Canada wind developer is TransAlta’s co-development partner in this project.

“Wind power is an integral part of our growth plan and we are pleased to be developing this project with New Brunswick Power and expanding our renewable energy portfolio,” said Steve Snyder, TransAlta’s President and CEO.

“We’ve been building wind farms in Western Canada for 10 years and see this as an opportunity to expand our wind power expertise into a market that has expressed a desire for clean, renewable energy. We’re pleased to have a long-term contract with a superb customer and energy supplier like New Brunswick Power.”

The single-site, 25-turbine wind farm will be located in the Kent Hills area of New Brunswick.

TransAlta expects construction to commence by early 2008. TransAlta will work with local firms for the construction and ongoing operation of the Kent Hills wind farm providing long-term economic benefits to the region.

Once complete, the Kent Hills wind farm will provide 220,000 megawatt hours per year, enough electricity to meet the needs of approximately 13,600 homes. The facility will use 3.0 MW wind turbines purchased from Vestas-Canada Wind Technology Inc. for wind power turbines. With the addition of Kent Hills, TransAlta will operate approximately 260 MW of wind generated power in Canada.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association expects the Canadian wind power market, currently at 1,340 MW, to grow to 10,000 MW by 2015.

Since its acquisition of Vision Quest Windelectric in 2002, TransAlta has tripled its wind business.TransAlta is a power generation and wholesale marketing company focused on creating long-term shareholder value. We maintain a low-risk profile by operating a highly contracted portfolio of assets in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Australia.

Our focus is to efficiently operate our coal-fired, gas-fired, hydro and renewable facilities in order to provide our customers with a reliable, low-cost source of power. For nearly 100 years, we’ve been a responsible operator and a proud contributor to the communities where we work and live.

Everyone should take a moment and send an email of congratulations to NB Power for finanlly getting in the Green Energy Game. It is not a miracle cure by any means and it will only offset enough energy for the Village of Hillsborough on a cold January day, with maybe Shenstone and Weldon thrown in; but the iconic leadership symbol is all the message. There will be more announcements and this represents stranding alot of capital and no real job components in Albert County, but the price of progressive change and new innovation is widespread adoption.

A wind farm in Albert County on the Shepeody Bay is a real step in the right direction.

Yipee, this is one for the good guys. My distant and occassional relative MLA and former Cabinent Minister is the previous government may or may not have had a hand in it, or even known about it because this would have been conducted outside of politics, but despite the political opportunism that could have derailed this project, we got a great symbol of the changing energy world we live in established in the least productive and growth retarded County of the Province, excluding Riverview as a separate community of Greater Moncton.

This is huge. Coming next is the growing recognition that deep within my Alma Mater of Albert County where I learned to race cars on dirt roads and duck religion fundamentalists shooting their barely legal moose and deer quotas, is the emergence of singificant natural gas finds and eventually a deep trough of oil sands embeeded with oil production sludge that would make the tar sands molasses look like warm maple syrup.

We be in the energy business, again. Watch for more to come.

It’s a big day in Hillsborought and Riverside-Albert as well as Shepody.

Yayadada - corporate compliance

This news release may contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the business and anticipated financial performance of TransAlta Corporation. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that could cause such differences include legislative or regulatory developments, competition, global capital markets activity, changes in prevailing interest rates, currency exchange rates, inflation levels and general economic conditions in geographic areas where TransAlta Corporation operates.Note: All financial figures are in Canadian dollars unless noted otherwise.
Sphere It

Moncton had an important day today.

Most people hurrying towards an impending Christmas did not notice that on the 6 th floor Atrium at City Hall, beside the besotted plant garden, and ironically backdropped and window framed by the slowly draining tide from this AM’s Bore Tide, and where the once vibrant river freight docks once jutted behind the Assumption Street Firestation, a man from Texas laid out a plan for re-igniting Moncton’s passion for future strategic visions and community leadership.

David Giberson, of IC2 Institute ( The Innovation, Creativity & Capital Institure ) or IC Squared, of Austin Texas, delivered his organization’s colloboration Executive Summary report, which was developed in 2006, along with a leading community representation of some of our best and brightest in the world of local IT industries.

Titled Accelerating Technology-based growth and entrepreneurship in Greater Moncton it presents a tree top, if not sky view vision of how to grow smart industry sectors in Greater Moncton by focusing on the assets that exist in the roughly geographic region of southeastern New Brunswick, comprised of what we would think of as Westmorland-Kings-Albert, and Kent regions. An area that we are increasingly amalagmating into Metro Moncton as an economic, integrated market area with attitude.

