CURRENT ISSUE VOLUME 19 NO. 3 MAY/JUNE 2008

Atlantic Links

Excerpts from the Atlantic Links section of the March/April 2008 issue of Atlantic Business Magazine:

Turn that Frown Upside Down (all you have to do is move..to Moncton, Halifax or Charlottetown)

In a report that could shake the foundations of every infrastructure-challenged, poverty-ridden, homelessness-afflicted municipality in Canada, comes news that cities can, in fact, be "happy." John Helliwell, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, says Saint John, Charlottetown, Moncton, St. John's and Halifax all rank among Canada's top-10 most joyful metropolitan areas.

His report, released in December, examined nearly 100,000 responses to Statistics Canada's ethnic and general social surveys of 2002 and 2003. "The magic is to find out, not only how happy people are with their lives," he told the Saint John Telegraph-Journal. "[It is also] to situate them in their communities and explain why people who are happy are happy...Having a community that's stable enough to get to know people is important. Clerks in stores are not just people trying to sell you something."

- Alec Bruce

Stop the Presses!

Halifax's tabloid newspaper, The Daily News, has finished. Transcontinental Media announced on Monday, February 11 that it will no longer be publishing the newspaper that had its beginning back in 1974. Ninety-two employees have been affected by the closure, all of whom are said to have been offered severance and outplacement services.

Concurrent with the closure, Transcontinental announced the launch of a new free daily newspaper, Metro, for Halifax residents with the first edition to be published just days after the closure of the Daily News. Some of that paper's former-employees are expected to take up positions with Metro and other Transcontinental publications.

- Mark Bolton

Job growth in the Purple Violet province

According to Canada's leading adjudicator of all things numerical, New Brunswick enjoyed a surge in job creation during the first 11 months of 2007, pushing the unemployment rate to near record lows.

Statistics Canada reported that employment in the province reached 369,100 in November of last year, which represented a 4.6 per cent increase from the year-earlier period. Driving this growth (and cutting province-wide joblessness to 7.2 per cent) was an uptick in white collar and service industry employment.

- Alec Bruce

More Than a Place to Lay Your Head

Perhaps it's the view from its eagle-aerie perch overlooking the Atlantic ocean. Maybe it's the associated Highland Links Golf Course (voted 69th in the world and best public course in Canada). It could even be the luxury guest suites, award-winning chef or full-service onsite spa. While either reason alone would be sufficient motivation to book a room at Keltic Lodge Resort and Spa, all these factors combined explain why Keltic has been named one of the top 500 hotels in the world, according to Travel + Leisure magazine.

Four Crack 50 Best Managed List

Two New Brunswick and two Nova Scotia companies are among the recipients of the 2007 Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies award. Atlantic Canada's award winners are: ADI Group Inc., Fredericton, NB; McCain Foods (Canada), Florenceville, NB; Charm Diamond Centres, Dartmouth, NS; and, Wilson Fuel Co. Ltd., Halifax, NS.

Three Times Lucky

A trio of Atlantic Canadian advertising agencies have succeeded in winning substantial new accounts from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. Revolve^TM 360 branding (the Phil Otto-owned Halifax firm), was named Agency of Record for the regional lottery's brand development—a contract valued at just over a million dollars. M5 Marketing Communications scored a two-year $1.3 million deal to produce creative for ALC's Sports and Interactive division. The Gary Wadden and Derek Langdon-led full-service agency has offices in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. But the biggest winner by far was Colour which won a two-year contract (including three one-year renewal options) for the Corporation's instant scratch-and-win products.

Top of the World in Customer Management

A 128-year-old insurance company headquartered in St. John's, NL has been named the top customer management organization in the world. Using CMAT^TM (a diagnostic and benchmarking tool for measuring customer relationship management), QCi Assessment Ltd. of London analyzed more than 750 blue-chip organizations from around the world and found that Johnson Inc. achieved a score of 75 per cent—the highest ever recorded. The previous high was 68 per cent, while the average score is just 36 per cent.

UPEI Gets Down to Business

From its previous location where it shared quarters with the university's administrative offices, the University of Prince Edward Island business school will soon be moving into a stand-alone facility. The 50,000-square-foot School of Business and Centre for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, expected to open sometime this spring, will include a series of tiered case rooms, flat classrooms and UPEI's largest teaching auditorium—all of which will include advanced technology and audio/visual capabilities. Coincident with the opening of the new facility, UPEI will also launch its first-ever MBA program.

Scraping the Bottom on Small Business

Canada's "self-sufficiency province" is pulling up the rear in small business creation. Or so says the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute in its first full-scale survey of enterprise start-ups in North America.

According to Jason Clemens, the study's author, the top performers in the 60 states and provinces examined were U.S. jurisdictions. In fact, he said New Brunswick would have to improve by 600 per cent to match Nevada: "It would vault the province economically, if it had that kind of small business rate."

As it was, New Brunswick scored a negative 0.1 per cent small business creation rate between 2002 and 2004. (Only PEI ranked lower with minus 0.08 per cent). In Canada, Alberta finished at the top with 2.4 per cent, but even this paled with Nevada's 5.2 per cent, Florida's 4.7 per cent, and Utah's 4.5 per cent.

- Alec Bruce

The above excerpt was taken from the most recent issue of Atlantic Business Magazine. Our complete editorial content is available in print form only. To receive a free subscription to Atlantic Business Magazine, click HERE.

Top of Page