5 Progressive Ideas to Create Jobs and Grow the Economy

Lamrock releases jobs policy

FREDERICTON (Jan. 24, 2012) - Prospective Liberal leadership candidate Kelly Lamrock released a five-pronged proposal on Tuesday to create jobs and grow the New Brunswick economy.

"The Alward Conservatives are completely fixated on cutting spending and have lost sight of the importance of creating jobs," Lamrock said.  "In the meantime, our province has lost over 3,000 jobs and no amount of spending cuts will replace the dignity of the unemployed or, more importantly to the Conservatives, the tax revenues their jobs generated."

Lamrock who is currently touring the province as he assesses whether or not to seek the leadership of the provincial Liberal Party said that he has heard from dozens of New Brunswickers that they're worried about the economy.

"Our kids are moving west in droves and hard-working families struggle to make ends meet.  This isn't the change people were looking for when they voted in 2010," Lamrock said. "We need to restore hope and we need to create good jobs.  I've heard from a lot of people and their ideas have inspired this proposal."

Lamrock is calling for a job creation strategy that focuses on the following five areas:

- Creating a tax forgiveness period for companies who bring overseas profits back to NB to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

- A "One More Job" small business summit aimed at helping each of NB's 26,000 small businesses add one job.

- Replacing government bailouts of unprofitable businesses with a public/private access to capital bank,  including a microcredit program for new entrepreneurs

- Ensuring that NB has the most competitive tax structure in North America for rewarding private sector R&D

- Strategic investments in the creative economy, including a creative infrastructure bank overseen by an arms-length board from government.

Mr. Lamrock said that if he becomes Liberal Leader, he would force a debate in the Legislature on a jobs bill in the first session. "People have had enough of this government telling them to want less. They want a reason to hope again."

"I look forward to hearing from more from the people of New Brunswick inside and outside of the Liberal Party over the coming weeks," Lamrock said. "I believe that there is a strong desire out there for a true progressive alternative in this province."

Lamrock, 41, is a practicing lawyer in Fredericton.  He previously served two terms as MLA for Fredericton-Fort Nashwaak as well as minister of education, minister of social development and attorney general.  While education minister, he chaired the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada and CONFEMEN, the conference of education ministers from French-speaking countries around the world.

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French translation follows.

Lamrock partage sa vision pour la création d’emplois

FREDERICTON (le 24 janvier 2012) Candidat prospectif à la direction libérale, Kelly Lamrock a publié Mardi une proposition de cinq volets visant la création d’emplois et la croissance économique au Nouveau-Brunswick.

« Les conservateurs de David Alward sont complètement concentrés sur la réduction des dépenses et ont perdu de vue l'importance de la création d'emplois », selon Lamrock. Entre-temps, notre province a perdu plus de 3 000 emplois et aucune réduction de dépenses réussira à restaurer la dignité des chômeurs ou, surtout pour les conservateurs, les revenus d’impôts que représentaient ces emplois.

Lamrock, qui est actuellement en tournée dans la province alors comme qu’il songeévalue ou non à soumettre sa candidature demander à la direction du Parti libéral provincial, soutient que de nombreux Néo-Brunswickois se disenta déclaré qu'il a entendu des dizaines de personnes au Nouveau-Brunswick qu'ils sont inquiets par rapportde à l'économie.

« Nos enfants se déplacent vers l’Ouest en grand nombre, et nos familles travaillent fort simplement afin de joindre les deux bouts, » a déclaré Lamrock. « Ce n'est pas le genre de changement que  les personnes envisageaient  lorsqu'ils ont voté en 2010.  Nous devons rétablir leur espoir et nous devons créer de bons emplois. Les gens ont partagé leurs idées avec moi, et c’est eux qui ont inspiré cette proposition. »

Lamrock fait appel à une stratégie de création d'emplois qui se concentre sur les cinq domaines suivants :

- La création d'une banque d'infrastructure pour les industries créatives et des arts, dirigée par un conseil indépendant composé par des entrepreneurs et des artistes.

