Are We Scared Enough to Leap?
Twenty years after ringing the alarm about New Brunswick's precarious economic state, I'm curious if President Donald Trump's tariff threats will be enough to drive big change in this small province
“By just about any standard New Brunswick is small.
A small population. A small resource base. A small place on the map. But there are advantages to being small. As we seek out our place – be it within the region, the country or the world – we should remember that those who are small can also be nimble. And when you’re nimble, sometimes you get to lead.”
Damn, sometimes I do know how to turn a phrase.
I wrote that paragraph 20 years ago, but I could have written it today.
Back then, I thought it was the final word on how New Brunswick could change. I wrote to close out the Next New Brunswick/Avenir Nouveau-Brunswick project, the groundbreaking public outreach initiative I co-created with then-University of New Brunswick president John McLaughlin.
Several factors influenced McLaughlin’s decision to create Canada’s first university-led public engagement exercise, chief among them a troubling Industry Canada report from 2000, which measured Canada’s 10 provinces against each other and the 50 American states. New Brunswick was near the bottom of the pack, ranking 57th for standard of living and 58th for productivity.
Surely, we thought, New Brunswick governments, businesses and residents would challenge this dismal ranking.
We were wrong.
In 2023, New Brunswick ranked 59th in GDP per hours worked, a measure of productivity,12 and 58th out of 60 for GDP per capita, a common measurement of standard of living.3
Rather than rising to the challenge, New Brunswick slipped.
What happened?
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The Gang’s All Here: An Innovation Ecosystem Takes Shape
It wasn’t from lack of attention to the problem because McLaughlin and I were in good company trying to raise the alarm about New Brunswick’s precarious economy.
Former NBTel CEO Gerry Pond created the region’s first tech accelerator program, PropelICT (now Propel) during the same period to attract venture capital to the region.
The New Brunswick government of Premier Bernard Lord created the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, modelled on Saskatchewan’s public investment fund, to invest in early-stage New Brunswick-led innovations.
Moncton pivoted from the town CN built into a services centre, and the Saint John region launched its True Growth strategy to encourage advanced manufacturing and health care innovation to convert the blue-collar town into a high-tech centre.
All these initiatives did create ripples.
We can draw a straight line from Saint John’s True Growth to the health innovation cluster on the UNB Saint John campus, next to the Saint John Regional Hospital.
Propel has shepherded start-up companies and helped attract venture capital to the region. Its foundational work likely inspired the creation of Volta Labs in Halifax and regional funds, such as Sandpiper Ventures, which invests in Atlantic Canadian female entrepreneurs.
Moncton has arguably made the most significant gains, increasing both its population and business activity to make it the second fastest-growing metropolitan area in Canada and the largest city in New Brunswick.4
Next NB/Avenir NB left its mark too. The New Brunswick Business Council grew from conversations we had with business leaders, which identified a need for the province’s larger corporations to enter the discussion about the province’s economic trajectory.
The late Wallace McCain, co-founder of McCain Foods, endowed UNB with funds to create the Wallace McCain Institute for Entrepreneurship to lead the development of a culture of entrepreneurship – sorely lacking at the time. To date, over 570 Atlantic Canadian business people have participated in its programs.
McLaughlin’s conversations with Fredericton MP and Liberal cabinet minister Andy Scott about the hollowing out of provincial government’s in-house policy research led to the creation of the New Brunswick Social Policy Research Network at UNB. Its purpose was to bring together researchers and practitioners to develop data-backed New Brunswick-focused policy advice to government.
There was also 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, the youth leadership program I designed based on my experiences as a provincial affairs journalist. The original group were inspired to keep the program going, creating 21inc., which operated for a decade, bringing together more than 300 people from across Atlantic Canada to find common ground on complex issues.
In the intervening years, Gerry Pond co-founded the Pond-Deshpande Centre in 2012 with UNB alumni Gururaj and Jaishree Deshpande to support social innovation. I was among the first round of social innovators to receive a small grant from PDC in Wicked Ideas Media’s first year of business.
