By Janice Harvey

With the second report from Premier Graham's self-sufficiency task
force, we are presented with a definitive economic development
prescription by task force members Francis Maguire and Gilles Lapage.
One wonders why Premier Graham bothered to call this a task force,
rather than simply hiring them to write a report based on their own
perceptions and assumptions.

A task force charged to solve a particularly complex problem is
generally comprised with individuals representing a variety of
perspectives, expertise and experience and it engages in broad public
consultation to inform its deliberations. A report with
recommendations comes at the end of a thoughtful, inclusive process,
and reflects as much as possible a consensus of thinking among its
diverse members, influenced by what they have heard from the public.

The Maguire-Lapage task force meets none of these criteria. The two
members appear to be single-minded on both the problems and the
solutions. These are laid out in two early reports as declarations of
'reality' without the benefit of any public consultation. Their
website invites people to e-mail them or "stakeholders" to meet with
them privately, but what is the point of that if they have already
decided on the what the right answers are?

This is not to suggest they have not been talking with anyone. Their
prescription for economic progress comes straight from industry play
books.

Reducing conservation restrictions and increasing fibre plantations to
increase wood supply is lifted right out of the controversial Jaakko
Poyry report of a few years ago, measures that were widely rejected by
the public in province-wide consultations, and by the subsequent
report of the Legislative committee on wood supply.

The energy agenda is simply that of the Saint John energy hub and NB
Power, reinforced in the Liberal election platform. Its reiteration by
Maguire-Lapage instills an even greater sense of inevitability in the
public mind, like it or not.

Turning New Brunswick into a network of highways and ports as part of
the so-called Atlantic gateway is the Atlantica agenda. This report
simply increases the lobby for billions of tax dollars invested in
infrastructure to move goods through our province to other markets.

The call centre vision? Been there, done that. Research and
development hubs? These have shown up in government reports for the
past two decades. Investments in new technology to increase
productivity? Recycled 1980s ideas. Remember the pulp mill
remodernization program?

Even the section of the report on the environment (clearly a response
to polls and heightened political rhetoric) is outdated. The notion of
finding "a balance between economic development and ecological
sustainability" underpins both federal and provincial environmental
impact assessment legislation from the 1970s. This approach has
summarily failed to prevent ecological decline.

"Making environmental considerations an integral part of our economic
planning," otherwise called sustainable development, was the mandate
of the Premier's Round Table on Environment and Economy which was
struck in 1987 and eventually disbanded by Premier Lord. It didn't
work. The task force report itself fails to reflect this notion in any
of the sectoral recommendations it makes.

Taken all together, this report simply says to do more of the same,
only harder and faster. It reflects a corporate agenda with a
single-minded purpose: to increase exports so as to increase tax
revenues, which if the assumption holds, may result in the elimination
of equalization payments from Ottawa in 20 years.

Such an agenda does not come without costs. There will be a social
cost. It will result in increasing ghetto-ization of remote
communities as local resources are diverted to centralized operations
and large corporations.

There will be an economic cost. Funneling scarce government resources
into export industries at the expense of local businesses serving
local markets will increase our economic dependence on forces over
which we have no control, and it will inhibit local entrepreneurial
projects.

There will be an environmental cost. Increased intensity of
resource-based industries inevitably pushes ecosystems into decline.
An export-driven economy, especially one anchored in oil refining and
transportation is, by definition, carbon intensive.

There is another vision - one that is community-based, climate
friendly and truly transformational. But this task force is not set up
to consider it or frankly, even to understand it.

It's Premier Graham's responsibility to invite all New Brunswickers to
participate in defining our future. To impose a prescription
essentially written by big business without the benefit of alternative
views is to overlook some of the most innovative and transformational
ideas and forces at play in our province.

Janice Harvey is a freelance writer and a long-time director of the
Conservation Council of New Brunswick. She can be reached by e-mail at
waweig@nbnet.nb.ca.