If there’s such a thing as corporate neutrality, Tina Thistle and Sherrie Wilkins — owners of Cre8iv Design Studio — have it. Whether you’re a large-scale enterprise or a small home-based business; whether you have 500 employees or just one; whether you want a full corporate brochure or something as straightforward as a business card; this designing duo is dedicated to giving every project their full creative attention.

This month, Atlantic Business Magazine is proud to reward their efforts by recognizing them as our Business of the Month. For more information on how they can help your operation maximize its marketing efforts, please read on.

Tell us more about what Cre8iv Design Studio – what it is exactly that you do?
In 2005, Cre8iv Design Studio was born to deliver high quality marketing solutions. The belief was that only larger companies and firms could afford this luxury, but we had a vision to deliver design and print services to companies of any stature. Our goal is to provide businesses and organizations, regardless of size, a straightforward and uncomplicated source for their marketing materials.

Whether you need a business card design or a corporate brochure, we provide the same level of expertise and dedication to each and every project, giving you exceptional service, top quality design and competitive pricing.

We offer a wide range of services to help create, maintain, or improve your branding. From graphic design, illustration and logo development to our in-house digital printing and large format services, our creative team has the resources you need to be noticed in today’s competitive market.

How many employees work at your studio?
We currently have three employees.

You were both young women in your twenties when Cre8iv was founded? What made you decide to start your own business when it would have been much easier to work for someone else?
To create our own jobs and places in the workforce.

Before Cre8iv Design, we had started a company in Nova Scotia providing the same services. At the time, jobs were scarce and we had to take things into our own hands. Starting from a home office, and gradually making our way into a small office building, still it felt like something was missing. With already having a clientele base that was primarily over the internet we decided there is no place like home – homeward bound we were. After working for ourselves for a few years in Nova Scotia it only felt right to do the same thing here. Cre8iv was born and Newfoundland welcomed us with open arms!

What you like most about operating your business in Atlantic Canada?
What’s not to like – after all it’s the only place to be!

Do you have clients beyond the borders of Atlantic Canada?
The beauty of the internet is that it allows us to work with clients from all over the world. We have developed corporate identities and various other marketing materials for clients throughout Canada, the US, and as far as New Zealand, Norway and Iraq! This has allowed our business to develop various “design styles” and live up to our “Cre8iv” name.

What has been your proudest moment as an entrepreneur?
Tina: There are many proud moments but one of my proudest moments was in conversation with someone at a networking event in our second year of business where I introduced myself as co-owner of Cre8iv Design Studio, and the immediate response was “Oh, I’ve heard about Cre8iv! I’ve heard some great things about you guys!” – It was a comment made at a time when Cre8iv was going through growing pains as a new company, and this was just the reassurance we needed to keep doing what we were doing – our hard work was finally getting out there and we were making a name for ourselves.

Sherrie: Sometimes it’s not the specific moment that makes you proud but rather reflective moments such as being stopped at a red light, on your way to work thinking about where it all started and where Cre8iv is today, is always a proud moment – knowing that you’ve made this place in the workforce for yourself.

No business is built without obstacles, what has been your biggest obstacle in starting your own business? How did you overcome?
Our biggest obstacle was probably surviving the first 2 years of business and building that client base that could sustain a steady cash flow. Not withdrawing a full salary, and putting most of the profits back into the company in purchasing newer equipment, software, machinery etc.

Our perseverance and determination to grow a business, succeed at what we were doing and most of all to be able to work for ourselves is how we overcame the first two years. This gave us the drive to push forward through the hard times and get over that hump.

We’ve spoken with many business owners and we usually see a common thread – they want to give back to the community that has helped them succeed. What is Cre8iv doing in the areas community outreach as well as sustainability and human resources?
Cre8iv has been a supporter of various programs, organizations and groups. We have donated our time in the development of several logo design for local schools, animal rescue/shelter, as well as various design items for fundraiser events such as posters, tickets, and programs. Some of these organizations include but not limited to; R.E.A.L Program; Elizabeth Park Elementary; and SCAPA (Society for the Car and Protection of Animals). Giving back to the community is an important aspect of our business. We are currently in the process of developing a program in which we will partner with a selection of non-profit organizations to help develop and expand their branding. This will help them to expand their organization and allow them to reach out to their communities even more.

Sustainability is also very important to us. We have various recycled papers available for our clients; and any extra / left over paper gets donated to local Daycares who find it beneficial in their activity programs.

As well, we try to take on as many work term students and internships as possible so that they can further their education in a practical environment allowing them development in both print and design. This gives them an opportunity to develop their portfolios and gain some experience.

Why should your company be in the “Business of the Month Club”?
In just 7 short years, we have grown exponentially – We’re a great example of how dedication, hard-work a perseverance can take a business started in a home office with just one computer, one scanner, and a desk to a company that brings projects from start to finish, all under one roof. From just offering graphic design, to now having the capability to design, print, and finish projects of all sizes, Cre8iv Design is here to stay!! **Fist Pumps**

We believe businesses of all stature / sizes should have access to a source that enables them to develop their brand and awareness. We treat every project, big or small, with the same level of dedication, care, and importance. Customer service is something hard to come by these days, however here at Cre8iv, we take that extra step to ensure that every client feels welcome and trusts that their project is in the right hands.

www.createdesign.ca

Lynne Jacob started MLJ Coaching International by virtue of the fact that there wasn’t really anyone around to hire her — she’s a tradeswoman, she says, like an electrician or a plumber. Instead of fixing your pipes, she’ll fix your business, or your life. Or both.

While there are mindset coaches, business coaches, and accountants, Jacob says that what makes her practice special is that she works with clients to understand the barriers they face, “what truly stops them,” and then finds solutions that are effective – and fun.

It is surprising that serious coaching, and Jacob is certainly serious about her work, should be fun. When talking about past clients, Jacob recounts helping single mothers weeks away from losing their jobs, men routinely at the office past 11pm, and one woman who had lost enthusiasm not just for her work but for her marriage. “Fun” is not the first word that comes to mind as a solution in those situations, but perhaps that’s the point.

It would be tempting to call Jacob a self-taught guru, but despite the fact that the Ontario woman wholly eschewed business classes in favor of reading (lots of reading), it is impossible to miss the fact that a crucial part of her training came from the mentorship of other business coaches.

“I’ve worked with numerous mentors over the years, as well as coaches for myself,” she says, “but the best step I took along the way was working with a business success coach every week for the first two years I was in business.”

Jacob says that as a new entrepreneur her biggest obstacle was not the market, nor the economy. Jacob says that she, a business consultant, was the greatest obstacle to the success of her business.

“I overcame this by working with a much bigger coach than I was at the time. My growth is still happening in leaps and bounds as a result, and I continue to work with this and other mentors whenever I find myself feeling comfortable with where I’m at.”

Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about as a coach. MLJ clients routinely “triple their income inside of seven weeks [and] triple their sales inside of 10 months.” They also, and this is important, spend more time with their families, more time on vacation, more time, in other words, doing something aside from work.

Jacob instructs her clients on seven key business strategies. Number one is to start planning. Number seven is to get a life (outside of business). The rest can be found on her website.

Started in 2003, MLJ Coaching International is showing healthy growth, especially within the construction industry. She’s coached business owners from France to Jamaica, and relies on five steady sub-contractors, all of them telecommuting, to keep the business running. She does not have time for yard work (“stick to what you do best and hire out the rest,” she says) but she does have time for charity.

“I find that a simple way of giving back is simply to make a donation whenever and wherever one is requested of me,” she says.