TD Bank vice-chair and former premier Frank McKenna created the McKenna Institute in 2021 to influence a digital transformation in New Brunswick.
And, of course, there are government programs courtesy of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Opportunities New Brunswick (ONB).
That’s a lot of activity focused on economic growth.
Where’s the benefit of all that activity?
Dancing With Ourselves
I’d estimate well over 1,500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and solopreneurs have been coached or funded by this collection of initiatives known as New Brunswick’s innovation ecosystem.
However, despite our best intentions, New Brunswick remains stubbornly stuck.
Why?
There are the usual suspects – high energy rates, labour shortages, slow regulatory processes and changing government priorities – that cumulatively make New Brunswick less attractive compared to jurisdictions that don’t have similar barriers.
To which I respond, no kidding.
I’ve been writing about all these issues since I first landed in New Brunswick in 1997.
My question is, why, after a quarter century, can New Brunswick not solve these problems?
Why don’t New Brunswick residents want something else?
To be fair, this isn’t a New Brunswick-specific problem. If I were to sum up the Canadian attitude to change, I’d describe us as the country of ‘meh.’
Comfortable with going along to get along – until U.S. President Donald Trump came along.
Now, what we’re hearing is: “Tear down interprovincial trade barriers. Increase defense spending. Fast-track mining developments. Build pipelines. Feed the world.”
From the comfort of our keyboards, we are all in on rocketing into the 21st century on the strength of Canada’s natural resource sectors and true north innovation and creativity.
But will we? That is the $36 billion question that New Brunswick residents must now confront.
Are we scared enough to move as one?
Are New Brunswick SMEs ready to meet the challenge?
My particular interest is in what the province’s SMEs do, partially out of self-interest as the owner of a very small business and as a long-time observer of New Brunswick’s bifurcated economy.
On the one side we have our large corporations, such as Irving Oil, J.D. Irving, McCain Foods and Cooke Aquaculture, which are Canadian leaders in technological adaptation and diversified market reach.
On the other side, we have everyone else. New Brunswick small businesses, defined as companies with 1-99 employees, represent 98.2 percent of all businesses in the province. That’s 20,277 businesses. We’ve got 322 medium-sized businesses, which employ between 100-499 employees and represent 1.6 percent of all businesses.5
Are enough of these smaller players ready to rise?
Over the next few months, Gina and I will dig into some of New Brunswick’s economic data and trends to examine the state of SMEs and how owners and teams can shift, scale and survive the reshaping of the world economy.
And we want to hear from you. If you’ve got a story to share about your company or have a question you’d like answered, drop us a line in the chat.
To quote myself from 20 years ago, “If we’re smart we’ll take advantage of our small size and quickly develop creative solutions. Behind our greatest challenges may lie great opportunities.”
If you enjoyed this column, please share the love with others who you think would enjoy the conversation we’re having on Side Walks. We’re a Canadian media start-up building a community of fellow Canucks (and the people who love us) interested in finding common ground around complex issues by focusing on local repercussions and opportunities caused by national and global issues. We’re based in New Brunswick, on Canada’s East Coast. Cheers!
Statistics Canada. "Table 36-10-0480-01: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at Basic Prices, by Industry, Monthly." Statistics Canada, March 31, 2025. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3610048001
"Labor Productivity by Regions and States." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-productivity/labor-productivity-by-regions-and-states.htm
Tombe, Trevor. "Most Provincial Economies Struggle to Match the U.S." The Hub. Last modified June 15, 2023. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://thehub.ca/2023/06/15/trevor-tombe-most-provincial-economies-struggle-to-match-the-u-s/
CBC News. "Population Growth in New Brunswick: Moncton Statistics." CBC News. Last modified March 31, 2025. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/population-nb-moncton-statistics-canada-1.7432845.
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. "Key Small Business Statistics 2024." Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/sme-research-statistics/en/key-small-business-statistics/key-small-business-statistics-2024#t1
That's an awful lot of elite networking and faith in the power of doubling down on cultivating entrepreneurial cadre and minority outreach instead of rethinking all that neolib shit when none of it worked