ITNovaScotia.com - Where IT's at in Nova Scotia > News - Please, give that optimist a medal

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Posted by: ITNovaScotia Admin	Thursday, May 03, 2007
I WOKE UP yesterday morning in Halifax to find that the sun was shining. The sky was neither louring nor black nor falling. Nor were the huddled masses headed West. I’d know if they were, because our home under-looks the MacKay Bridge and I like to watch the traffic. On Wednesday morning, a steady stream of vehicles rushed toward the busy, pogey-free peninsula of Halifax. So I guess that the world-as-we-know-it isn’t ending – yet. I offer that reassurance to all of you – but especially to those who hear the hounds of hell growling from the sloped shoulders of the low hills of Hants County. And to those people I say – get your hearing checked. For I fear that our collective senses are failing us. We see construction cranes on the skyline, but talk of economic doom. We know that some of the world’s biggest insurance and financial services companies have chosen to set up shop in Halifax. But we tell our children that economic prospects are better on the barren tundra – and in the uncultured cities – of the imagined Western territories. "Go away," we say in a faltering voice. "There is nothing for you here." Well, I never thought I’d say this, but thank God that Stephen Lund begs to differ. Lund runs Nova Scotia Business Inc., the agency that can take credit for attracting those financial services companies from Bermuda. Last week, Lund went to a career symposium at Halifax West High School – where about 95 per cent of kids said they planned to leave the province to find work. That blew him away. Then "they all put their hands up" when they were asked if they felt there were no opportunities here in Nova Scotia... See the full story at The ChronicleHerald.ca

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Comments (2)

Re: Please, give that optimist a medal

By SS on Thursday, May 03, 2007

It's too bad Lund and NSBI have little to no use for those living and working in NS already, they seem more concerned with grabbing headlines with the opening of the new "call center of the week" than they do with stimulating growth in companies we already have. They hand out rebates to outside firms to move here, while at the same time offering nothing to the locals that stayed to build a business with no help from the govt teet.

They campaign to get people to move back to NS, but where is the effort to keep the people that are here now, struggling to make a business work with little to no assistance? The rebates NSBI hands out to new companies even works against the locals, as these new firms steal staff away with higher wages since they have no payroll taxes to pay unlike the poor guy down the street.

Lund and NSBI have done more harm than good to the long term success of business in NS IMHO.

Re: Please, give that optimist a medal

By Tom R. on Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Yeah, that column was a mess. "hey, we bring companies here in NS, also fishing is good, we've got a culture of defeat and ps give Lund a medal". That pollster has been carefully phrasing too many Conservative polls; it's warped his viewpoint of the world.

Payroll rebates are an awful idea when implemented for large companies, for just the reasons you stated. If they get 5k per person, then they'll be able to hire someone at 5k higher than the going rate - people will often jump from one place to another for more money, even if it's not a better place. There are so many folks who've shifted from one place to another to another as these types of incentives flow.

For him to dismiss the 95% of students from that class who told Lund they'd be leaving as basically idiots falling prey to a culture of defeat is asinine. It sounds to me like they've done their research, and know where the jobs are. Just yesterday, I got a reference check call from the Government of Alberta for a colleague. It's not defeatism, it's realism.

“An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be”