“I especially enjoy buying raffle tickets for students’ school trips and attending fun functions (like Chocolate & Comedy) which are arranged for fundraising. In those instances everyone wins, money for them and a night out of fun and meeting people you wouldn’t otherwise have in typical business networking environments.”

Jacob promises that clients often go from near catastrophe to enjoying “successful, healthy, and wealthy businesses … without working harder, longer hours.” It’s all a matter of understanding barriers, and finding solutions. It’s not about knowing, she says, it’s about understanding — a thesis put forth in her upcoming book, “I know you KNOW, but you don’t UNDERSTAND,” which will be available this spring.

So business is good, and Jacob is justifiably proud of her accomplishments. But the best part is that MLJ doesn’t exist in a zero sum market. The success of her business is built on the success of its clients. Which means that in this case it really seems like everyone can win, and they can have fun doing it.

By Martin Connelly

To recap on my previous entry: my husband and I have taken on the challenge of starting up a home-based business that we’re operating in addition to working our regular day jobs. No, I won’t be promoting or publishing either the business name or the industry here – that would be taking unfair advantage of you and my employers (supremely supportive though they are).

When I last left off, we had just finished three months of online training. Late November found us in Halifax for five intense days of in-person training. Then, on December 1, we were let loose on the world. Tossed from the nest. Told to spread our wings and soar. We’re soaring alright – as fast and as far as our gimpy wings will take us.

Since officially opening our e-doors (it being a mostly online enterprise), we’ve shamelessly networked the heck out of our family and friends, getting them to distribute our business cards and promotional material to their respective networks like it was the world’s most sought-after Halloween candy. Plus, we set up a website and solicited subscriptions to our e-newsletter. And we’ve mailed a notice of our business opening to everyone in our home town. Heck, even one of our Christmas gifts was a tongue-in-cheek promotion of the new company.

The result of that feverish marketing? A promising number of enquiries about our products and services, which are teaching us just how much we don’t know. Learning “curve” doesn’t come close to describing it: it’s more like trying to climb Mount Everest, only you have to figure out how to use the climbing gear as you’re on your way up. In some cases, we’ve had to find the gear first, then try learning to use it.

A recent phone call to a supplier left both partner and I feeling like the biggest losers on the planet. We’d called looking for answers to what we thought were simple questions, only to find out our passwords wouldn’t work and we couldn’t access the responses. Imagine the frustration when we realized the problem was that we had been trying to login to the wrong website. Needless to say, voices were raised and cross words were said (not at the supplier, but ourselves).

In case you’re wondering, we do have head office support, but it’s more often in the form of general directions than a specific step-by-step guide. Hint to head office, if you’re reading: when someone’s new to the industry, and they’re trying to get set up as quickly as possible, telling them to “experiment with it until you’re more comfortable” does not inspire confidence.

The good news is that we are learning, and the more we learn, the more excited we get about the products we’re selling. And, the more excited we get, the more excited our potential clients become and the more enquiries we get. We’ve already had a number of sales, with at least double that number waiting to be reeled in.

But even this has its challenges. Mainly, the time crunch. How can you build your business when you’re spending all your time working on your business? Seriously, I’d like to know.

Hmmm. What else have we been doing? Ah yes, business expenses and taxes. One of the best pieces of advice we were given was to consult an accountant in the very early days and get some advice on how to set up our accounts. Thanks to that, we have an incredibly basic but effective accounting system. We keep the receipts of every business-related item we purchase (not credit card slips, mind you, but actual receipts). This includes gas, car insurance, mortgage fees (home office remember), office supplies, furniture, computer equipment and upgrades, utilities and municipal fees such as taxes and business permits. With regards to the home-related expenses, we’re allowed to charge a percentage of the expenses that is equivalent to the size of our home office in relation to the square footage of our home.

With all the talk of a double-dip recession and slow economic growth, you might be excused for thinking that employers had gone back to the old days when just having a job was enough for most folks. But the 2012 winners of the fourth-annual Atlantic Canada’s Top Employers competition show how serious leading employers are about recruiting and retaining the best employees.

In fact, Mediacorp — which organizes this recognition program as well as Canada’s Top 100 Employers — notes that there was a record number of employer applications this year, 15 per cent higher than last year.

Tony Meehan, Mediacorp publisher, attributes the higher level of interest to the compressed job market. “The reality of Canada’s labour market is that the unemployment rate in many key occupations is less than four per cent, even in the current economic climate. This… is bringing many employers to the realization that they need to become more attractive places to work — not just to ensure future growth, but simply to maintain the operations they have now.”

Look for sidebars at the end of this article:
Powerful People
What makes a top employer
How to apply for next year’s Top Employers list

Top Employers

Admiral Insurance Services Inc.
Location: Halifax, N.S.
Number of employees: 308
Who are they: provider of automobile insurance products and services.
What makes them great: support new mothers with maternity and parental leave top-up payments (to 100 per cent of salary for 20 weeks) and parental leave top-up for new fathers or adoptive parents (to 100 per cent of salary for 14 weeks); support professional development with tuition subsidies for courses taken at outside institutions, in-house and online training, subsidies for professional accreditation and a formal mentoring program; contributions to a defined benefit pension plan (to five per cent of salary); a share purchase plan that is available to all employees, and a variety of financial rewards including referral and year-end bonuses.

Alcool NB Liquor /ANBL
Location: Fredericton, N.B.
Number of employees: 446
Who are they: provincial Crown corporation responsible for the purchase, importation, distribution and retail activity of all beverage alcohol in New Brunswick.
What makes them great: defined benefit pension plan, defined contribution pension plan, and matching RSP contributions; maternity leave top-up payments to new mothers (to 75 per cent of salary for 15 weeks); flexible work arrangements including reduced summer hours and a compressed work week option; academic scholarship program for children of employees (up to $2,500); a self-funded leave program that lets employees defer a portion of their salary and take extended time off (up to one year) with pay; supports ongoing education by covering the full cost of tuition for employees completing courses at outside institutions (with no annual maximum).

Annapolis Valley District Health Authority
Location: Kentville, N.S.
Number of employees: 1,031
Who are they: providers of health and wellness services to the counties of Kings and Annapolis.
What makes them great: new employees start with four weeks of paid vacation allowance, in addition to personal paid days off; subsidies for courses taken at outside institutions, subsidies for professional accreditation and a variety of in-house and online training programs; new mothers receive maternity leave top-up payments (to 93 per cent of salary for 15 weeks) as well as a variety of flexible work arrangements for when they are ready to return to work; parental leave top-up payments to employees who are new fathers or adoptive parents (to 93 per cent of salary for 10 weeks); retirement planning assistance, generous contributions to a defined benefit pension plan and health benefit coverage that extends to retirees.

Cape Breton District Health Authority
Location: Sydney, N.S.
Number of employees: 2,284
Who are they: provider of community health services to 130,000 residents of Cape Breton, Northern and Central Inverness County and Victoria County.
What makes them great: new employees get personal paid days off as well as three weeks of paid vacation allowance; tuition subsidies for job-related courses (to $5,000), financial bonuses for some course completion and in-house and online training programs; maternity leave top-up payments for new mothers (to 93 per cent of salary for 15 weeks) as well as extended health benefit coverage during their leave; parental leave top-up to employees who are new fathers or adoptive parents (to 93 per cent of salary for 10 weeks); generous contributions to a defined benefit pension plan, retirement planning assistance and phased-in work options to help employees transition out of the workforce.