You can download a copy of the report to read by clicking on Moncton Technology Group.

What the gist of the report says in very logical sequence of steps is, to work with what we have here in the core essentials of universities and tradeschools in Sackville, U de M, and ABU, and their research development and business skill labs, and create new business opportunity.

They envision a new World Order for Metro Moncton, where entreprenurial skills are fostered and honed and incubated within a supportive environment to wring jobs out of new start ups and help them grow.

The your- community- is- a- garden- to- feed- concept, of economic development is not new to Moncton.

In 1980, in 1989, and again in the mid 90’s, Moncton has stoked its own fires of creative thinking and planning to get the municipal unit moving. Many of those meetings have echoes in this report, but what was done and is outlined is no less important, just because, if you were to think about it, it still does and will always makes sense to make lemonade out of the lemons that you have in your hand or can reach easily.

Growing local businesses creates forward momentum that others from away are more attracted to than being the solution.

A key area of the report, and you can easily get your own complete PDF version of the presentation this morning, by clicking on the new information scroll on the City of Moncton’s web site for yourself, makes a significant point, among many.

Moncton has two clear asset classes for growing a knowledge-based economy. One is
represented by Moncton’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector with over
400 companies

Within ICT, Moncton’s strengths exist in the area of interactive software (including game design, IT education, and software design), digital media, and informatics (manipulating, storing, and classifying recorded information, especially in the health sciences). The other technology-based asset class is represented by Moncton’s existing R&D centers, like the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute, the science research being conducted at the Université de Moncton, and the bioscience commercialization initiatives at Mount Allison University.

Technology transfer and commercialization from these R&D centers, to a large degree, is in its infancy. Large-scale commercial development in this area, with significant local job growth, while encouraged, is a longer-term proposition.

Now, after you scroll through and read the 35 pages of Executive Summary, you may be underwelmed with the ” I- knew-that-already-and-could-have-told-you”, quality of most external consultant’s reports, but like good media reporting, sometimes the story just has to be told again and again, in a different way and with a different perspective.

Moncton today has momenteum and even our local newspaper, not a source of deep sagacity at any time, is trumpheting the fact that for a time and place, our little economy that could and should, has grown to be the largest in New Brunswick. A dubious achievement when New Brunswick as a measure is the smallest Province in Canada, save that runt of the Provinces’ litter across that expensive bridge to PEI. Both of us have populations the size of small cities in Ontario, let alone in the US by comparison.

We in Moncton and in New Brunswick, need to keep ourselves in perspective, but be prepared to punch above our weight class.

But what Moncton has in spades is moxie and the impetuous, if not engaged, and engaging leadership within our community to aim high, target big, and to grow ourselves a new and better future. Moncton has a reputation for embracing change and challenging itself to grow new. Doing nothing is not an alternative.

This new report and the tag team of local entrepreneurs, educators, and lucky strike mini-moguls that made up the Moncton Technology Planning Group is an important document. It is all about how to grow the pie so there is enough money in the pot to pay for the larger lifestyle living and visual attitude artifacts that Downtown Moncton wants to incorporate into our quality of living. It is a plan on how to pay future civic bills.

Economic development is like a great stew. To be both nourishing and heart warming, it has to have many elements blended into it and this outline of where we can go from here is comprised of many different ingredients that have to come together to make a great economic growth plan.

It is not enough to have ideas, we have to have an inventory of success stories, entrepreneurs, wealth acquisition and aggregation to create some investment strategies in the form of angel capital investors to get ideas from the workbench lab to the front page business news achievement columns.

This effort is the first strike at bat for Ben Champoux, who is Moncton’s Economic Development officer.

Ben is an example of what Louis Robichaud dreamed about in the 60’s in creating, uber fluently, bilingual and well educated youth that would mature into community leaders that move easily among linguistic tensions and overcome petty politics over who gets to run the well in the village waterworks, and instead focuses the political and social, as well as public capital of the village on what it will take to sustain the village in the future.

While I respect Dieppe’s manifest destiny to have its own management team over the village’s waterworks supply, it is a needless distraction over the much bigger picture about how to grow the greater and larger economic opportunity to pay all civic bills in the region.

Moncton needs this kind of executive leadership by administrators like Champoux and this strategic path development document, while only a start, is a strong start.

And there is former Senator Brenda Robertson’s pride and prejudice in the form of son and Moncton Councilor Doug Robertson, who has championed the funding and won the internal municipal support to spend some special funds from the civic rain barrel of funds to get something on the drawing boards besides penis envy with Dieppe over gross civic building permit totals.