- La remplacement des bourses pour des enterprises non-rentables avec une fonde pour améliorer l'accès à capital pour des entrepreneurs

-Les crédits d'impot les plus compétitives dans l'Amérique du pour la recherche et développement pour attirer les emplois verts et créatives

- Un sommet  pour les 26 000 petites entreprises pour chercher ensemble les façons pour chaque petite enterprise de grandir par un emploi  ; et

-Un crédit d'impôt pour les entreprises qui utilisent des bénéfices provenant de l'étranger pour créer des emplois au Nouveau-Brunswick.

M. Lamrock a affirmé que, s'il devient chef du parti Libéral, les Libéraux lancera un débat législative sur un projet de loi pour des emplois comme une première priorité. <<Les Néo-Brunswickois veulent l'espoir, non plus de la défaitisme du gouvernement Alward>>

« J'ai hâte de rencontrer plus de gens dans les semaines à venir,  à l'intérieur du Parti libéral ainsi qu’à l'extérieur » ajoute Lamrock.  « Je crois qu'il existe un fort désir pour un alternative progressiste parmi les gens de cette province. »

Lamrock, 41, est avocat employé à Fredericton. Il fut, à deux reprises, élu en tant que député dans la circonscription provinciale de Fredericton-Fort Nashwaak. En tant que ministre de l'éducation, il a présidé le Conseil des ministres de l'éducation du Canada ainsi que la CONFEMEN, la Conférence des ministres de l'éducation des pays francophones. Lamrock fut aussi ministre du développement social, ainsi que procureur général du Nouveau-Brunswick.

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Why Ideas Matter

In the next few weeks, I've pledged to make this leadership race a campaign of ideas.  Touring around the province, our team has pledged to not just make this an organizational meeting. We will be putting forward real policy ideas to start a discussion about what it means to be a Liberal in 2012, and to give our party a vision that progressive voters can rally behind as an alternative to the AlwardCons' do-nothing government.

Before the specifics start to flow, this blog post will explain why ideas need to be a priority for Liberals. The challenge is not to change the superficial image of our party, or find a smarter group of backroom boys.  The challenge is to give people a reason to believe that they don't have to settle for the small dreams and limited hope they have with David Alward. People know they want more. But they need to re-establish trust in Liberals, and in our institutions, to deliver that to them.

Some pundits are saying that Canada is simply entering a more conservative age, and that conservatives have found the magic formula to win over the electorate because people are becoming more right wing.

I don't buy it for a second, by the way, but one can get the feeling that the talk has gotten into the minds of some Liberals and spooked them.  My friend Mike Murphy, who has a solid record in government, has started to try to adopt some conservative planks in his platform, pledging to fire 20% of the people who deliver public services and supporting Stephen Harper on some of his crime and decentralization planks.  And Brian Gallant, who I know to be a progressive Liberal, hasn't challenged him on this, which makes me wonder if we've become afraid to defend liberal values in the public arena.

That is one theory -- which is that conservatives are winning and we have to either adopt a few conservative ideas or stay vague and hope no one notices.  I'd like to offer a third way to winning elections.  Instead of stealing bad ideas or splitting the difference, let's renew our own liberal ideas to show we have listened to and learned from the people.

Because if you're like me, you see even more signs that people are coming to believe in the central value that separates us from conservatives ... they don't want to be left to sink or swim and they do believe that we are all in this together.

When I look at the success of the poverty reduction initiative, the way New Brunswick embraced community schools to the point that UNESCO embraced our model, when I look at how much we volunteer in our communities, I don't buy for a second that New Brunswickers have lost faith in the idea that we are stronger when we work together. If anything, liberal principles are stronger than ever.

And the economic case for liberalism has never been stronger -- at a time when emerging markets in China and India are winning on cheap labour we have to win on creativity, innovation and productivity. That means the employer who will hire my children will only come here if EVERY child has access to great schools and lifelong learning, and if we have the infrastructure to compete.