I’ve never been to Ireland. Can you give me some idea of what I make expect if I were to visit?
You’ve never been to Ireland, eh? This past two weeks, we have at least five groups from Newfoundland. Most of them will drop by the embassy and I’ll have a cup of coffee ready and a few cookies. Give us a chance to have a chat. If they’re on the way in, we can recommend a few things to them. If they’re on the way back, we can gather from them what they saw, what they got out of it and what they can take home, whatever the case might be.

But I have yet to run across anybody who didn’t have an exceptionally good time here. I don’t mean just partying, you can have a good time at that too because you’ve got great music and there’s a pub on every corner type of thing. But a great time in the sense of enjoyment of the area, the scenery is phenomenal. It’s so pastoral and peaceful once you get outside of Dublin. Dublin is so historic.

I was in Tralee on Friday on my way to Dingle and Valencia. Valencia is where they laid the Transatlantic cable. I said we’ll start working on that and do a bit of twinning with Heart’s Content and so on. I stopped in Tralee and said I’m going to go to the County Council office to say hello, I’m in the area. I said to the woman at the desk at the hotel where we stopped for lunch, where’s the county council office here because I’d like to drop by to say hello. My driver had said to her, the ambassador is interested in dropping by. She said, I know the deputy mayor, I’ll give him a ring. Before we had finished our sandwiches, the deputy mayor was sitting down with us, took me down to the council office, had the regional manager there available.

They had been meeting recently, trying to figure out … they had a report done, a glossy covered report, on the cable, not knowing how to make connections at the other end and wondering who they could get to bring it all together. They were wondering about the embassies and did ambassadors get involved in stuff like that and do they ever go out of town – and I walked into their office (laughs).

It was amazing. Two and a half hours later we had it all settled.

You’re from a part of Newfoundland known as the Irish Loop. Does going to Ireland make you feel like you’re coming home, in a way?
The similarities and we’ll say, our part of Newfoundland in particular, are just unbelievable. When you’re talking to them (the Irish people) everyday, you sort of lose a little bit of your own accent and fit in a little better.

What, exactly, are you doing here?
To put it in a nutshell, my job is to represent Canada in Ireland and to be a conduit the other way if there are Irish people looking for opportunities in Canada. We concentrate a tremendous amount on trade and on the business side, the economic side. However, we go beyond that because particularly here in Ireland/Canada, compared to, say, Libya/Canada or Spain/Canada, you have such strong cultural ties and links that we are finding we are just deluged with requests from universities and tourism groups and so on to try to beef up what they have.

We have a number of universities here with strong ties with Canadian universities. A number of others who are looking for ties. Some of them with eastern Canada, Newfoundland in particular. I’m thinking of the Waterford Institute of Technology and Galway Marine Institute, which is similar to our own. In fact, I’m going up there in a few weeks, I have a full day planned. Cork is doing a lot of work in relation to ocean research, want to do more, want to tie in, want to work with our navy, etc… A number of them are involved in the Smart Bay project in Placentia Bay.

Sounds as though your background as former Minister of Fisheries is coming in handy.
I find a lot of similarities with my past work. The fishery certainly. I was in Dingle on the weekend, one of the big fishing centres. I have meetings in Gillybegs tomorrow. We meet with the different fishing groups, talking about common research we can do, problems we might have.

One of the most interesting problems is the seal problem they’re having one the west, northwest coast here. The fishermen are now complaining, bitterly, in the media about seals tearing up their nets and eating the bait out of their lobster pots. Of course, I’m saying, woo-hoo. Now we can really chat and we haven’t got the worry about protests.

The 15th of March is seal protest day across the E.U. and this year the 15th of March, the staff were saying it might be a good day to be out of the office somewhere. I said, ‘yeah, are you kidding? Bring ‘em on.’

Nobody showed up. We didn’t have a protestor in front of the place. I haven’t heard one word about the seal hunt, seals, since I came here except from the side that’s causing the problem. Certainly, I want to meet with them and talk about some of the things, problems we have.

Here, they have some great salmon rivers. If they start getting the seals into the mouth of the rivers, as we are now at my home in Renews where we have a salmon river, the harbour is filled with seals. That’s certainly not going to help the flow of salmon in and out. Same with the trout and so on where you have salt water trout areas. We’ll use anything like that to gain more support at the European level. We do have some solid support here in Ireland for issues like that; we’ll beef that up.

You mentioned that you work with organizations and companies in both countries, to help them take advantage of various opportunities. How does that work?
I’m dealing with the Canadian companies that are here, Irish companies that want to invest in Canada. That would be our main focus. Our trade division would be out there, opening doors, providing information, making contacts, providing advice, etc…

From the educational side, we’d be dealing with the various universities looking for common opportunities, stuff like ocean research. Why re-invent the wheel? Why are both of us doing it when we’re only a few hundred miles apart in the one ocean?

Tourism. Even though Canada does not promote itself very well here in Ireland, we’ll work on that. Tourism really is an economic generator. We’re seeing a tremendous amount of Canadians coming here now and we’re seeing a lot of Irish go to Canada.

Is there as much awareness of Canada and Newfoundland in Ireland as there is of Ireland here in Canada and Newfoundland?
Not really. Not of Newfoundland as we see Ireland. Yet. Give me a couple of years. (laughs) That’s something we are working on, and it is working – no doubt about it.

There is an Irish-Newfoundland partnerships. That’s active, but has a whole lot more potential. Both sides are seeing that now and we’re doing a few things now that, if we can pull them off, will bring a lot more attention to that and will open more doors for both sides.

We have the Festival of the Sea, of course, 50-odd Irish people over in the southern Avalon, visiting different communities, holding meetings. Doing some stuff in St. John’s this year, they’ve included St. John’s in their itinerary.

Next year, you have 5,200 people from the southern Avalon coming over to Ireland. They have this exchange every year. That’s drawing attention. And they’re starting to beef that up a bit so that it’s not just a social exchange.

We’re seeing different groups travelling. Musicians here and bands here, from the south, to the center, up north, even cross border activity, looking within the next year or so to visit Newfoundland and Canada. Some people already have. We had a group of musicians over from Newfoundland that we met with. We had a reception here for them to meet with some of the people involved with the music industry here in Ireland, brought in some of their friends who invited some of their friends, so we had about 80 people. At one time, we had about 20 of them playing instruments. We had quite an evening. But what it did was cement ties and tie them in with people from universities and so on who are doing research into traditional music. And people who are interested in the tourism side. The cultural side is opening up doors in the business side.

Some of these went over to Newfoundland for the Seamus Grey festival, and had a great time performing in St. John’s. They had a concert up in Renews actually, which I wasn’t involved in organizing but I happened to be home when they had it.

As much as Canada and Ireland have in common, they are obviously two different countries. Have you gotten homesick yet?
I get home about three times a year. We came in January and I was home for Easter. I was home again then, I took my holidays in July, did some salmon fishing back home, some gardening. I’ll get home again Christmas.

My wife, Maureen, is loving it over here. That was my concern. I knew I’d like it, but I wasn’t so sure if she would. She was here years ago when things weren’t good at all, and her memories weren’t that good about it. I got her back about three, four years ago and she enjoyed it. And last year, a bunch of us came over on holiday and she had a ball. We all did. When I got this opportunity, she said yeah, she’d think she’d like it. Now she’ll tell you she not only likes it, she loves it.

