A7

PETER T. SMITH
COMMENTARY

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Would the last person to leave New Brunswick please turn off the lights?

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Business New Brunswick Minister Greg Byrne released the New Brunswick government's population growth strategy at the Capitol Theatre in Moncton last year. The province needs a wave of new births and immigration to stabilize its population.

Last week Statistics Canada revised its 2006 tally of New Brunswickers, which had been 4,600 people on the high side. That's like missing the town I live in, and then some. It seems we are still living in the incredible shrinking province.

So what's this mean?

The first and most obvious drawback of a declining population is in terms of federal transfer payments, which will add up to about $10 million. The longer-term implications are the focus of the New Brunswick Population Growth Secretariat. The long-term implications are also the concern of anyone who's going to be here in 30 years.

Shawn Graham's self-sufficiency ambition (I hesitate to use the word "agenda," as that would suggest more of a plan than has been set forward) relies heavily on an increased population by 2026. We need these people and we need them to be working at good jobs and paying taxes, so the argument goes, in order to get off equalizations payments and therefore be self-sufficient.

Getting off equalization isn't like finally moving out of your parents' basement. Canada isn't a loose confederation of 10 independent states. It's a nation of 30 million Canadians, however decentralized some of our social programs are. Equalization payments exist to provide an equalization of services across the country, so a Canadian living in Shediac doesn't necessarily get worse health care and education than a Canadian living in Vancouver. There's always been an Upper Canadian myth that "have" provinces foot the bill for the "have-not" provinces, but in reality it's better off (and therefore more heavily taxed) Canadians subsidizing provincially administered public services like health care and education for less well-off Canadians.

Maybe we take a cue from one Russian province and try to increase the population by having a "Conception Day." In Ulyanovsk, nine months before the Russian national holiday of June 12th, couples who so choose can take the day off with pay so long as their intention is to get pregnant - yes, your employer has to pay you to stay home and have sex - and if your new bundle of joy gets pushed out of the birth canal on the national holiday, you might win a new refrigerator. (I'm NOT making this up; nor am I seriously suggesting this as a growth strategy. And please don't mention my name to your boss if you and the significant other take the first Monday in December off next year.)

A good reason to try to develop the population, economy, and essentially the wealth of New Brunswick over the next 20-plus years is that there are world events, many of which are already unfolding, which we cannot control but will have significant detrimental impacts on us, just as they will worldwide. The recent financial troubles which originated on Wall Street and quickly spread like an offshore oil slick across the global economy is a good example of how things far outside Fredericton's control will affect Victor Boudreau's budget.

Two big changes that are expected to hit us hard over the next generation are peak oil and climate change. These are big enough to make the economic crisis of the past few months seem as mildly inconvenient as discovering you've run out of fabric softener after the grocery store has closed for the night. Being more self-sufficient may not mean no support from Ottawa, but it might help mitigate the ill-effects of these changes.

Peak oil is that day when the demand for oil outstrips the supply, and while no one can reliably prognosticate a date, it's going to happen. We've tapped the easy oil and based our economy on it. There's plenty left under the ground and under the oceans, but it's still a finite, non-renewable resource. Meanwhile, China and India are consuming more oil every year, and there just isn't enough for everyone in those countries to idle in drive-throughs 20 minutes a day and still keep gas prices low. The increase in the cost of oil in a generation may easily overshadow any federal transfers we still receive.

Barring a wholesale and immediate decarbonization of the global economy, climate change is going to affect us throughout this century. The accident of our geography will insulate us from the worst effects like drought, extreme flooding, and increased severe weather events, but most of the rest of the world will not be so lucky. That will limit vital resources (like food), which will likely damage the international relations which are essential to maintaining an economy like we've enjoyed for the last sixty years. Gwynne Dyer's recent book Climate Wars is a tentative examination of some of these scenarios.

Ironically, climate change could fix our population problem. Consider that more heat waves and increased desertification in the United States will leave Americans with the means looking north for a relatively empty piece of cheap land with fairly clean air and water. Consider that New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have about the same land area as England, which boasts 50 million residents to our combined population of 1.5 million. 'Nuff said.

A loss of $10 million in transfer payments because we're smaller than we thought isn't a big deal. Planning properly for the next few decades so we're not smaller and poorer is a big deal.

Peter T. Smith is a teacher and writer. He can be reached by e-mail at ptsmith_tj@hotmail.com. His column appears on Tuesday.