New Brunswick Liberal Premier Brian Gallant was in Vancouver Monday October 26 speaking to the Vancouver Board of Trade.
Following his speech, he spoke with Business in Vancouver about deficit spending, investment opportunities for B.C. businesses in his province and the “red tide” that started in Atlantic Canada and swept across Canada to install a new federal Liberal government.
The Liberal sweep that occurred in the recent federal election started in Atlantic Canada with juggernaut force. All 10 federal seats in your province went to the Liberals. What happened in Atlantic Canada?
“I think there’s two things. Justin Trudeau did a great job of communicating his vision for the country. He made it very clear that he wanted to work with premiers. He wants to work with regions. He made it very clear he wants to focus on growth. All of those messages resonated in Atlantic Canada.
“I think also it had been made very clear to Atlantic Canadians that they – over the last few years – were not on the list that Stephen Harper completed of the people that he needed to have support from in order to form the government. Stephen Harper made a calculation that he would not need Atlantic Canada to form government, and I believe Atlantic Canadians resoundingly responded to that.”
It has been suggested that Justin Trudeau had borrowed from your own deficit spending plan for his own three-year spending plan for infrastructure. Was he copying your economic platform?
“It’s certainly flattering that the Trudeau campaign was looking to us for policy advice. I certainly don’t think that was the case. I think it’s clear many economists have said in the last few months that, given where the economy has been of late, it is important for us to focus on growth.”
But unless it helps wealth generating industries, aren’t large infrastructure projects just make-work projects and bridges to nowhere? What happens when the money is spent and the work is done?
“It’s not roads and bridges for the sake of building roads and bridges. What’s important for us is to invest in infrastructure that will help us be more competitive, that will help our industries be more productive. So for us it’s investments like the Port of Saint John.”
Are there opportunities for B.C. companies in New Brunswick?
“There’s some great businesses from B.C. that are investing New Brunswick already – the Trevali Mining Corporation, the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, the Aquilini Investment Group. Many businesses from British Columbia are seeing that there’s a lot happening in New Brunswick and it’s a good time to invest.”
When it comes to oil and gas, B.C. and New Brunswick seem to have very different priorities. While your government supports the Energy East oil pipeline project, it has a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. The BC government, on the other hand, has been very supportive of a natural gas industry, but cooler towards oil pipelines. Why is that?
“In New Brunswick, we have a very diversified energy sector. We have an LNG terminal that’s set for import at the moment. There’s talk of it being converted to an export facility. That would help us, obviously, in the short term by creating jobs with a huge investment to convert it to an export facility, but also helping New Brunswick and the country diversify its energy markets. We also have in Saint John the largest most sophisticated oil refinery, so we have obviously an oil industry that is important for our province.
“When it comes to hydraulic fracturing, it’s relatively new across the world and it’s certainly quite new to New Brunswick. Many New Brunswickers had questions and concerns regarding hydraulic fracturing so we proposed a moratorium, which was put in place a few months ago. We also asked an independent commission to look into hydraulic fracturing. They’re doing their analysis now. They’re expected to come back with their findings and recommendations in the next few months.
“This, I believe, is a prudent approach to ensure that we fully understand what could be some of the benefits that would come from hydraulic fracturing in New Brunswick and also ensuring what those risks could be.”
What are some areas of concern in terms of policies and trade that New Brunswick and B.C. share?
“There’s two that come to mind. There’s the softwood lumber agreement. Softwood lumber is a very important industry for our country and certainly for New Brunswick. We are actually the province in the country that depends the most, relatively speaking, on the forestry sector, so for us to have the agreement in this extension period is certainly something we’re keeping our eye on.
“The second thing is we both have in our provinces an aging demographic. Pretty much the whole country is facing that, but it’s little more prevalent in our respective provinces than others. And that comes with extra expenses. It comes with more investment needed in health care, it comes with more investment needed in seniors care.”
From a business perspective, how do you think a federal Liberal government will differ from the previous Conservative one? What can the business community across Canada expect?
“I believe it’s going to be very different. I think you’re going to see, with the federal Liberal government, one that is focused on working together. I know that may sound a little simplistic, but it’s important. If we’re going to coordinate our efforts to grow the economy and create jobs, we need all premiers working together. We need the federal government working with the premiers. We need municipalities, we need stakeholders, we need everybody going in the same direction.
“I also think that you’re going to see a government that’s much more focused on growth, investing strategically – one that’s going to ensure that we are stimulating the economy when we see a downturn. I think you’re going to see one that’s going to make investments that are going to be able to help us have the infrastructure we need to be prosperous in the long term.”
