Still, the city’s current mayor, Ivan Court, insists on a stoically optimistic interpretation of events. “We are fortunate that over the past few years, we have been successful in positioning ourselves as an energy hub and in diversifying our economy,” he said last summer. “Early in our mandate, Council set a number of priorities and we remain committed to them. The city will aggressively pursue economic opportunity.”
All of which is to infer that Saint John will not easily relinquish its self-perceived role as New Brunswick’s leading industrial, municipal powerhouse – not now, not ever. And, in fact, why should it?
The greater municipal area is home to a fully employed labour force of more than 70,000 people, an unemployment rate of just 6.4 per cent, a median family income of nearly $60,000, average house prices hovering in the $160,000 range, and a large cohort of highly skilled, well-educated young people, courtesy of the University of New Brunswick at Saint John and the New Brunswick Community College.
It also boasts the second-largest – and one of the busiest – seaports in Atlantic Canada, which Saint John port authorities describe this way: “We have some of the most modern and best-equipped terminal facilities anywhere. Our transportation infrastructure, together with our roll-on/roll-off capacity and other specialized cargo handling and storage facilities, makes the port highly competitive in the North American marketplace.”
Meanwhile, information and communications technology promises to supplement Saint John’s traditional economic sectors with lucrative, high-tech service companies and software developers. Propesj, for example, is a private sector, non-profit organization dedicated to the growth of entrepreneurship, innovation and the expansion of the ICT sector in the city. Through its efforts, dozens of firms, creating hundreds of jobs, have been launched over the past three years.
Still, in the end, Saint John is all about energy. Despite Irving Oil’s disappointing refinery announcement, the construction of its new Liquified Natural Gas terminal at the Canaport facility is nearing completion – promising direct labour benefits of between $26 million and $30 million in the near future. Beyond this, say Enterprise Saint John officials, “Wind and tidal energy are forms of renewable nergy that are being explored and experimented with. Already, a good portion of New England’s energy originates from New Brunswick.”
In other words, there is – as former Mayor MacFarland might declare – a lot going on in this port city.
Fredericton: Where knowledge revives
Of New Brunswick’s three major, southern cities, Fredericton, the seat of the provincial government, has always considered itself. . .well, not exactly superior, but certainly the best equipped to meet the knowledge-economy challenges of the information age.
If Saint John is a tough-minded working man and Moncton is a hard-scrabble entrepreneur, then Fredericton is a university-bound research scientist. Or, perhaps, it’s a public servant with one too many advanced degrees to his name.
In any case, this municipality of 85,700 people (124,170 if you account for the Greater Fredericton Region’s bedroom communities) can certainly support its boast as the “Knowledge-based Capital” of New Brunswick. It’s home to 70 per cent of the province’s R&D firms and institutions, including the National Research Council’s Institute for Information Technology Canada and the nation’s largest per capita engineering cluster.
It is little wonder the city was named one of Canada’s top 10 places to live in 2009 (for the third straight year) by MoneySense magazine or that Fredericton has been recognized twice as one of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the World by the Intelligent Community Forum of New York.
“We are thrilled to add another accolade to our growing list of achievements,” gushed Mayor Brad Woodside in May after the MoneySense announcement. “We are committed to providing our residents with world-class infrastructure and further enhancing our quality of life.”
Unlike other communities in New Brunswick, Fredericton obtains its economic momentum from the ever-present hand of Government, six accredited universities and the proximity of CFB Gagetown (one of the biggest military training bases in the Commonwealth, which pumps upwards of $200-million a year into the municipal economy).
These factors have helped secure the city as a Mecca for the young, the skilled and the upwardly mobile. The labour force tends to be more youthful (the median age is 38.4 years, compared with the provincial average of 41.5 years) and affluent (the average family income is $82,137, compared with the New Brunswick mean of $68,465). And the employer base tends to skew towards secure, white collar opportunities.