Unlike the Conservatives, we believe that individuals are stronger when we choose to work together, and when we take on the opportunities and responsibilities of being part of a community larger than ourselves. We know that by pooling our resources, we can build the infrastructure that makes business more successful, we can have hospitals and schools that give us all peace of mind, and we can make sure that there is the equality of opportunity for everyone that makes sure every individual has an incentive to work, to create and to contribute their full potential to our community.

Democratic government, to Liberals, is a place where individuals can work together and in doing so, become part of a community that makes us fully who we are.  This belief is unique to Liberals. It is why ideas that are simple truths today, like Medicare to Equal Opportunity to the Charter of Rights, could never have happened under Conservatives, and why Conservatives fought every one of those ideas until they became too popular to resist. 

The problem we, as Liberals, have to address is that people are losing faith in government as the best place for people to work together. And we have to have ideas that renew that covenant between citizens and our governments. THAT is why now we need new ideas ... to make people believe that their desire to work together can actually be achieved through our public institutions. That is our challenge.

That may be more of a challenge than choosing a shiny new face or funding a massive campaign, but it is the only path that leads to victory.

Here's how we renew ourselves.....

Too many talented young people have stopped believing government programs will deliver on issues like fighting poverty or sustaining our environment, so they tune out of the political arena, but are volunteering more than ever.  If we want them to see the debate between liberalism and conservatism as relevant, then we have to start supporting volunteerism and building networks of strong non-profits to meet the goals progressives share.

Conservatives have done a good job convincing people we are too broke to dream.  We need a people-powered plan for fiscal responsibility, including budgeting for long-term savings with smart social spending, ending crony corporate welfare, and making government departments accountable for results.

Too many talented people are leaving New Brunswick, and Conservatives have shown they are still fighting the old battle for cheap labour and losing good jobs and creative people.  We need to make jobs an economic issue, and have real ideas to encourage private sector investment in R&D, reward investment in start-up capital, and build creative industries from the arts sector to the green economy.

Voters have grown cynical about a politics they see as too stage-managed and unresponsive. We need a real democratic reform agenda to hold politicians more accountable between elections and reward the honest interaction young people have come to know through social media.

And we need to anchor our values with a new Covenant of Equal Opportunity that shows that we are a Liberal Party who will always remember that our province can only reach as high as we can lift the most vulnerable citizens and communities among us.

People didn't punish the Liberal Party for dreaming big, pursuing change, or even for being willing to spend more on education and health care. These were all issues for the first two years of our mandate, and polls showed we would have won a larger majority. We lost for two reasons - we became inconsistent stewards of liberal values, and because we too often made people feel as if change was something we did to them, not with them.

People know that we have bigger challenges than the AlwardCons are capable of delivering solutions for. But they want to be part of that change, and they need to know they can trust that change. To build that trust, we will have to run on new ideas and strong, liberal values.

In my statement announcing the tour, I said that Liberals shouldn't have to choose between change and substance. I believe that we shouldn't just demand both ... our party absolutely needs both.  If we try to take the easy road, offering only cosmetic change and vague ideas, the voters will call us out for it.  We need to find ideas and values that are worth fighting for.  It is time for Liberals to believe again.

AN OPEN LETTER TO LIBERALS

Dear Friends:

As we all emerge from our holiday retreats, we are looking at a New Year that will be absolutely critical for our party. More importantly, it will be absolutely critical for the province and the country we love.

In 2011, the New Brunswick Liberal Party renewed its structure. We opened ourselves up to new people, we made ourselves more responsive to new ideas, and we made sure our leaders have to be open to challenge and criticism.  We showed that we could learn and change without altering the fact that we are Liberals, united by shared values and a belief that every one of us is stronger together.

Now, 2012 has to be the year when we renew our ideas.  And as proud as we should be for the renewal of our structure, there is a fierce urgency in this moment that compels us not to rest.

