Keynote Speech: Halifax

Halifax: MacDonald, the chief executive officer and co-founder of GoInstant and a Salesforce vice-president, delivered a keynote speech that outlined his own career, the development of the Halifax tech community and the need to develop that community, according to The Chronicle Herald. This is a horrifying story because of factors I outlined in my 2009 book, Backwater: Nova Scotias Economic Decline. The province has the oldest population in the country and is ill-prepared for the demographic crunch. I have often told people that nothing has changed since the book came out, but the Statistics Canada report shows things are worse and Jevon MacDonalds tremendous speech to the Halifax Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday night was the third reminder I had seen in a week that Atlantic Canada needs to develop the technology community. As I listened to it, I couldnt help think about two new reports that came across my computer monitor in the last week. The first was Statistics Canada report showing that Nova Scotias gross domestic product had grown 0.2 per cent last year after a 0.6 per cent increase in 2011. Over two years, Nova Scotias GDP had grown less than one per cent, while there was negative growth in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. During that same period, the Canadian economy grew by about 4.4 per cent. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.