Data and Comments on New Brunswick Issues
Two years ago (2012), the government of New Brunswick released a new forestry management policy for Crown land. The 2012 plan was a compromise between those asking for more conservation / different management approaches and those who wanted more access to wood on Crown land. The annual allowable cut for softwood in the 2012 plan...
Shale gas exploration and extraction via hydraulic fracturing is a controversial and polarizing topic in New Brunswick. The public is divided on the issue and, as is often the case these days, social media are being used to rally supporters to one side or the other. Inflammatory rhetoric and exaggerated claims appear to dominate the...
A few months ago, the government of New Brunswick released its plan for reforming local governance. This has been a long time coming and it appears that fiscal pressures have finally forced action. While problems in local governance and cost-sharing have long been recognized, political resistance to change has prevented action until now. The Province...
Recently, the Mining Commissioner of the Province of New Brunswick released his report on the complaint by residents of the Penobsquis area regarding damage to their property they claimed was the result of mining activities by the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. As is detailed below, the Commissioner’s report deals mainly with a land subsidence claim...
In a previous post, we saw that if provincial government spending in New Brunswick over the past few decades is adjusted for inflation, non-health care spending has not increased since the mid-90s. Rising health care expenditures are largely responsible for spending increases since then. And how are those health care dollars being spent? The numbers...
New Brunswick is currently experiencing a fiscal crunch. Revenues are below expectations and expenditures are proving difficult to control. Meanwhile the Federal Governmnent has announced a new formula for allocating equalization payments that will tie increases in health care payments to GDP growth, plus those payments will (after 2015) be allocated on a per capita...