I recently traveled across eastern Canada and learned alot.
We recently had the opportunity to travel east in Canada to meet some interesting people. Starting in Kingston and making our way east to St. John’s, Newfoundland, we visited many towns and cities to eat and drink with industry leaders and some of Canada’s finest people.
I want to share some thoughts and impressions of each of the key cities we visited:
Sleepy Kingston is beautiful in the summer with the historical buildings wrapping the marina. We got a great history lesson and learned that Ottawa was actually the fourth selection of Canada’s capital city location. It is a curious tale which really opens your eyes to how the country was formed. We need to remember some of these lessons and remind our government of them when they are forming policy. Policy decisions can impact your society today or over decades in a positive or negative ways
Our federal government needs to figure out what businesses they want us to own and which businesses they want to license or regulate. In Ottawa we met the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which opened our eyes to some of the critical issues facing the nation. From pipelines to housing we learned about the challenges and stalemates going on in Ottawa right now. Ottawa in the summer is beautiful but it is slow and has great housing challenges across the city.
Montreal is busy logistically shipping to the USA and appears to be growing in manufacturing by leaps and bounds. All signs in Quebec illustrate their key dependence and critical relationship to the United States. We await the impacts of 50% tariffs by the USA on this province.
Moncton, New Brunswick, continues to build housing, and cranes are in the sky all over the city. The mood is good and people are feeling the shift in development. Moncton is experiencing large population growth making it one of the fastest growing cities in Canada and you can definitely see and feel it when you visit.
Prince Edward Island as always is the hub of some of Canada’s greatest innovators. The resilience and tenacity of the people produce many of Canada’s leaders. Smart and likeable people will go further in life, and PEI has the right recipe for producing innovators and ground breakers.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, is the happiest place in Canada right now by far and we do not know why. Once a grizzly difficult population to visit, for years people avoided the city and now it appears they have turned it around. Everyone including new Canadians are smiling and presenting a positive impression in each interaction. Whatever the government and businesses are doing, they should package it and sell the formula.
St. John’s, Newfoundland, is light years ahead on AI development right now. They have fully committed themselves to this model and I believe they will lead the country in the implementation of it into other industries such as health services, manufacturing and other sectors. Everyone there seems to understand the new economy and how to pivot to meet these new challenges and demands. Government is fully committed to advancing the AI agenda and you see it in the mass AI education they are doing with their citizens.
Finally, you cannot help but wonder at the size of our nation from a land mass perspective as you drive across the highways and roads leading you into these cities. The infrastructure required for the population is immense. Our team was asking many questions to people we met in many small towns across Atlantic Canada.
These people are meeting many new challenges from declining populations to infrastructure erosion. You can see some of it as you drive across the potholes, cracked bridges and the hundreds of construction maintenance projects along the way.
We should ask our leaders to buy motorhomes and tour the nation like we are doing to see the challenges and opportunities first hand while talking to the people who are living through them.
Paul Micucci is an entrepreneur, Mississauga business owner and founder of the Meadowvale Business Association.
