By Janice Harvey

Item: "Atlantic region home to Canada's lowest-quality jobs" (TJ, Feb.
3). According to this article, an employment quality index shows the
quality of jobs in Atlantic Canada has fallen steadily since the early
1990s to a level lower than has been seen in the region in decades.
While other regions have also declined in job quality - notably
Ontario and British Columbia - this region sits at the bottom.

It is no coincidence that the time frame for this shift - from the
early 1990s - lines up precisely with the rolling out of two free
trade agreements. The first was with the United States, signed by

SCOTT SINCLAIR & JOHN JACOBS
Commentary

'Atlantica" is the name given to a proposed cross-border entity
spanning the Maritime provinces, Newfoundland (but not Labrador), the
southern parts of Quebec, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate
New York. Surprisingly, Atlantica's primary focus is not strengthening
trade within this cross-border region. In a speech to a conference on
Atlantica held in Saint John last summer, the president of the
Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) dismissed trade within
this region as "hardly worth mentioning." Instead, proponents aim to

The next Atlantica conference will be held in Halifax, June 13-16 2007. Let's get moving...!

Link to Telegraph article

Article by Alec Bruce

Early last month, to the delight of those who dream of a coherent economic trade zone between Canada’s East Coast and New England, Irving Oil announced that by early next decade it will double its refining capacity, triple its workforce and, in the process, inject vast sums of private capital into the cross-border economy.

The news was covered with predictable enthusiasm by every major print and broadcast outlet in New Brunswick, some stretching the limits of credulity by predicting that the massive expansion will generate as much as $17 billion in tangentially related commercial benefits for Saint John, the province, and all international environs to the southeast. It won’t, but that’s not the point.

View original article and comments by clicking here

Latest brand name for pulling our protection.

By: Bruce Campbell and Marc Lee

Published: September 20, 2006
TheTyee.ca

Regulation is a boring topic for most people and if anything, is probably associated in a negative way with "red tape." Canadians just want the job to get done and place their trust in government to ensure public health, protect the environment and make workplaces safe.

The need for regulation only comes up in popular thinking when a major public emergency occurs and government fails in its task: Walkerton, mad cow, tainted blood, or the recall of an approved drug such as Vioxx.

A paper by Larry Hughes of the Energy Research Group at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dalhousie University,Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada suggests that:

"Anyone heating with fuel oil will be directly affected by the rising cost of oil."

Get the full report here: Preparing for the peak: Energy security and Atlantic Canada

Original Article here: CCPA| Atlantica concept needs boundaries

John Jacobs

At a conference this week in Saint John, Atlantic Canada’s business elite will be promoting closer economic integration between Atlantic Canada and the New England states. The conference, "Reaching Atlantica: Business without Boundaries," hosted by the Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce, will work on a strategy to develop a regional economy that minimizes the relevance of the U.S.-Canada border.

The conference envisions reorienting the Atlantic Canadian economies towards "Atlantica," a proposed north-south international trading corridor that "runs from Buffalo, N.Y., through the Northeastern United States to Atlantic Canada." They claim that focusing on trade within this corridor would overcome the "travesty" of an east-west oriented economy that resulted from the Maritimes’ entry into Canadian Confederation.

Citizens Against Atlantica * Fredericton Peace Coalition

October 9, 2006

Fredericton and Saint John ­-- With hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and forest fires becoming more frequent and intense around the world, scientists are pleading for action today on all fronts to halt the climate crisis. Stopping a second Irving Oil Refinery and the proposed dirty energy hub in Saint John is one of those meaningful actions.

According to Pollution Watch, the current Irving Oil Refinery in Saint John is the fourth largest polluter in the province. The proposed second Irving Oil Refinery promises to be an even bigger polluter, refining heavy crude oil from the Middle East, the North Sea and Newfoundland, instead of conventional, lighter crude oil, which is running out of reserves. The refined product is set to feed an energy hungry Northeastern United States.

July 24th, 2006

A quick update from the first stop in the Stop Atlantica Roadshow in Miramichi - almost 200 flyers were passed out from behind a table (we probably could have flyered more if we had folks on the exhibition grounds) and we got many pages of signatures to the declaration opposing Atlantica - thanks largely to Kira as I spent most of the time talking about the forest at the next table. Our colourful banner had the stopatlantica website address on it so it is hoped that the crowds who passed by but didn't stop at the table might look it up. We even stumbled upon some puppets. We called them Atlantica and You.

July 17th, 2006

Halifax - A free public panel discussion entitled "Resisting Atlantica" is set to take place on Thursday, July 27, from 7pm - 9pm at the Halifax Main Branch Library on Spring Garden Road. This event is a joint project of the Canadian Labour Congress, Council of Canadians, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Nova Scotia Chapter, the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group (NSPIRG), and the Halifax Regional Libraries and a couple of activists who want to raise awareness in the Halifax area about this initiative.

The Atlantica Initiative, a trade campaign spearheaded by Atlantic Canada's business leaders, is the next step on the regional level intended to further integrate Atlantic Canada into the global economy. Consequently, its full impact cannot be understood without viewing it through the lens of the neoliberal, or free trade, globalization process being pushed by the United States. According to its leading proponent, the Halifax-based neo-conservative think tank Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), one of the principal goals of the Atlantica Initiative is to "encourage inter-provincial and international trade through the removal of barriers and harmonization of regulations."