People here with argue with me that I’m from Waterford or Wexford. Absolutely. Go away, you’re fooling me. You’re from Waterford. We had that happen on the train with one of the guys from home who asked somebody how far it was from Waterford to Wexford, and the guy said ‘you’re pulling my leg, you’re from Wexford,’ He said, no I’m not. He said, yes you are, you’re definitely from Wexford. They just don’t believe that we aren’t from here or that we haven’t left recently.

We’re hearing from a lot of Canadian, and Newfoundland companies in particular, talking about a labour shortage. Ireland has a labour surplus at the moment. Seems to be a natural partnership there.
We are now seeing a lot of Irish people go to Canada with the economy down a little bit on this side, particularly in the construction side which leaves a lot of skilled tradespeople out of work. A tremendous amount of them are going to Canada for employment – and finding employment.

We have several programs for students. We have a number of university exchange programs, we have scholarship programs, the Craig Dobbin Scholarship program for instance. Each year, we see a half dozen or more Irish graduate students go to Canada for further research and another five or six come over to Ireland doing research in different areas.

We have a program, started some years ago, called the Working Holiday Visa. It provided a Visa for a year for young people between 18 and 35 to visit Canada to work, travel, whatever combination – you could go and do whatever you wanted to do. That became very popular and in recent years, most of them go looking for work. This year, we provided 5,000 visas and we closed the program a few weeks ago, all of them had been taken up. We will also now allow them to renew the visa for a second year as they gives them a better chance to get a handle, particularly now with the economy down and the opportunities are not here now for the younger crowd as they used to be and hopefully will be again. It also gives employers on the other side a better chance to assess young people. By that time, they will have a better idea if they want them to stay here and go look for a work visa. Do you want to look for permanent citizenship? Whatever the case might be. It’s working well for everybody right now.

One thing you’ll find about Ireland when you come here, the Irish are extremely well educated. All the people who are leaving and even the young people you meet on the street, you go anywhere – they’re clean cut, well dressed, very presentable, very well educated. They invest, and have invested heavily for years, in education. Everyone holds education in high esteem. So you have an exceptionally well educated and well trained people. People who are going abroad are not the grade sixes looking for pick and shovel jobs. You have your engineers, your doctors, your professional people, and they will make a major contribution, certainly, to Canada.

When I came here first, I came across a lot of people who would talk about this program … I have a son going, I have a daughter going, I have somebody over there, and I would always say, have you been to Canada? In most cases, the answer is yes, or we’re going the summer. Most of them, 8 out of 10 originally, were going to Vancouver. Everybody loves Vancouver. But lately it’s spread. You’re seeing a lot of people going to Toronto. Some people are now moving into the Prairies because of the opportunities in Alberta, Saskatchewan. And we are getting a lot of people who know the East Coast, and are looking at the East Coast, looking ahead for the next few years. A lot of them, and a lot of Irish companies, see a fair amount of opportunity in Atlantic Canada. Particularly in relation to developments in the offshore, the oil and gas, the Lower Churchill coming on stream.

As they look ahead to development of the North, which is going to be a Canadian priority over the next five, 10, 20 years, the infrastructure alone that’s going to be required to open up the North is unthinkable. Our big country, small population, low unemployment – we’re going to need a lot of workers. As somebody said to me lately, where better to get them from – here are our cousins, very well educated. We could fly people back and forth to Ireland easier than we could fly them from Newfoundland to Alberta.

Will there be an expansion of this program? Everybody is looking at it fairly heavily and I do know that they’re looking at it in Ottawa. I think if people are coming, if we have the skilled workers who have the skills to do whatever we need to do in Canada right now, there are ways of facilitating entry. You have to go through a certain scrutiny of course in any immigration. But if you have a chance to get a job in Canada, I’m hearing relatively short periods of getting your visas, whatever, approved to go to work there.

We’re seeing people coming over here, looking to hire. We’re also seeing Australia and New Zealand in particular, because of the damages they’ve had with fires, floods, etc…, they’re hiring heavily from Ireland. I think you’re going to see a bit of a rush in Canada.

We have a fear here. We had a booth recently providing information on the international experience Canada program, the 18 to 35 year old program, and we had a booth from the medical association of British Columbia, hiring nurses. I dropped down on a Saturday morning, they had been open a couple of hours, and they told me they had hired 60 nurses that morning.

It works both ways. Right now, they have a skills surplus, we have a skills shortage. It’s fitting in very well. No cultural problems. No language problems.

How would you define your role as an ambassador?
It is what you make it. There’s a formal role, there’s no doubt about that. I operate a bit differently from the average person. I’m here by choice, I wasn’t forced to come. I wasn’t sent here. I came because I thought there are things we can do to help Canada and to help Ireland also, because it has to be a two-way street. If you believe in that, then you identify what the possibilities are, what the opportunities are between the different countries. And you go to work on that. If it’s not a formal process, then you do a lot of it informally.

You get to know people and you get to trust them. To get them to make you part of the planning process, you have to be one of them. It’s not a difficult job for me. I fit in here pretty easily.

Basically, an ambassador is appointed to represented one country in another country. The management and direction of the mission, that’s your job. I run this mission, its management and activities and supervision of the people who work here. We have about 17 people who work here, divided into three different areas. We have our trade section, which will be responsible for trade, business, what have you. Then we have the political wing which basically keeps tabs on everything that’s happening here politically as it relates to Canada. Canada wants to know what makes Ireland tick, if we’re into an issue at the world trade organization, if we’re into an issue at the E.U. free trade agreement, whatever … where is Ireland on this issue? Are they supporting us? If not, it’s our job to get out there … in fact, we had an agricultural issue where Ireland was neutral, maybe even not agreeing with Canada’s stance and we arranged for … it was in relation to wheat, as I recall. Some of the countries involved, the United States, Argentina and Brazil, we got together and they asked me to lead the delegation. We met with the Irish, explained the situation, told them where it was going to affect them negatively, etc, etc, and they changed their vote and voted with us.

These things can be crucial when it comes to major decisions being made. That would be our trade area and our political area.

If people are visiting, this past month, we had four senators here and a delegation with them. All kinds of meetings with government officials and educational officials. The Minister of Finance and some MPs were in town. The Minister of Defence was here and just a couple of days ago we had Tony Clement, the president of Treasury Board here.

We arrange any of the meetings these people will have. I spent a couple of days with Tony just a couple of days ago meeting with the Minister of Finance, the Junior Minister of Finance, the Vice President of the Central Bank … you’re heavily involved yourself in what’s going on, because you’re part of it all. But we also make all of the arrangements, and that comes down to transportation, back and forth, meeting rooms, who you meet with, the information you need before hand, follow-up afterwards. You’re involved with all that.

That political division also deals with the cultural side, all the university contacts, meetings, people who are coming through, Canadians who might have a book release here. We might do some of the musical groups coming through. It depends. You don’t do all the tacky stuff, but the stuff of importance to either of one country or the other or the people who are involved. We try to promote Canadians wherever we can, use every opportunity to introduce them to like-minded people over here. We throw the odd reception to bring people together and we’ve found that opens a lot of doors.

Rosemary House was over here and released one of the documentaries she had done on Bloomsday, which is the music of James Joyce. We had a reception here and she made tremendous contacts. There was another woman who’s from Ontario and has a summer home in Renews who is married to an Irishman and has done some Irish documentaries on emigration and immigration. She is now trying to put together a film on the Blasket Islands, which would be like doing a documentary about Merasheen island in Placentia Bay – the last bastion of the Irish culture. They still spoke Irish when they were forced to move from there. She came here and we invited in a number of people and the opportunities that they had to meet people who had some interest one way or another. Rosemary ended up with, I think, two or three different opportunities to show her documentary and get involved with the Bloomsday festival. Eleanor met up with people who had owned the Blaskets or had investments there, wanted to invest, all kinds of things you do like that.

