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US NEWS 
By: Alex Whalen
Amid a looming trade war with the United States, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said that President Trump’s threatened 25 per cent tariff could cost the province between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs.
This should come as no surprise given that each year New Brunswick exports billions of dollars of products to the U.S. including petroleum products from the Saint John refinery and hundreds of millions of dollars of paper products, wood, fish and more.
To date, the president has shown no sign that he cares what anybody in Ottawa thinks, let alone Fredericton. So, what’s a premier to do?
In Nova Scotia, Premier Tim Houston has struck the right tone. In a letter to his caucus recently and in comments to reporters, Houston said he wants to take the “no” out of Nova Scotia because you “can’t expect Nova Scotia to prosper when we ban industry after industry after industry.” In referring to the economic turbulence ahead, Houston emphasized the need for Nova Scotia to become more self-reliant and take advantage of economic opportunities in the natural resources sector, such as mining and natural gas.
Holt would do well to take a page out of this playbook. Much like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick is a relatively-low earning jurisdiction, with the second-lowest median employment earnings for workers among all 10 provinces and 50 U.S. states. One key reason for this is a low and declining level of business investment. On a per-worker basis, New Brunswick has the third-lowest levels of business investment in the country. While the province has made some progress in recent years, it needs much higher levels of business investment to give workers the tools and equipment to be more productive and ultimately raise wages.
In Canada, natural resource industries are consistently among the most productive industries, but in recent years, government policy has hindered their development.
Consider mining in the province. According to a global survey of mining investors, despite New Brunswick ranking 24th in the world for mineral potential, 64 per cent of investors said uncertainty about protected land deters investment in New Brunswick, and more than half said undue regulation in the province deters investment. In other words, when it comes to mining, New Brunswick has a government policy problem, not a mineral and materials problem.
For natural gas, a 2014 ban on hydraulic fracturing by the Gallant government remains in place. While “fracking” is politically controversial, it’s important to understand that natural gas is produced safely using this method all over the continent, and that New Brunswick has enormous potential with an estimated $13 billion in direct investment projected from a “modest” level of gas development. Yet the province’s natural gas potential remains largely untapped, due in part to government regulation.
As a trade war looms, there are limited policy levers available to a small provinces such as New Brunswick. Removing regulatory barriers to open the province up to natural resource development is one lever the province can, and should, pull immediately.
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