Describe the alternative path of development for New Brunswick as described by David Coon

New Brunswick

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“Describe the alternative path of development for New Brunswick as described by David Coon”

I learnt that David Coon’s alternative path of development as envisioned in his Green party’s manifesto is to build a robust green economy and this is a vision that is shared by a majority of the voters. This alternative path entails building a sustainable New Brunswick that offers an enduring and mutual prosperity for everyone. This will stem from an economy that emerges as socially just and environmentally friendly. I also learnt that he envisions building an economy based on sustainable green jobs. The starting point of which is already obtainable in New Brunswick. These jobs are already being experienced in sustainable forest products, in local food and organic agriculture, in energy efficiency and renewable energy, in clean tech manufacturing, in smart grid technology, as well as in sustainable forest products.

Apart from that, I learnt that he believes that the green economy will provide respectable satisfying livelihoods for everyone which will allow people to flourish in vibrant communities. This is because it will be built around businesses that work with communities to move forward the public interest. It will be founded based on social enterprises and cooperatives as well as small and medium sized businesses. Additionally, he states that the capital to begin or develop the already existing businesses will stem from local investment funds or community bonds. He envisions building this alternative path through inclining it on strategies that would result in fairness and sustainability that are embedded in sharing and caring by creating jobs within the province.

“Give a political economy analysis of crown land policy in the forest industry in New Brunswick”

Employment is a key economic benefit that the public gains from the forest industry in New Brunswick. However, this employment is rapidly decreasing. By the mid-90s, more than 70% of Crown land in New Brunswick had passed through six multinational companies. The corporate organizations held more power in the communities because of rapid unemployment. When Euro Canadian structures were forced on the Aboriginal societies, there emerged two different sets of perception and practice which operate to date. Firstly, there is the reconstructed conventional policy, which believes in the return to the elders’ values and natural law. It upholds the conservation of ecological diversity and natural resources. The second set of policies hovers around the historical situations linked to the phrase Indian. In exchange to using these natural resources in the area that is today described as Crown land, the government gives members of the community annual payments.

The community is forced to depend on the federal handouts because of lack of independent services and economic resources. Ultimately, this has fostered a reliance on compensation programs and aid from the federal government, which are used to offer employment and services. Since the Aboriginal are reliant on this federal funding, the government tends to manipulate band politics. This particularly applies during election years by forcing band councils to sign controversial agreements, withholding funds, and by causing turnovers in elected leaders. Consequently, the natives are besieged and at the mercy of the government operatives. This is because government hierarchy does not look into their interests.

“Using political economy analysis, discuss the past, present and future role of the call center industry as a development strategy of New Brunswick”

The surfacing of call centers in New Brunswick was determined largely by four factors; namely, neoliberal government policies, technological change, the geography of surplus labor, and the dynamics of capital. However, in critical ways, the new economic policy was not essentially new. Just as with previous development strategies, it was founded on the notion of the state’s role in servicing certain interests from capitalists. In a pattern that borrows from the past, the state aligned itself with corporate players specifically, NBTel and call centers outside the province.

Even though the strategy’s detailed tenets differ from previous programs, the intentions have not changed: to fuel economic activities through increasing the possible profits that could be earned by the corporate partners. However, the call center strategy largely spotlighted labor organizations and their workers have been intentionally isolated from its programs. It therefore means that the McKenna Call center undoubtedly belongs to the traditional New Brunswick economic and political dependency syndrome projects. Since New Brunswick is politically totally dependent on call center jobs, the government is likely to perpetuate its 1990s retrogressive policies in an effort to guarantee their lifetime commitment to their private partners.

Most companies integrating call centers are infusing new technology to grow and process internet technologies. This will enable customers to execute sales without the use of intermediaries such as call center workers expediently. Once these developments are widely adopted, the phenomenon of call centers as a onetime mass employer is likely to be brought to an arduous end. Given this stark reality, the dream that Call centers would play the magic in ending the perennial unemployment in New Brunswick will remain just but a dream.

“Give the analysis and evidence presented in the Thom Workman article, “The Decaying Social Contract in Atlantic Canada”, which backs up his theme that there has been an assault on the working poor in Atlantic Canada in this neoliberal era. What is responsible for this assault? Have unions been able to protect these workers? Why or why not?”

There has indeed been an assault on the working poor in Atlantic Canada. This is because interviews with an Open hands food bank volunteer worker indicate that most working poor in the region have been forced to resort to food banks. The man and woman involved in the interview receive minimum wages. When they had a sick child, all their money was spent. They even showed the reporter the prescription receipts. This assault began in earnest in the 1970s and is conceived by global think tanks in the neoliberal order, and in global capitals in a general strategy referred to as the Washington consensus. It is then implemented by politicians and willing bureaucrats. In this consensus dubbed the world new order, politics of class play a fundamental role in between social configurations.

Their main targets are workers round the globe and those in Canada have not escaped its devastating implications. Canadian workers share in the plight of people around the globe, a fate that makes them struggle with nonliving wages. As these workers suffer, unions are not able to protect them since most of them are not enrolled in trade unions. In the last three decades, the stagnation in union density has actually hovered around 30%.

This stagnation has been a major blow to the once traditional growth of unionizable rates. In the neo liberalism worker unfriendly climate, Atlantic Canada witnessed a sharp decline in lockouts and workers strikes. In the last three decades, the entire region experienced a more than 75% decrease in lockouts and strikes. Consequently, declines in real wages began to hit the region in the mid 90s yet there were less rates of inflation in these decades. As a result, some of them now depend on food banks since they can barely meet all their needs.

Bibliography

Charles, Theriault. Is our Forest really ours: An investigative documentary seeking an answer to this question. (2013). Web

David Coon, Green Party of New Brunswick: The Way ahead. (2013). Web

Tom Good and Joan Mc Farland Call Centers: A new Solution to an old Problem? (2013): 99-114

Thom Workman The decaying Social Compact in Atlantic Canada: From the Net to the Net(2013):85-92