The third division here is the one that manages the properties, the one that looks after the employees in relation to salary and the residences and the places where the Canadian people stay.

It’s a handful.

I never had a drink in my life. If I did, I wouldn’t have time to have a pint. But that’s what I wanted. I didn’t come over here to sit around. We could easily do that home. It’s a great opportunity to do something worthwhile.

Sounds like a lot to sort through. How do you prioritize?
One of the biggest things that we’re working on is direct flights between Ireland and Canada. We don’t have them except for a couple of months during the summer. If you wanted to come here later on in the fall, you would probably end up flying to Toronto, flying back over Newfoundland, flying to London, then to Ireland. It took me 34 hours to get home Easter.

If we had a direct flight between here and say, St. John’s, it would be a little less than four hours.

Different attempts have been made in the past. The business group would do it, or the tourism group would do it, or the students, whatever. What we did in this case is, we looked at everyone involved, every agency, and we got the Irish-Canada Partnerships Business Association which we have here representing all the Canadian companies here in Dublin. Very active. And we work hand in glove with them. We have an Irish Canadian Society which represents the people generally, it’s more of a social outlet. We got them involved. We have the City of Dublin, the Lord Mayor has become a good friend of mine. We have the City of Dublin actively involved. We have Tourism Ireland, the department of tourism for Ireland … we have Dublin Airport heavily involved … we have the airports in Halifax and St. John’s heavily involved … ourselves, we would have access to all the numbers, immigration, people who travel to work, the student programs, student exchange, all that kind of stuff. We have compiled a brief, completed last week. We’ve met already with Air Canada, Aire Lingus. We have created a real interest in some of the airlines and there are other airlines also who are looking at this and expressing interest. We hope to do it in a reasonable period of time because it’s not as easy as it seems, you know, put a plane on tomorrow. Most of them only have planes enough to cover the routes they cover. You have landing times and costs and crews and all this kind of stuff. How many days you can operate and whatever. It’s a complicated job BUT there is major interest and I would think some time in the foreseeable future, in the next 12 to 18 months, we’ll find an airline providing a direct year-round link between Ireland and some part of Canada.

There’s a lot of stuff on culture too. Darcy McGee, who was born here in Ireland and shot on the streets of Ottawa, is well known over here. Well known in Canada. Not a lot was done to recognize that. We’re using that to build on. There’s the major wreck up in Bomcrawna with 23 Newfoundlanders lost. They do a major commemoration up there on the anniversary in January. We had the Air India crash just off Momtry Bay here in Ireland and we’ll represent the country at that in June. There are a number of things that are commemorated over here that tie in with Canada, a lot of them with our part of Canada (Newfoundland).

Speaking of those close cultural ties between Newfoundland and Ireland, do you ever feel like you’re as much Newfoundland’s representative over here as you are Canada’s?
Yes, I sometimes feel like Newfoundland’s ambassador to Ireland, especially on the university side, the cultural side. On the university side, a lot of work is being done with relation to ocean research and so on. Heavy connections with Newfoundland when you get to talking culture and music and so on. Now, because of the way things are turning around at home, we’re seeing the business interest also. Certainly, Newfoundland is not the 2% that we are of the Canadian population. It’s a lot more than 2% attention here, not just because I’m here, but because of the nature of our geography – and our geology. Where we’re doing exceptionally well right now because of the development of offshore oil resources, Ireland really isn’t getting that much income from its raw resources. There are reasons for that, but some say they haven’t pursued it the way we have and that something that a number of them are looking at now. To get themselves out of the current financial situation that they find themselves in, they need to find new money somewhere and I really think they have, personally, a lot of untapped natural resources and I think you’re going to see a bigger effort there over the next few years. Who better to help work with them, advise them, than the people of Newfoundland? There’s a natural fit there.

Looking to the financial sector, Ireland was in a tight spot after the most recent global financial crisis while Canada fared fairly well. Do you get asked many questions about the Canadian economy and its fiscal situation?
Do I get calls from people in Ireland wanting to learn from the Canadian banking example? Big time. We’ve had a number of meetings. The Finance minister here is close to the Finance minister in Ottawa. In fact, we had some meetings last week when the president of Treasury Board was here. He met with the Finance minister and the junior finance minister, who is responsible must as the president of treasury board in Canada for public sector employment and where the money is spent. We had great chats.

The Minister of Finance in Canada, of course, is Jim Flaherty. His people came from Galway one generation ago. Jim is very, very close to Ireland. We were very good friends when I was in Ottawa and that’s carried over, I have a very good liaison. That might be the advantage of coming from the political side rather than the bureaucratic side. There are certain things that need to be driven from the top. When you’re sort of buddies with some of the key movers, it’s easy to sit down and have a chat about things that are of real importance. I wouldn’t bother them with foolishness. Things where we see real opportunities one way or the other. To have people like Jim Flaherty, Peter McKay, Tony Clement, around, you can sit down and chat with them – makes the job a lot easier.

Do you foresee a larger presence for the Canadian financial sector in Ireland?
We already have a very good presence here as is in relation to some of our financial companies. Many of the major banks are established here. Not in the sense of the retail side, like you can’t go into a Bank of Canada and cash your cheque or the Bank of Nova Scotia or Montreal. But all these banks, I think I’ve met with all of them, I try to meet with any Canadian contacts we have here, formally and informally. Most of them are established here on the commercial side, working with other banks. Canadian financial agencies have some involvement with some of the Irish banks. They also, not only with the banking sector but with a lot of sectors, it’s a stepping stone to the rest of Europe too. They’re based here but doing a lot of work throughout Europe.

I think you’re going to see more demand on Canada. The big question we’re asked is, how did you guys avoid the recession? My answer, quite often, is that we have an Irish Finance minister. Without hesitation you’ll hear them say, send him home.

One of the ministers here last week kind of spoiled that because I said we had an Irish finance minister. He looked at me and he said, we did too.

But they are really looking towards Canada. I remember being there when we took an awful lot of heat on a lot of things, fairly quite often, on the banking changes that we made a few years ago. Everybody said they were too tough, too stringent. Now, of course, it’s thank god that you made them.

On the other hand, one of the things we don’t have is mortgage deductibility. You can’t claim your mortgage on your income tax. They do over here. Of course, if you can claim your mortgage, you don’t worry too much about your interest because you’re knocking off most of it anyway. Consequently, little things like that that encourage people to go out and borrow a lot, not worry too much about your personal debt load, when the bottom went out of everything, these are the people who got hurt and they’re now losing their homes and whatever.

Our housing bubble in Canada was quite tight. It didn’t burst, we controlled it very well. These are the things they’re looking at, the things that made the difference, why our economy didn’t tank. Why our housing market didn’t go bottom up. They are learning from there, actively involved.

In fact, we’re seeing groups, agencies talking and meeting.

How long will you be Canada’s Ambassador to Ireland?
It’s a four year appointment, I’m here less than a year. If everything goes right, I’ll be here for three more years. You can request an extra year, after that it would be the call of the department and the government. But I think, something like this, four years is just about right. A year wouldn’t be enough. It’s only now you’re getting the feel of it and starting to feel effective because you’re getting to know the people, you’re seeing the opportunities, you know the players. You need the next couple of years to really start to build on that and work things out and then a year to sort things out and make sure that everything is coming together. In my case, I doubt very much that I … not that I wouldn’t want to or wouldn’t enjoy being here. It’s a lovely spot. For me, it’s a second home and I’ve been on the go quite a bit.

