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Premier Rodney MacDonald's column
Alberta is a marketplace for Nova Scotia products and business partnerships
Chronicle Herald
January 29, 2007
Working with Alberta.
It's a simple idea with immense benefits for our businesses and our people.
And it's a shift away from seeing Nova Scotians leave for work in Alberta.
Businesses are growing in Nova Scotia, creating more jobs and attracting and keeping skilled workers. I believe our companies are perfectly positioned to continue growing here by tapping into Alberta's need for our products and services. It's time for us to adjust our thinking.
It's already happening: Mulgrave Machine Works saw Alberta's demand as a good business opportunity, not a threat to Mulgrave's business and workforce in the Strait of Canso area. The company is fabricating large steel pressure vessels (or tanks) that it ships to its clients in Alberta. That has created spinoffs, such as work for a Harve Boucher trucking company to transport the pressure vessels from Nova Scotia to Alberta.
Sean Reid, Mulgrave Machine Work's general manager, says his company is intent on helping reverse the trend of outmigration by securing work to manufacture products that Alberta needs.
Reid says he is bringing in new younger trades people and Mulgrave Machine has also attracted workers back from Western Canada. Dave Gillis spent years in Fort McMurray, but he moved back home to work at Mulgrave Machine Works.
This is a positive shift toward working for Alberta, instead of an exodus of our people going to work in that province's oil patch. I personally know many people, friends of mine, who are working out West, and I believe we all want to see more stories of Nova Scotians, like Dave Gillis, returning to our shores.
On behalf of Nova Scotians, I led our province's delegation in the Council of Atlantic Premiers' business mission last week to Edmonton and Fort McMurray. Joining me were six Nova Scotia companies, including Neill and Gunter, engineering and environmental consultants for the oil and gas industry; TrentonWorks, which has the largest metal fabrication facilities in eastern Canada; and Sydney's Laurentian Steel Fabricators.
Before the trip, Laurentian had signed a $4-million deal with Nabors Industries to build components for land-based drilling rigs here in Nova Scotia – this is part of the work resulting from my government's Deep Panuke local benefits agreement with EnCana Corp.
Last week's effort in Alberta isn't the first and it won't be the last. In December, my government's business development agency, Nova Scotia Business Inc., and 27 manufacturing companies, metal fabricators and service providers from our province were also in Alberta to forge partnerships and secure contracts.
Promoting Nova Scotia and working with our businesses to help them find every opportunity to grow their markets and expand their businesses is something my government is serious about. We've delivered on our commitments to increase the small business threshold for the low corporate income tax rate. We've reduced the Large Corporations Capital Tax. And my government's Competitiveness and Compliance Initiative is improving the way laws are designed – by 2010, the Province will have reduced the paperwork burden associated with regulatory requirements by 20 per cent.
It's all part of my government's overall commitment to seize new opportunities and create winning conditions here in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is prospering and we want all Nova Scotians to be part of that prosperity. You won't find a better place to live, work, learn and grow.