He is a youthful politican in politican years ( in dog years he is a political pup with a sterling pedigree and breeding). He is blessed with a long shelf life and if he is careful of the twin goddesses of campaign timing and political opportunity that defines so often the political futures of our best and brightest politicans in Moncton, he will be a major beneficial force in this community for years to come. Robertson the Younger’s vision and political savvy can get us up and ready for whatever is next.

The document that he sat patiently at the head table and had read with the moral authority of outsiders from Texas painting the way, where they make opportunity with as much ease as they do fortunes, is a road map for Moncton to take advantage of to get an economic development vehicle exploiting business opportunities on the global information highway.

Almost an outdated cliche today, information highway companies are powering every corner of the World, from Third World countries to fashionista cyber societies like Boston and California and are fueling local economic development and spin-offs, not to mention keeping inflation at bay.

Inflation is at bay, because North America with its endless cheap computer power has found a substitute in computing processing power for what was once cheap land and raw mineral resources, in the ever growing and doubly of computer processing power. North America leads the world in true productivity because of its leadership in incorporating the power of computer based productivity in every aspect of economic production and community life.

Ask any knowledgeable economist and they will admit that much of America’s surprising resistence to stupidity in work ethics and excessive US military spending is made up for in the rapid growth in productivity, year over year in the past 40 years, from the growth of the silicon chip in hosting multiple transactions per minature channels.

Information data is the new power of sail, steam and combustion, and displacing them all as an economic force.

But back to Moncton and the potent duo of Robertson & Council-Champoux , et al, with his quiet and self effacing civic development agenda and his unique personal ability to work with the best and brightest in the city, and to get them to come together and work with one another, much in the same way that George Rideoout did in the 80’s when our backs were really against the wall. Today, we have the luxury of a solid base to go opportunity baiting.

Political leadership is much more than just about showing up for meetings, or jumping on the right side of citizen’s complaints about their sidewalk snow plowing efficiacy, and all those time-soaking issues that bury most councillors in political endless activity, so much so that they lose sight of where the community needs to be in 5, and 25 years from now.

The reason that this morning and especially today are so important to Moncton, is that Moncton has been sailing, as McKenna, once famously said, on yesterday’s wind. We have been warming ourselves by the campfire of building permits and growing a local economy of owned-away shopping palaces, while not entirely focusing on building businesses that grow wealth, upon which a community can grow new wealth.

Our last big win was a brewery and while it is wonderful, even the prodigious growth of the Irving’s finding new ways to shave newsprint into lifestyle tissues cannot save our entire local economy without some new economy winners. We need brain based business developments in software and computer applications like Whitehill and Spielo that are downloadable and attract highly educated brains from our local education facilities.

Today’s plans and announcement of direction, preferred direction and advice on how to get there and what kind of community structures we need to put into place to get there; is an important document.

Will it be a panecea? Of course not.

Dell Computer is headquartered in Austin Texas, and the last time they built a new computer plant in North Caroline, they relieved the State of $600 million in tax and other inventitives to get the new plant in location. Sounds like a lot of taxpayer money, until the economic developer bean counters do the math and come back with a 4.3 year payback of when that amount is returned in income, and real estate, as well as business taxes to the area. Everything after that is gravy to pay for public administration services.

We need to keep trying to build out our own successes and hits. Success attracts success and postive attitude of community investment invites and attracts more investment, and pretty soon you have a successful local economy.

Want credible proof? Take a drive around Moncton today.

Look at the homes being built around the Fox Creek Golf Course, among several others in Moncton north. They can’t all work at ACOA, or “givernment agencies”, and public administration, there has to be some regular income job holders there too.

Consider Metro Moncton today. It was from such a plan and such a focus 25 years ago, that everything we enjoy today, as we post building permit over building permit record for yet another business spin off that we are enjoying now, because a small group made a plan and worked their plan forward then.

There were 75 plus youthful faces there this morning and within that room was enough youth and brain power to make another Moncton miracle happen for the tri-community area. We are not in need of a miracle, only everyone’s best effort towards a shared goal.

This new document is a well crafted road map.

Enough energy and commitment exists in this community to be harnessed so that Metro Moncton becomes not just a have not City, in a have not Province, but a great place to move to, and stay in, as a citizen, because the future… well you can see it from here, and be part of its personal financial reward.

Made in Moncton, From Moncton; these are the two most powerful phrases in the English and French languages. Make them yours.

Moncton Technology Group Report Summary
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