This is sort of the crowning… I couldn’t say no to this one. I always say I retired from the best job I ever had. I enjoyed fisheries more than anything I ever did in my life. And there were some really good things happened from a fisherman’s point of view. Whether it be capital gains, what we did with NAFO, contrary to what some might say. I mean, the record speaks for itself. You don’t hear anything about overfishing these days. Stocks are rebuilding. Collectively, we had a great department and I loved that.

I had been involved on and off and I was coming home to come home, but I had always said that the only thing for which I’d lace up again was if I got a chance, in some capacity, to work with Ireland. Out of the blue, the ambassador who was here got an early appointment and it opened up the doors. How could you say no?

What were your thoughts when you arrived, vis-a-vis the Irish economy and the stability of its government?
I’m not as concerned about the Irish economy now as I would have been six months ago, or four or five months ago. I came here when the former government was in its last few days and there were major battles politically going on. Then we had the election and a minority government but then both parties, the Fine Gael and Labour came together. They seem to have made a solid compact. They are operating as a government and not two parties, which is very positive. I think it’s like everything else. When the going gets tough, people really come together. You forget your own personal animosities and they’re working together for the good of the country.

For a while, all you heard was that Ireland is going to go bankrupt. The Irish economy headlined every economic story. You’re not hearing that now. You’re hearing about Greece and you’re hearing some other countries mentioned. Ireland isn’t out of the woods by any means, and they still have some very hard decisions to make. But I think the politicians here, business to a large extent, a lot of people feel that collectively, it will be tough but they can come out of it. They always did. That’s basically what the old crowd would say, we always came out of it.

I think that kind of optimism is here and if they play the game right and people are sensible… and they are sensible. You don’t see any major protests here. People are realistic. A lot of that comes from being well educated. The young people understand what’s going on. You’re going to see a major drive by everybody to try to put Ireland back on solid footing. You have to remember that what happened here was the banks overextended by far, they were giving away money like they were giving away candy. People took advantage of that, and low interest rates, and instead of building one house they wanted to build four. Three to pay for my own. When they realized the bottom was gone out of that market, because everybody was building houses, the construction industry had gotten completely out of whack, that was mainly what built the job opportunities. Most people unemployed would be in that sector.

There hasn’t been one multinational that left Ireland. Exports are up by 12 per cent or more this year. It’s mainly in the construction sector – that’s what put the banks in trouble. And the government had guaranteed the banks and that’s what put government in trouble. It’s a small circle but the amount of money was horrendous. It really weakened the economy.

They will need help from their friends. As our politicians have offered, they’re there to do whatever they can to help in any way at all, they’ll be available. Certainly, we have told them – look, if we can do anything as a conduit to meetings with the right people, to provide you with information, if we can let you know about opportunities for investment or job opportunities, we’re there to do it. And we’re working with the Canadian side, looking at projects that weren’t finished by maybe do have potential, just don’t have money, opportunities are there for Canadian companies.

Any worries about political unrest in Northern Ireland?
You travel back and forth into Northern Ireland now the same as if you were travelling into Galway or Cork. No difference. You go up to Belfast for a day the same as you go anywhere else. There was a little bit of a kerfuffle around July, marching time. Every year they commemorate some of the old battles with marches. Sooner or later, I guess, they’ll give those up.

What happens is… it would be like Petty Harbour winning, in the old days, the hockey league, the Harbour winning the cup. Instead of parading through Petty Harbour, they would parade through the Goulds who they just beat. You aggravate old hurts even more.

That was the old days. Generally speaking, things are going quite well. The regional council up there has even talked about, maybe it’s time to be taking down some of the walls. I have no jurisdiction on the other side of the border. Northern Ireland comes under the office in London. However, I deal with… in fact, tomorrow I’ll be right on the border, and I have been a number of times dealing with towns, dealing with cross-border committees. I’ve been invited up there oodles of times to participate and I’ve had to say I can’t officially, but we can certainly meet on this end and anything we can do to help further the peace process. But things are coming along really well. There’s still, I suppose, some old harboured animosities. The Queen’s visit here helped to dispel a lot of the old feelings, the old hurts. From a lot of people, the comment afterwards is that it’s time to move on. She was gracious. She seemed to be extremely sincere. Most people accepted her when she came. To have the Queen participate in a function here, the last night she was here, and to get a standing ovation from people in the Republic of Ireland. That was unheard-of.

My first suggestion was to encourage a small community in the region to take on the goal of becoming the world’s greenest small town or village. My next suggested idea is to encourage another such community to focus on becoming the world’s healthiest place to live.

Consider this: we all know health care costs are raging out of control with worse to come absent new ways of tackling the responsibility. We know child obesity and diabetes are huge issues with that need to be dealt with. We know, and indeed want, a more preventative approach rather than spending 99.9 per cent of our health care budgets on treatment and cures. And we know there isn’t a single politician in the country with the courage to actually confront these challenges. So this is up to us.

Again, what I am advocating is for an Atlantic Canadian community (or communities) to decide it really wants to take on the twin tasks of reversing the rural population decline and come up with an inspired economic development initiative. This will obviously take local leadership but — most importantly — local participation and commitment. In both cases such goals come with an extensive measuring process, accompanied by a robust education program. Arguments for both are resident in the belief that the more individuals are aware of their health condition and that of their family members, the more likely they are to be engaged in doing what they can to remedy, preserve and protect them.

The P to 12 education curriculum in the community would be amended to include a mandatory physical education component and extensive counselling on nutrition and the relationship between nutrition, exercise and disease. It is absolutely critical that young people get this message during a time when they are forming values which will guide their future lifestyles.

The science of genomics has progressed to the point where every individual can have their own genome profile for less than $5,000. This will soon become $500. What’s the value of that? Such mapping will indicate certain preconditions, such as a greater risk of cardiovascular disease. That knowledge can be instrumental in tailoring lifestyle to minimizing such risk. We now know about 40 per cent of all prescription medicine, on which we spend billions and from which many suffer unpleasant side effects, is basically useless beyond a placebo effect. This is because each of us has a genomic profile which is not tolerant of a particular medicine. In other words, having your own genome map would, with certainty, determine whether a particular drug or medicine was going to have the desired remedial impact. Bingo, we save 40 per cent of the costs of prescription medicines.

Local restaurants would specialize in healthy food menus. Robust messaging would explain the costs and consequences of deep-fried foods and too much sodium intake. Nutrition experts from around the world would be invited to help design such local programs. Media would be constantly focused on the latest ideas for living a healthier lifestyle and the progress of the community in moving towards its goals. Pharma companies would embrace the opportunity to measure the effectiveness of their drugs in a community capable of tailoring the treatment to the patient. Governments would be anxious to understand how treatment and curative costs can be reduced through a more proactive commitment to healthy living and thus how much of their budgets might be redirected to such an objective.

Imagine the attraction of the community to those considering where they might raise young families and imagine the slew of small business opportunities for entrepreneurs intent on using the community to test an idea whose ultimate market would be global.

In 1862, word came from Queen Victoria herself: there was no Gentleman’s Club in Halifax, and it was high time one was put in place.

When the queen speaks, people listen. A dozen high-profile Halifax businessmen promptly got together and purchased land on Hollis Street, in the heart of the city. In less than two years the Halifax Club opened.

“It was a refuge from all that was going on in a man’s business and in the business world,” says Jodi Bartlett, general manager of the club today. “It was very exclusive, very prestigious, and very limited.”

