Q: How did you get involved with Nova Scotia Business Inc.?

A: As a business person I am in my senior years and I have something to offer. Public service has always been in the blood of the family; I thought that I could pay back something. I suggested they should be asking other people to do it, but they kept on coming back to me, so I said OK I’ll do it and we set out.

And the person who pushed for me to become chair beyond (Gordon) Balser (then-economic development minister) was John Hamm. It’s pretty hard to refuse the premier when the premier wants you to do something. You can refuse a minister or a deputy minister, but it’s hard to refuse a premier.

Q: Did you have a specific goal in mind at that time?

A: I thought we could have expansion and attraction with something closer to private-sector guidelines. I didn’t feel the government needed to be concessionary as it had been in some circumstances. I thought it could be done differently at less cost to the taxpayer. I pushed it back a fair bit, but I did not push it back to the level I was seeking. There’s some selling to do on that yet.

There is still a culture among some business people and their advisers that they need to have low-cost money forgiven here, and all sorts of things. There are some jurisdictions that do that in the attraction field and there are others that don’t. But when the final gun is fired, here it is about the return on investment for the people of Nova Scotia. If you keep that up front when you’re making the initial decision, you can sell and create jobs without having as much of the concessionary term we saw from sometime in the ’70s to some time in the mid-90s.

Q: It’s widely noted that Nova Scotia Business Inc. was created to take the politics out of development. Was that the vision from the inside?

A: John Hamm said to me what he wanted was a private-sector model like he remembered. He was thinking about the early days of Industrial Estates Limited with the push and shove of Frank Sobey and his crew. He wanted to get back to that. He was trying to bring a renewed vigour and entrepreneurship to the attraction, expansion retention and trade process.

His vision was accepted by the majority of his cabinet. I wouldn’t say all, it never is...

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