The Conservative Approach to Governing.

The Conservative Party under David Alward has shown that they will pursue the wrong ideas with great discipline.  They will tell us that New Brunswick has certain limits, and that the problem is that we want too much.  They will tell us that school children and families in poverty are the ones who have too much, they will tell us that there is no principle higher than a balanced budget, and they will do all they can to make us focus on the limits on what we can hope for.  A good day for them is a day when New Brunswickers settle for less.

When David Alward and Blaine Higgs tell us that we need to want less, it is fair to ask them what we should stop wanting.  Should we stop wanting a province with the best schools in the country? Should we stop wanting a future where every child grows up knowing how to read, but never knowing hunger? Should we stop wanting a province that offers clean air and water, and a natural beauty that others envy?  Should we stop wanting a province where every young person can aspire to get the training they need and a job they love? Should we stop wanting a province where our streets are safe and our parents can retire with dignity and security.

The Liberal government made progress in all those areas - higher literacy rates, lower unemployment, faster population growth, lower poverty rates, and more students pursuing a higher education.  And it has been these areas that the Conservatives have targeted with cuts to schools, social programs and health care.  And in 2012, they have primed New Brunswickers to expect a full assault on all the progress they've made, and the hopes they have for our province.

Because, you see, for Conservatives it is inconvenient when more kids read, and when a stimulus package creates jobs, and when people can work together to lift families out of poverty. It wrecks the story they want to tell. If working together leads to better schools, more jobs and more families choosing to live here; how can Conservatives convince people to expect less from government?

The Alward Tories believe that government can't do anything right. And they are going to try to govern in a way that proves it. 

We can expect them to put forward a vision where we are all on our own, where hope is naive, and government can't do anything more noble than run a reminder service for your car registration and a plane service for cabinet ministers.

That's their vision.  So, what's ours?

Making Renewal Count.

We need to respond with real ideas, and concrete alternatives.  If we sit back and criticize alone, it will be hard for New Brunswickers to believe there is a better way.  If we try to get away with only cosmetic change, we will look as if we believe we are entitled to the next turn in government...and the voters will rightly make us wait a long, long time.

We need to finish the job of renewal by showing we have new ideas and real answers.

A lot of people have asked me in the last month if I am going to run for the leadership of our party.  And I appreciate and treasure every bit of that encouragement.  I've tried to do right by the party by reflecting on the question that I think should be the real test of whether or not someone runs.  It shouldn't be because you can win, or because you want the job, or because you fit some magical profile of what a leader should be.

The reason to run for leader is if you have a sense of what you want to accomplish as Premier.  If we have really renewed ourselves as a party, then vision should trump ambition. This open letter will share with you some of the ideas that I think are worth fighting for, together.

Liberals have always been party of the center.  But the center isn't some neutral place between two extremes.  Liberalism is a real set of unique ideas. Liberals are the only party that believes in both individualism and equality.

We believe in individual rights, and that every individual should be free to reach their full potential.  Our friends in the NDP sometimes forget this, and choose groups that government should help-- like having bloc voting rights for unions and certain groups in their party constitution, or allowing provinces like Quebec to opt out of individual language rights.  There's a reason we are the party of the Charter...we believe every individual is free, and is an end unto themselves.

But unlike the Conservatives, we also believe that individuals are stronger when we choose to work together, and when we take on the opportunities and responsibilities of being part of a community larger than ourselves. We know that by pooling our resources, we can build the infrastructure that makes business more successful, we can have hospitals and schools that give us all peace of mind, and we can make sure that there is the equality of opportunity for everyone that makes sure every individual has an incentive to work, to create and to contribute their full potential to our community.

Democratic government, to Liberals, is a place where individuals can work together and in doing so, become part of a community that makes us fully who we are.  This belief is unique to Liberals. It is why ideas that are simple truths today, like Medicare to Equal Opportunity to the Charter of Rights, could never have happened under Conservatives, and why Conservatives fought every one of those ideas until they became too popular to resist. 

