6 Ideas for Reforming Business New Brunswick

Regular readers will know that I've questioned the Alward government for focussing on the deficit at the expense of a real jobs agenda. Yes, the fiscal balance needs to change, but if we are going to withdraw public money from the economy during a global slowdown, we had better have some solid plans on economic development.

The government department that quarterbacks this strategy needs to be part of that plan.  So far, the promise of more private sector expertise at InvestNB has not really changed how the department operates. Judging by the flow of press releases in the Minister's name, it's the same game plan with an advisory board in place. 

At a recent leadership candidates' forum I was asked about BNB reform. Here are some ideas I offered...

(1)    Re-think staff structure.  Good businesses guide employees through incentives, not micromanagement. Business New Brunswick should reflect this -- each unit should have measurable goals and targets, with staff paid based on results, with incentive pay for bringing companies and jobs into the province.

(2)    Build government's skill-set.  Too often, economic development teams hire those with experience in government agencies, affirming the culture of subsidies and saving existing businesses. Priority should be placed on bringing in private sector talent skilled in sales and global contacts, and we should use headhunting agencies where appropriate.

(3)    Go after the markets with emerging middle classes.  The fact we have no emerging market strategy to go after the 500 million new middle class consumers in China, India and Russia...let alone one for the African nations like Ghana and Rwanda who had double-digit economic growth rates, shows how locked BNB has been in subsidizing what we have.  For emerging markets, there needs to be a clear strategy to establish business contacts with countries that have growing economies, like China and India, with staff to support them. For instance, the lack of a China strategy, and staff with language skills and connections to that market, needs to be remedied.

(4)    End preferential treatment of industries.  We have rigid rules about what sectors we will, and won’t support, which sounds like government picking winners and losers to me.  Let's use community plans and strengths to develop cluster strategies that offer effective job creation tools with clear measurement of results and greater focus on mentorship and angel investor help to foster new enterprises and jobs rather than bailouts.

(5)    Create an Entrepreneurship Desk to deal with the soft barriers to new business.  Too often, new businesspeople from the Maritime Provinces lack the mentorship and help they need in finding needed angel investors, or capital, or just advice. We need to encourage private sector leaders to design networks across the province, country, and world that erase the competitive disadvantages faced by rural communities in New Brunswick.

(6)     Ensure every department understands its job creation mission.  InvestNB's private sector expertise should be used to have a jobs audit of every department, maximizing their role in the economy. For example, the National Governors' Association in the U.S. has a Rural Arts-based Economic Development manual, but our Culture department doesn't have a desk for those issues. The Education Department hasn’t gotten strategic advice from BNB in leveraging their foreign schools to open markets. Reinventing government for a jobs-based mission should be a government-wide initiative led by BNB. 

These are just a few steps that can be taken to reform Business New Brunswick, and make it an effective agency to foster entrepreneurship, open new markets, and especially create jobs.

THE FIRST DEFICIT-FIGHTING TOOL WE NEED IS..... HONESTY

We've seen this show too many times before - a candidate says whatever a pollster tells them to say on the campaign trail, often making unrealistic promises, and then they disregard these promises once faced with the hard realities of governing.

You can find examples of lots of politicians skimming the truth, but David Alward's Progressive Conservatives take the prize, with their repeated campaign pledges in 2010 to not raise taxes... only to have raised taxes in their first budget and now talk about raising taxes again in their second budget.

As this Bob Jones piece on the CBC shows clearly, the Tories' rhetoric was always to deny they would have to raise taxes. "We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem" was part of their written talking points, and they ran as the party of low taxes. When you hear the Premier now say when he said "we will hold the line on taxes that affect ordinary New Brunswickers" that he really, really meant only sales taxes, he makes the error worse because it is doubling down on a lie. He would be better to cop to the fact that he ran not knowing much about the job of Premier, and people were so mad at the incumbent that he chose not to think to hard about it.

The real problem is that politics-as-usual avoids the serious discussion we need in this province about our budget and about our economy. I've often said that I believed that in a global recession, New Brunswick was right to spend to keep people working and money flowing in communities. The capital budget and the enhanced social spending for working families (who tend to spend money in their communities) kept businesses afloat and families solvent. That's why every Western democracy -including the Harper government- did similar things. It's also why, as even Premier Alward acknowledged after he disposed of the Liberals at the polls, "New Brunswick weathered the recession fairly well". In many cases, like in the U.S. and Britain, governments who cut too quickly after saw the recovery swoon again and jobless numbers rise.

But I've also said that I think it was an error to keep the deep tax cuts (which are inefficient stimulus) for the wealthy, because it left a structure in place that would hurt our ability to repay that necessary stimulus.  It never weakened my resolve to be a Liberal - the Tory line then was to cut spending and keep the tax cuts, which was worse - but I do think we should roll back those tax cuts for folks like me who can share in the sacrifice.

But David Alward got to rail against deficits, promise more social spending, and say he would hold the line on taxes. He should be grateful he got away with it; mere decency would suggest he should acknowledge it now and thank people for the chance to put it right by governing with more intellectual integrity than he showed in the campaign.

The real weakness of Alward's approach -- that in the campaign he seemed to suggest government had failed if it made any decision that angered anyone; that with enough consultation no one need ever disagree -- is that it leads to bad government.  Alward's Tories want to please everyone, which ultimately means that those with the least voice - the poor and vulnerable - suffer, as seen with the Alward government's rolling back of our government's anti-poverty program.  It's a program David Alward proclaimed his support for on the campaign trail, but it harms those who don't have much power, so a weak leader who fears controversy will drift into picking on the weak, like school kids and the poor.

