Strategic plan needed for rural areas
Infrastructure 'Highway access influences where businesses will settle,' non-profit business group tells editorial board
SAINT JOHN - A business group representing over 1,000 francophone firms in New Brunswick is urging the province to develop a long-term rural economic development strategy.
"We believe there is a need to have a comprehensive economic development strategy for all rural areas of New Brunswick," says Louis-Philippe Gauthier, chairman of the Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick Inc.
"There's a whole aspect of outside the Fredericton-Moncton-Saint John triangle that strategically needs to be addressed. It's a 10, 15 year, self-sufficiency-scale plan," he said during an editorial board meeting with the Telegraph-Journal.
Gauthier said Quebec has already developed a rural economic development plan.
The Quebec plan includes money for needed infrastructure upgrades as well as for research and development, said Gauthier.
"The rural areas of the province can't just become ... labour for the south. We can be part of it, but I'd much rather see businesses coming here and setting up shop or satellite offices than shuttling employees from the north to the south," he said.
Gauthier said as part of developing a strategic plan for rural areas, the province should consider investing in one or two major infrastructure projects to ensure economic growth reaches the northern part of New Brunswick.
He pointed to the long sought after upgrades to provincial highway 11 and 17.
"(These are) investments that have been requested and asked ... of policy makers over the last 20 years and have been promised time and time and again and no one has ever done it."
Turning highway 11 between Shediac and Miramichi into a four-lane highway would benefit economic development in the north, he said.
Better roads are crucial, said Anne Hebert, executive director of the non-profit business group.
"We've had businesses tell us that transportation companies will not even go to their business, they have to take their materials to a place where the trucks will go," she said.
Highway access influences where businesses will settle, Hebert added.
"If you're next to a four-lane highway you can just bring your stuff right onto the highway and get it to where it needs to go."
Gauthier said while some areas in northern New Brunswick have struggled due to the downturn in the provincial forestry industry, other areas, notably the Chaleur region around Bathurst, are doing well.
"People are used to hearing bad news (about the north) but it's not all bad news."
Businesses in the north are looking for infrastructure investments that will enable them to compete.
"Our members are not looking for free money. They're not looking for a hand-out," said Gauthier. "We're looking for the infrastructure we need to succeed."
Elizabeth Beale, president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, said New Brunswick could benefit from greater cooperation and long-term planning by the province and the federal government when it comes to rural economic development.
But the Atlantic region hasn't seen that kind of cooperation since the Atlantic Provinces Opportunity Agency ended the practice of doing joint economic development projects with the province over five years ago, she said.
"I think it would be very healthy for the federal government and the provincial government to come together to look a rural economic development strategies."
Transportation infrastructure, she said, should be at the top of the list when it comes to such strategies.
"I would think so because when you look at the types of businesses that tend to be located out of the urban areas .... those industries are all movers of heavy goods and for whom road, marine transportation is absolutely essential."
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