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Atlantica would be paradise on earth, if only India could find it on a map October 19, 2007 Atlantica is generally recognized by Maritimers as a dead concept, a fabrication of right-wing think tanks and local chambers of commerce obsessed with redefining Atlantic Canada and the U.S. northeast as a common economic and cultural space. The heart of the plan, which economists have called "truly dumb", is a super-port in Halifax for container traffic coming from somewhere in Asia. "As someone who has recently consulted an atlas, it would appear that Halifax is about as far from Asia as one can get if one’s objective is to service the North American marketplace," wrote Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in a December 2006 post to the Progressive Econimics Forum. Amazingly, despite all the evidence that 1) a super-port in Halifax would not attract the kind of freightage its proponents are hoping for, and 2) increasing imports into Halifax, which are then rushed into the U.S. market via upgraded highways and rail lines, will do nothing to improve the regional economies of Atlantic Canada, the Harper government has decided to fund the so-called Atlantic Gateway project anyway! According to a story in the Globe and Mail yesterday: "The four Atlantic provinces and Ottawa signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday to spend up to two years jointly developing plans for a co-ordinated transport network in the region to promote trade. They may, however, initiate a marketing campaign sooner to sell the project in India, a key part of Nova Scotia's plans." They need two years partly because of how many competing visions there are for this "Atlantic Gateway" that is supposed to create instant prosperity for the region. The most advanced project comes from Nova Scotia, which "has proposed an Atlantic Gateway to capitalize on the opportunity from India," wrote the Globe and Mail. But they mostly need two years of marketing, "because they believe few business people in India know anything about Canadian ports, let alone Atlantic Canadian ports." Let's get this straight. Atlantica is a dreamed-up mega-region depending on an "Atlantic Gateway" that no one in Asia has heard of to ship tonnes of new imports through Atlantic Canada into the United States. And the feds are prepared to fund this? It baffles the rational mind and may be one reason why proponents of the broader Atlantica project are in such high spirits these days. Dianne Kelderman, a former Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce presient who currently works for a firm called Atlantic Economics, was in Amherst on Tuesday to plug Atlantica to the local chamber of commerce. Just think of "the added benefits and opportunities aligned with trans-national economic policies, transportation policies, airport and security policies, and border policies, just to name a few," she told the business audience, according to a story in the Amherst Daily News. “We would be one of the economic envies of the world.” In fact, the opportunities of Atlantica would be "endless," she said. The only thing holding back the region are "attitudes and visions," which are based on a lack of proof that the plan will work, that it will be good for the region, that anyone in Asia cares... But, like Kelderman, I'm just repeating myself. |
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