David Campbell is a Moncton-based economic development consultant and co-host of the Huddle podcast, Insights. The following piece was originally published on his blog, It’s the Economy, Stupid!, on Substack.
It’s been a treat for Don Mills and me to interview the Atlantic Premiers on our Huddle “Insights” podcast.
Someone asked me why we threw so many softballs at Premier Dennis King, who we interviewed last week in the first of a four-part series. I think that’s unfair, although I would say we certainly were not playing “gotcha” with the premiers. Our goal was to ask them what they are doing to strengthen their economies, grow the population and address some of the big other challenges such as health care and education.
I hadn’t met Premier King before and I was impressed. He has an ambitious agenda for the province and wants to continue the positive trends in immigration and the growth of key sectors such as biosciences. And, he has very ambitious plans for the cleantech sector – seeing it as potentially another biosciences-like success story. We recommended he clone Rory Francis if the technology allows.
RELATED: Rory Francis Talks About How Bioscience Will Become A Billion-Dollar Sector In P.E.I.
You will see that ambition is a consistent theme across the Atlantic premiers. They have a vision of where the provinces should go and what seem to be pretty good ideas on how to get there.
There also seems to be a desire for greater Atlantic cooperation which is good as the region shares many common challenges. Strengthening regional economic integration doesn’t dilute the character and culture of the four provinces; it is just a recognition that for many things we are better together.
I still can’t get the words of one senior bureaucrat out of my head from 2015 saying we are just going to have to get used to 0.5 per cent economic growth. When I pushed he said immigrants won’t stay here. Natural resources will wane and we will be left with primarily a local services-focused economy even more reliant on federal transfers.
Premier King has a different idea in mind. P.E.I. has been among the fastest-growing provinces by population growth. Depending on the timeframe, they are either first or second in the growth of the value of exports. Yes, they have struggled to retain some of their immigrants but enough have stayed to add 8 per cent to the population between 2016-2021 – the most added to the provincial population in a Census period ever.
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
You can listen to the podcast in the player above, or download it on podcast platforms like Apple and Spotify.
PEI Premier Dennis King On Growing The Province's Population And Economy - Huddle Today
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