Articles By Alec Bruce
Vive les Irvings!
The federal government’s contract award of $25 billion to Halifax’s Irving Shipbuilding means money. Lots of it. And jobs, just when the East Coast could use them. But what does it mean for New Brunswick, where the billionaire, family-owned conglomerate was born and raised and still employs thousands? It would be, without question, the most important federal announcement in more …Continue Reading
R&D boutique’s big and righteous claims to fame
When it launched 15 years ago, it faced funding challenges, legal obstacles and some skepticism. Today, Moncton-based Atlantic Cancer Research Institute leads the world in commercially viable research on early detection technology. With one patent under its belt, it may soon be ready for the prime time of the global marketplace. Shoe-horned into an older wing of the Dr. Georges …Continue Reading
Reconstructing Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler, former owner of what was — for a time — one of Canada’s most successful animation studios ponders the future of his newest entrepreneurial love interest and asks how many lives a FatKat has. To find the man who once employed more than 100 people to animate TV shows for networks around the world, you enter a side …Continue Reading
Sleep-walking to fiscal oblivion
If New Brunswick’s Tory government sincerely wishes to rouse a citizenry that remains demonstrably sleepy, at a time when fiscal oblivion beckons them from their beds, it should start by taking pabulum off the menu of provincial politics. As it was, November’s Speech from the Throne concluded with all the spiciness of a bowl of porridge: “Over the course of …Continue Reading
All snow that blows well
A few winters ago, in a fit of Christmas cheer, I offended the gods of common sense by giving away a practically new, all-metal-construction snowblower. Had I lived in Fort Lauderdale, my soft-hearted gesture might have seemed merely unnecessary. But I didn’t live in Fort Lauderdale. I lived in Moncton. I still do, and over the years of record-breaking accumulations, …Continue Reading
More business as usual at NB Power
When David Alward’s Tories assumed the leadership of New Brunswick more than a year ago, they promised to reconfigure NB Power as a competitive commercial enterprise. But three measures in their recently released, ten-year Energy Blueprint strongly suggest they are farther away than ever from this goal. Under the new plan, the utility – a provincial Crown corporation – will …Continue Reading
Strolling to the promised land of green energy
Atlantic Canada’s progress towards a future of clean, renewable power is, at best, slow and steady. Still, all governments continue to insist they are committed to reducing their provinces’ reliance on fossil fuels. How, exactly, are they doing? It was, at the time, a revelation – a seemingly inexhaustible supply of comparatively clean, inexpensive energy that ushered in a new …Continue Reading
The government sovereign dimwit crisis
If it was an avalanche of avarice that triggered the first great global recession since grampy was knee-high to a T-bill, it will be a surfeit of stupidity that sparks the second. For the former, we can properly blame the largely self-regulated, international financial system and its slathering pursuit of short-term gain. Kiting the prices of essentially worthless mortgage-backed securities …Continue Reading
Being “in this place” costs a bundle
It was confusing, unappealing and just plain goofy. And when the New Brunswick government, under Liberal Premier Shawn Graham, selected “Be. . .in this place” as the province’s new slogan in 2008, the wags had a field day. I, myself, could not resist the temptation to jab away. After all, anything would be better, including and in no particular order: …Continue Reading
KISS their big, fat bank accounts
Now that KISS frontman, merchandising genius and reality show icon Gene Simmons has, after 28 years, made an honest woman of his long-suffering companion, actress and singer Shannon Tweed, one presumes the former’s days and nights of carousing with nubile acolytes of the fairer sex are over. But a Moncton-based gaming studio is betting that the couple’s famously televised tribulations …Continue Reading