Napoleon Room, Halifax Club

The club prospered. Over the decades, it remained a place where men met for billiards, cigars, business meetings and high-powered lunches. Connections were made, plans laid and deals brokered.

It didn’t change in a major way until 1985, when the first woman was allowed to join. (It was a 10-year lobbying effort by a female lawyer, Noella Fisher, that resulted in this “momentous” change.) Today’s Halifax Club, like private business clubs across the country, is nothing like the 12 old boys from 1862 had in mind.

THE CLUB SCENE
It’s not just that women now make up about 40 per cent of the Halifax Club’s 1,000-plus membership. Daily business tasks can’t stop at the door; cell phones and laptops are allowed everywhere in the building except the dining room.

“The club has to change,” says Bartlett. “(Today’s members) want to build business relationships, they want to learn… they also want to have fun.” And they want to do it efficiently. The Halifax Club hosts more than a dozen events a month, including lunch speakers, happy hours and dances. The dining is modern and high-end.

While members are still greeted by name, the doors have opened a little wider and the services have gotten a little more extensive. Because of it, the Halifax Club is thriving in a way many of its brethren are not.

FINDING ITS FOOTING
Douglas Reevey, president of the Union Club in Saint John, has been leading a major effort to rejuvenate his club. For decades, the business model was little more than “we are the Union Club.” The right people just joined — no recruiting necessary. That doesn’t happen any more.

The Union Club has been open since 1884, and in its current location for over 120 years.

“Back in the day, this was a place men could go for some privacy; men who had some wealth and were in business in the area,” Reevey says. He imagines the heyday of the 1930s and 1940s, when Saint John was bustling as the main port in Atlantic Canada. The Union Club was the place to be.

(Aside: women were allowed to join the Union Club as of 1936. They even had their own room, the Ladies Lounge, and linen towels and Pears soap in the powder room.)

“The private business club industry has been in a downturn,” he admits. “People don’t drink at lunch time anymore. Society doesn’t approve of three-hour lunches.”

To locals, though, the club is still perceived as a closed, elite group. “I invite friends here for lunch and they say things like ‘we can really go there?” The Union Club still has some prestige — but that doesn’t pay the bills.

Reevey reports the Union Club is evolving with the times, a move which put it on stable financial footing for the first time in years. They’ve started a regular lunchtime series with high-profile guests. There’s a new “younger, hipper lounge” upstairs that’s fully wired, and where cell-phone use is welcomed — unlike in the rest of the club.

It would be, without question, the most important federal announcement in more than a generation of Maritime industry. A few days before the news in October, it was all anybody along the Port of Halifax could talk about. Would the Irving-owned yards — the last major shipbuilding enterprise in the region — win the lion’s share of a $33-billion contract to supply the Royal Canadian Navy with state-of-the-art warships? Or would it, like so many other players in the high-stakes lottery of “regional industrial benefits”, go home a loser from a crooked game of baccarat? Rumour had it that even Las Vegas bookies were making odds.

People who knew anything about Irving and the men and women it hired to go “down to the sea in boats” knew, in their bones, that the commercial behemoth, born of humble origins a century ago, deserved the work. After all, it had built the current fleet of Canadian frigates, and two technologically advanced supply vessels at its old facilities in Saint John, New Brunswick, during the last half of the last century.

A group of senior Irving Shipbuilding employees pose for a photo in July 2011. This is a small sample of the more than 200 Irving Shipbuilding employees that worked on the Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF) program when Irving Shipbuilding build 12 frigates under the program through the 1990s in St. John, New Brunswick.

But they also knew that life on the hardscrabble Atlantic seaboard was rarely fair, and that political considerations elsewhere often superseded sound business judgements here. And so, they girded themselves for the distinct possibility that the big money would go to either Seaspan Marine of Vancouver (where the Harper government was hoping to enhance its popularity), or Davie Shipyard across the river from Quebec City (where the Prime Minister’s Office was merely hoping to gain back ground lost to the NDP in the last general election).

As matters transpired, however, these gloomy prognostications did not. The news hit the sleet-sprayed coast like an Indian summer: $25 billion to Irving; $8 billion to Seaspan; and bupkis to Davie, which had narrowly missed both bankruptcy and tendering deadlines during the bidding process. Streets from Halifax to northern New Brunswick erupted as much with astonishment as elation.

“I stand here as proud a Nova Scotian as you could possibly be,” Premier Darrell Dexter told a crowd outside the Irving yards. “Today marks the beginning of a brighter future, a future that sees an entirely new generation of shipbuilders, a future that sees our sons and daughters be able to come home from the west.”

Indeed, the expected economic impact is staggering. The Conference Board of Canada estimates that the work to build 15 surface combat ships and between six and eight Arctic patrol ships over 30 years will boost the average annual value of goods and services in Nova Scotia by $661 million and maintain 8,400 jobs. During the peak years of 2020 and 2021, the number of workers employed will reach 11,500 and the province’s GDP will increase by nearly $1 billion.

In the end, the contract will likely generate economic value equal to Nova Scotia’s entire mining and offshore oil and gas sector and far greater than its tourism and hospitality industry. But more than this, declared an editorial in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, “There’s the psychological boost. Thousands of Nova Scotians … believed Irving had the financial and manufacturing strength to do the job and the edge over B.C. and Quebec rivals in warship experience. …But it was still a heart-pumping shock to have the selection committee confirm it. On the criteria all the bidders agreed to, the Irving bid was the best. It’s fantastic to win a transformational opportunity of this scale. And even better to win it fairly on merit.”

What’s he going to do and how? Atlantic Business Magazine’s contributing editor Alec Bruce caught up with him in November to ask him those very (and several other) questions. Here are excerpts from that interview.

Atlantic Business Magazine: It’s no secret that New Brunswick’s fiscal situation is in near-critical condition. This, more than anything else, undermines the province’s prospects for long-term, sustainable prosperity. As there are really only two ways any government can respond in a situation like this — cutting programs and raising taxes — what are your options?

David Alward: Actually, I would say there are three ways: expenditure reduction, revenue-raising through taxation, and growing the economy. But let’s look at where we are right at the moment.

We were left with a billion-dollar-plus projected deficit by the previous government. Initially, we came forward with a projected deficit of under $450 million. Now, after the second quarter (2011), we are over by somewhere around $100 million. A significant chunk of that was thanks to revenue reductions. We were also dealing with higher expenditures … in pensions, but also in social development and health programs.

What are the biggest spending items in your budget?

There’s health, which accounts for approximately 40 per cent of our overall budget this year. We’ve seen health care increase by 70 per cent, or more, per year. This year, we gave health a budget that’s three to five per cent larger than last year, and we are looking to hold it to that rate of growth. The second piece is education. In fact, the department of education and early childhood development is looking into how we can be smarter with our investments in ways that allow us to focus on the classroom for our children. I believe that this department will be a leader as we position ourselves, going forward.

Why don’t you just hike the rate of the provincial portion of the Harmonized Sales Tax if you need more money?

What we have said regarding that is — number one — I did not run in the last election with a mandate to increase the HST. In New Brunswick we have the Taxpayers Protection Act which (says) I cannot bring forward an increase in this tax unless I specifically ran on this as part of my (platform). The alternative is that I call for a referendum on the issue. I think we only have to look at what took place in British Columbia to understand the importance of this kind of accountability. …If you focus only on increasing taxes, then you do a complete disservice to the people of New Brunswick.

So then, again, what are your options “going forward,” as you say?