We need a frank and adult conversation about our province's finances, and we need to be honest. I have already put out my position that we need to look at new sources of revenue. I have proposed - in the spirit of bi-partisanship - to roll back the Graham tax cuts for those earning over $100,000 per year and use that money to invest in education (K-12 and post-secondary) which is vital if we are to have a growing economy, as a skilled workforce is essential in a 21st century global economy.

David Alward was never willing to have this discussion. But I say we challenge him, and ourselves, to rise above the tired politics as usual.  Let's attack the deficit without this doublespeak, and phony consultations where the Minister passively let's everyone vent and then says he's decided, say, that schools needed cutting because he's sure he heard that somewhere.

A short-term deficit was a tough, but necessary, decision to weather the recession together.  Now, let's come together as citizens to share in the sacrifice of paying for that necessity.  We can start by engaging in a public consultation process similar to that undertaken during the development of the poverty reduction strategy. We bring government, private business, and citizens together; we open the books and we work through solutions. When engaged as responsible adults New Brunswickers take to the task at hand and come up with solutions that are recognized and praised nationally.

We need to do this again for our finances. Let's get a citizen's assembly of 100 citizens together with business and NGO leaders.  Make sure teachers, and parents, and entrepreneurs, and those living in poverty are in the room.  Open the books.  Let citizens see what cabinet sees.  Make the deliberations live on the web and invite feedback and questions.  Develop a people's budget plan based on real, honest debate.

 And when asked how we will rein in a $700million deficit without more revenues or cutting expenses, let's be honest enough to say it will actually take both.  You can't find $700million by cutting the poor -- if they had it, they wouldn't be poor. You won't find it in schools that were the lowest-funded in Canada under the Lord government and only started to catch up under Shawn Graham.  But we will trust the voters with real information and engage, because citizens could hardly show less courage or do worse than the politicians are doing right now.

We need a serious discussion about New Brunswick's economic future. Mr. Alward did not run as a serious candidate, and he is losing time to act as a serious premier.  As Liberals, let's trust that the people grasp the seriousness of the moment -- and reward honest leadership.

ATTENTION LIBERALS....SENATE REFORM IS NOT OUR ISSUE

So as soon as I suggested that Premier Alward's economic approach was stuck in the 1970's, the man shows a determination to prove me wrong. The premier has now identified the business of electing senators is his top priority.  This clearly shows that the premier can update his thinking, because Senate reform is an issue from the early 1990s.  For some, this would be nostalgia; for the Alward Conservatives, this is actually progress.

www.globeandmail.com

Some commentators have suggested that the Premier's new agenda means that Liberals need to scurry over to this new topic and be prepared to debate this agenda. Some Liberals have joined in.  But I'm here to tell you, as Prince said, there's something else.

First of all, before New Brunswick joins in full-throated support of Stephen Harper's old Reform agenda for federalism, let's remember WHY conservatives love Senate Reform.

Forget the old canard about regional representation.  In different times, when politicians worked more across the aisles in Ottawa, having twenty-four senators instead of ten MP's may have mattered. Today, in the partisan circus in Ottawa, federal politicians are a function of their party’s central command, supporting and spouting the lines from their leaders. The quality and independent thought of our representative’s matter. The number of seats that can swing and decide who becomes Prime Minister may affect platforms. But anyone who thinks senators would form post-partisan regional blocs to defend the same issues regardless of political stripe is dreaming in technicolour. 

The real reason conservatives want a second elected chamber is because it will render the national government even more ponderous and dysfunctional, which is a good thing if, like Stephen Harper, you want a national government whose entire agenda consists of national defense and locking up young offenders. Watching President Obama's mandate to create a national health care plan for a nation that had millions without health coverage is instructive -- if you want to slow down the creation of national social programs and new shared endeavors, you'll love having two elected chambers squabbling over every step forward. 

It's rational for conservatives to want divided government.  It's crazy for Liberals and progressives. And for New Brunswickers, it is irrational.  New Brunswick benefits from having national standards in social programs. In a decentralized Canada, wealthier provinces can use their advantage to slash taxes and start a race to the bottom where New Brunswick will lose. Having a minimum safety net that every province has to maintain keeps social programs safe, and a weak national government can't do that. Sometimes, putting New Brunswick first also means putting Canada first. 

But, of course, the best way to deal with Premier Alward's sudden passion for constitutional minutiae is to let him have it. In a province where unemployment has never been lower than the day before he took office, where too many kids still struggle to read and too many parents are trapped in poverty, and where our Premier says things are so dire that we simply have to let environmental concerns go, families are not going to reward politicians who want to return to a debating society on Canadian federalism.

In the New Brunswick Legislature, there's a beautiful room upstairs where committees meet. Sharp-eyed observers will notice an old speaker's chair at the back. It's there because that room used to be our Provincial Senate, which was a second chamber. While New Brunswick is a bilingual province of diverse regions, I can think of no time when any serious person has suggested that the common good in jobs, schools or public safety would be immediately improved if we restored the New Brunswick Senate. We haven't missed it, and neither would Canada. To borrow a tongue-in-cheek quote from John Crosbie, a Triple E Senate isn't as good an idea as a Triple A Senate.... arthritic, alcoholic and abolished. 

Come on, Liberals.  We have a solid history and the right ideas for the future on jobs, education, and social progress. Falling in the polls, David Alward has every reason to distract New Brunswickers from these issues. Let's just make sure he doesn't distract us.