In his most enlightening book, “The World is Flat”, Thomas Friedman states that to have a vibrant economy in today’s flat world* there are three basics that have to align: “the infrastructure to connect more of your people with with the flat world platform — from cheap Internet bandwidth and mobile phones to modern airports and roads; the right education to get more of your young people innovating and collaborating on the flat-world platform; and the right governance — from fiscal policy to the rule of law — to manage the flow between your people and the flat-world platform in the most productive way possible”.
Reading the newspaper daily, one gets the impression that Nova Scotia is an economically depressed, and, some claim, “have not” province, over balanced with old folks like me, a burdened health system, an educated youth that departs as soon as possible, dying industries, and polluted by outside air movement and its own power company. In any case, we are not where we want to be and certainly not a prime player in Friedman’s flat world, in spite of our few call centers. All of this will be solved, of course, when our off-shore oil starts to flow. Do we have time to wait…?
Back to basics. We had better solve the problem without the oil. The first thing we could do is develop our infrastructure so that people, goods and information can move more freely. Just-in-time delivery does not work with an absence of regional airports and good roads. High tech manufacturing and commerce require just-in-time delivery, that is, parts or goods arrive as needed so there is little inventory. High speed Internet access allows small businesses to operate around the world from the smallest communities. Nova Scotia is badly served by its infrastructure support.
We seem to be rich in quality educational institutions, especially at the university level. At the primary and secondary levels we seem to be lacking in science, engineering and the arts and we are not reaching the broad base of talent that is available to us. The top kids do very well, the rest seem to struggle on. But, if those with the highest talents leave they contribute to the flat world economies of other provinces.
While not in a position to evaluate government policy and its effect on joining the flat world platform I will say that I agree with the principles of the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act such as “the health of the economy, the health of the environment and the health of the people of the Province are interconnected” and “innovative solutions are necessary to mutually reinforce the environment and the economy.”
Many of the challenges that would excite youth are in the potential green industries that could be a big part of Nova Scotia’s future. Could we design a scrubber that would take the pollutants out of NSP’s smoke stacks and produce a useable by-product? We could certainly sell that system to China who has worse problems of pollution than we do. Can we expand our clean energy production by use of wind and tidal power? We certainly have the tides to do it. Could we develop a system to allow all homeowners and businesses to easily feed power back into the NSP system, reducing their own costs and maybe making it possible to export power to New England? Could we develop an agricultural network that brings Nova Scotia goods to the floors of the super markets thus helping our meat, fruit and vegetable producers? Could we better assist small businesses in their start-up years with easy to get and finance loans and easing in of tax assessments? We can’t keep waiting for the innovative outsiders to discover us. We need the innovators who are here to expand their potential. I am sure there are thousands of ideas worthy of exploration and many of those worth implementation. You are welcome to add your proposals!
Where are those innovative solutions called for in EGSP act going to come from? They are not going to come from doing what we have been doing in the same old way. They are going to come from all of us making an effort to our own abilities to live green and support green initiatives in our purchases. They are going to come more from innovative entrepreneurs and businesses that “get” the flat world concept. They are going to come to the extent that the government can resolve the infrastructure problems and direct its policies toward getting Nova Scotia connected to the rest of the world.
*The flat world economy is the stage of globalization where all jobs move to the place where they can be done best at the lowest cost. Thus, building standard rail cars, a craft mastered years ago, moves to Mexico; WalMart does well because it has mastered the art of the supply chain from factory to consumer; innovative companies that connect to and collaborate with others in any country do well. Read the book for the whole picture.