Some commentators are saying that we are returning to a more conservative time, that liberal ideas like a broader common good, standing up for the underdog and fighting for equality are over. In New Brunswick, the Conservatives are peddling the myth that we lost because we changed too much, spent too much, and tried to accomplish too much.

If you're like me, you don't buy any of it. When I look at the success of the poverty reduction initiative, the way New Brunswick embraced community schools to the point that UNESCO embraced our model, when I look at how much we volunteer in our communities, I don't buy for a second that New Brunswickers have lost faith in the idea that we are stronger when we work together. If anything, liberal principles are stronger than ever.

The problem we, as Liberals, have to address is that people are losing faith in government as the best place for people to work together. And we have to have ideas that renew that covenant between citizens and our governments.

People didn't punish the Liberal Party for dreaming big, pursuing change, or even for being willing to spend more on education and health care. These were all issues for the first two years of our mandate, and polls showed we would have won a larger majority. We lost for two reasons - we became inconsistent stewards of liberal values, and because we too often made people feel as if change was something we did to them, not with them.

People know that we have bigger challenges than the Alward Tories are capable of delivering. But they want to be part of that change, and they need to know they can trust that change. To build that trust, we will have to run on ideas and strong, liberal values.

Charting a path forward.

In the next two months, I'm going to travel the province talking about the ideas it will take to win.  I'm going to talk not about how we can look different, but how we can be different.

We need to talk about a new chapter for Equal Opportunity.  The income gap between rich and poor is growing larger than ever, yet poverty and illiteracy are bad for business. We cannot lose a third of our population to poverty and illiteracy. If we are going to attract jobs and lower spending, and we need to act now.

We need to talk about growing the economy.  We have lost hundreds of good paying jobs under the Alward Tories, and we need to talk about ending government bailouts of failing industries and instead invest in what communities need to attract good, stable jobs.

We have to renew our commitment to give our children the best schools in the world, not just schools that are the best we can do under the circumstances.  We may have made controversial decisions in education, but at least the debate was about where to spend new money and how best to improve literacy and math scores. Today, the debate is only about where to cut and which boardrooms to amalgamate.  We need to talk about ways to have the best teachers in the world with the tools they need.

We also need to look at new ways to connect voters to these shared goals.

That means as Liberals we will have to have a real platform for democratic reform.  Not cosmetic change, like trimming a few MLAs.  We need to talk about real change, like using citizen engagement to make decisions, opening legislative committees to online citizen input, and creating real consequences for politicians who lie their way into office.

It means coming up with new ways to engage communities, like rewarding volunteerism and redefining the relationship between government and the non-profit sector.  It means finding more innovative, local solutions to social problems than telling people to send their tax dollars to Fredericton and let the government handle it.

I'm announcing this two-month tour so we can talk about new ideas as Liberals, so we can come together not just on how to seek the chance to govern, but on what we will do there.  After all, it is meaningless to elect a leader who can win an election if they are not ready to govern in a way that makes us proud.

In the next two months, I will have a chance to meet hundreds of fellow Liberals, and progressives who could be Liberals, and talk about the province we continue to dream of.  I want to listen to your ideas and learn, to propose some new ideas but also have them improved upon by conversations.

I'm embarking on this tour because a lot of liberals are telling me that this race can't just be a beauty contest, a clash of images where we debate which face can run furthest from our past. New Brunswickers are smart enough to call us out if we only make cosmetic change, if we try to get away with offering a new face instead of a new approach to governing.  We can only win in 2014 by making the case that we have had both the humility and the vision to be the best choice for the future.

Many Liberals do not want to be forced into a choice between change and substance -- they want both.  I'm looking forward to meeting as many Liberals as possible in the next two months, so we can dream together about the party and province we want.

Together, we can make it possible for Liberals to believe again.