It is clear we need to get our house in order. And, just staying on taxes for a moment, when they are needed we raise them through (levies) on gasoline and diesel, and also on tobacco and liquor. We’ve halted reductions in personal income taxes for the highest income-earners in New Brunswick, and we will not be moving forward with further corporate tax cuts.

But the real point is we need to go and understand what services we need to provide. …We need to know what our core values are, what our core services are and focus on those services. We need to find ways to deliver them more efficiently. …It’s about how we can reorganize government. …In the last four years there has been a growth in the public service of 8,000 (positions). We have to look at the long term.

Shoe-horned into an older wing of the Dr. Georges L. Dumont University Hospital in uptown Moncton, one of the nation’s leading centers for medical inquiry and technology development is not much bigger than a high school chemistry lab. “On the other hand,” laughs its president and scientific director Rodney Ouellette, who holds out his hands as if to suggest that size isn’t everything, “you should have seen us when we started.”

In fact, despite its cramped and unprepossessing quarters, the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute (ACRI) is at the vanguard of some of the most innovative and important work in the areas of early detection and treatment of a disease that, in its various incarnations, claims nearly eight million lives a year worldwide. Over the past 12 months, it has taken a crucial step towards commercializing its research, having secured a U.S. patent on its molecular method for diagnosing prostate cancer. Now, it has begun the clinical evaluation phase to demonstrate how its process is more precise and reliable than standard diagnostic tools.

(L-R): The Atlantic Cancer Research Institute's Françoise Roy, executive director and Dr. Rodney Ouellette, president and scientific director. They and their team are leaders in prostate cancer research.

“Trying to understand tumor biology is a very worthy goal,” Ouellette says. “But, sometimes, there’s a gap between the discovery and application of something. So, we’ve been determined to understand the questions that are important to the people who are actually on the front lines. Essentially, what are the challenges they need to overcome to better deal with the patient population they see on an ongoing basis?”

And just so there is no misunderstanding about ACRI’s overarching objective, the organization’s executive director Françoise Roy flashes a knowing look at Ouellette and declares: “Our mission is to get from the lab to the bedside ASAP.”

It’s a startlingly confident statement of principle for an organization that began its institutional life on little more than a wink and a prayer. That was in 1998, when the young Ouellette — who had left his New Brunswick home to earn a medical degree and a PhD — returned with a dream to conduct biomedical research in a setting that nurtured the kind of hard science and practical breakthroughs common in places like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

The problem was there was nothing to come back to in Moncton. “At that time, the landscape, research-wise, in New Brunswick was pretty barren,” Ouellette says. “There really wasn’t very much going on. Universities typically chose other areas to spend their research dollars on. A lot of this was tied to natural resources. Also, though, we didn’t have
medical training programs which often serve as centres of gravity for health and medical research.”

There were other, more pragmatic, obstacles to hurdle. “In fact, the law in New Brunswick didn’t allow (public health dollars) to go to health care research,” Roy explains. “So, right from the get-go, there was no money to be had to finance this activity, as it was against the law. …So, the onus was on us to go out and find funding. Quite frankly, we had to be entrepreneurial. But the challenge allowed us to be a bit more nimble than we might otherwise have been.”

And more inventive. In the end, the solution was to establish the nascent institute as a not-for-profit operation, which gave it the independence it needed to qualify for broad funding programs. “We couldn’t have a finger pointed at us,” Ouellette says. “We couldn’t have anyone saying we were doing research on the back of patient care. Our structure gave us actual opportunities to grow within the health care system. Some doors that were initially closed to us probably opened.” Even so, the early days were hard going. Getting people to understand the research was one thing. Getting them to appreciate that advanced, practical science could actually flourish in this part of the Maritimes, and deserved to be taken seriously, was a little like convincing a politician that particle physics is a job-creation strategy. But Ouellette and his staff — one research technician and a student — persevered. Slowly, minds changed and opportunities came knocking.

“Initially, support from the community was crucial,” Roy says. “It remains crucial.” Indeed, says Ouellette: “It started with the community. The hospital foundation and some large corporations, like Assumption Life, National Bank and Dooley’s, came on board. And that provided us with the leveraging capability that we needed to help us build the infrastructure that, in turn, gave us the credibility to continue.” Arguably, ACRI’s biggest break arrived in the form of a large contribution from the Atlantic Innovation Fund, administered by the federally managed Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, early in the last decade. Since then, the Institute — which operates with an annual budget of about $3.5 million from government grants, donations and revenues derived from medical services it renders to other organizations — has raised a total of $30 million for research. Today, Ouellette is pleased to report, ACRI employs more than 40 of the best researchers and technicians in the world.

“That’s really what it is all about: attracting the best,” Ouellette says. “But to get them to come here, you have to provide them with the infrastructure and the opportunities. That’s what it takes to be a truly competitive research institute. A young researcher is not going to sacrifice his or her career to work in a place that doesn’t provide the tools, a competitive laboratory environment. So we have to keep fundraising and being entrepreneurial. In fact, we’ve often acted as a contract research organization for other colleagues.”

Adds Roy: “They are also attracting other scholars with their own national grants. So we’re a magnet and there’s a multiplier effect.”

The effect, it seems, is working to great advantage.

Scientists at the Institute and Sackville, N.B.-based Soricimed Biopharma Inc. are currently studying how the molecular target of the toxin from the lowly shrew can be used to develop a screening test for breast, prostate and ovarian cancers. The procedure could identify patients who would most likely benefit from treatment based on a compound derived from the toxin.

Meanwhile ACRI researchers Dr. Stephen Lewis and Dr. Gilles Robichaud have obtained grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The former will continue his work on apprehending the way a particular protein in the human body controls the production of other cancer-promoting or suppressing proteins. His research may provide vital insight into the underlying mechanisms that cause the growth of the disease, itself. For his part, Robichaud will investigate the processes that transform healthy cells into cancerous ones. The research should improve understanding of breast cancer
biology and, in turn, lead to more effective diagnostic tools and therapies.

Not to be left out, Ouellette, himself, along with ACRI staff Michelle Davey and others, have received a grant from Colon Cancer Canada and the Colorectal Cancer Screening Initiative to fund research designed to assist scientists in their efforts to demonstrate that intact cells shed from the colon can be isolated and ultimately used to develop an accurate, non-invasive test for early detection of the disease.

To support these initiatives and others, ACRI recently acquired a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer — which it installed in the chemistry department of Mount Allison University — to enable researchers to more fully investigate the subtle factors that underlie and contribute to the disease progressing.

And then, of course, there’s the groundbreaking molecular methodology for diagnosing prostate cancer, which ACRI developed in collaboration with the National Research Council’s Fredericton-based Institute for Information Technology. “Essentially, we found that we could identify a certain group of genes that would change in the same way when the cell is cancerous, and would change in the opposite way when the cell is normal,”

Ouellette says. “So instead of looking at 25,000 genes, we can deploy a microarray to whittle that number down to find a very small number of genes that we could develop in a kit to screen patients,”

If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is. But the real-world potential of this and, indeed, all of ACRI’s notquite-ready-for-prime-time innovations is tantalizingly close. And if any of these processes, technologies and applications reach the market, they will almost certainly save billions of dollars for health care systems and millions of lives around the world.

This promise, alone, is worth the occasional struggles ACRI has endured over the years. “Actually, things are getting better for research here,” he says. “Over the past four or five years, New Brunswick (the government) has decided that innovation and research and development will be part of the province’s economic fabric. And we get CVs on a regular basis. Our doors should be open.”

Now, if only Dr. Ouellette can find a place to put them all.