Chamber Applauds Commission’s Report on Province’s Economic Future
Feb 12, 2014
The President of the Truro + Colchester Chamber of Commerce sees some good possibilities emerging from the final report created by the provincial Commission on the New Economy.
Stephanie Jones says her 450 business members can take heart in suggestions from the report that this province move to triple immigration levels over the next 10 years.
“We know that immigration brings new ideas and a new vibrancy to the economy, “ says Jones. “Regions of this country with the highest immigration are the economic powerhouses of Canada, and we need to get in on that success by working with Ottawa to increase immigration. Our rapidly-aging population trends can be reversed by increasing the birth rate and bringing in young, entrepreneurial immigrants.”
Jones also likes New Economy Commission Chair Ray Ivany’s suggestions that Nova Scotians are too suspicious of successful entrepreneurs, and that our culture looks unrealistically to governments for all the answers.
Ivany’s remarks to municipal leaders that they need to stop competing with each other in order to lure in businesses from other jurisdictions to “grow the economic pie” in their own back yards also resonates with the Truro & Colchester Chamber of Commerce.
Jones says she agrees with Mr. Ivany that Nova Scotia municipal leaders are “world caliber” at fighting to bring in an “economic win,” instead of celebrating when a new business sets up in any Nova Scotia jurisdiction.
“I would advise our municipal leaders to pay close attention to the increased role for business that Mr. Ivany’s commission is recommending,” says Jones. “The old ways of doing things are going to have to change if Nova Scotia’s 10-year plan is going to succeed. The suggestions in this report that we work to double Research and Development and increase exports by 50 per cent have to come ahead of paltry political battles.”
Jones also likes the report’s suggestion that we enshrine its goals in legislation so that future governments can’t let provincial partisan politics get in the way of Nova Scotia’s progress.