LET’S TALK about the election and a big issue that’s hard to pin down — economic development. You might find this odd, but what has grabbed my attention is not the parties’ various programs on this, but rather something I caught the embattled Brian Mulroney saying as I flicked on the Mulroney/K
arlheinz Schreiber inquiry. You’ll remember that the whole thing began with the seductive notion of creating jobs in Nova Scotia — Schreiber was promoting a German tank manufacturer, Thyssen, with plans to build a plant at Bear Head, outside Port Hawkesbury. Referring to pressure to create jobs, Mulroney said: "Things like this were sensitive, especially in Nova Scotia." Especially in Nova Scotia indeed. It was here that was pioneered, in Canada, the seductive notion of paying big companies to come and set up a factory, and here that it most quickly and intensely went bad. The Glace Bay heavy water plant, Clairtone Sound and, for a while, an almost endless string of misbegotten federal-provincial projects that obsessed Nova Scotia politics for a generation. There were some successes — notably Michelin, plus a few others, although critics often complained that even these were getting too many subsidies in subsequent years. At any rate, the ultimate judgment was that on average it was a calamity, economically and politically. (I give Mulroney credit for killing Bear Head when Schreiber announced that — oops! — it would cost $100 million-plus more in taxpayer dollars than foreseen). The Westray mine disaster may have been the last blowup from that line of thought.The watered-down and now fine-tuned Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is the ash of that long brushfire.
arlheinz Schreiber inquiry. You’ll remember that the whole thing began with the seductive notion of creating jobs in Nova Scotia — Schreiber was promoting a German tank manufacturer, Thyssen, with plans to build a plant at Bear Head, outside Port Hawkesbury. Referring to pressure to create jobs, Mulroney said: "Things like this were sensitive, especially in Nova Scotia." Especially in Nova Scotia indeed. It was here that was pioneered, in Canada, the seductive notion of paying big companies to come and set up a factory, and here that it most quickly and intensely went bad. The Glace Bay heavy water plant, Clairtone Sound and, for a while, an almost endless string of misbegotten federal-provincial projects that obsessed Nova Scotia politics for a generation. There were some successes — notably Michelin, plus a few others, although critics often complained that even these were getting too many subsidies in subsequent years. At any rate, the ultimate judgment was that on average it was a calamity, economically and politically. (I give Mulroney credit for killing Bear Head when Schreiber announced that — oops! — it would cost $100 million-plus more in taxpayer dollars than foreseen). The Westray mine disaster may have been the last blowup from that line of thought.The watered-down and now fine-tuned Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is the ash of that long brushfire.For further details visit at : http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1122312.html
No comments:
Post a Comment