Making hay while the sun shines

By | Aug 4, 2010

Summer in the city—when Halifax is at its absolute best. Everywhere you look there are people enjoying the laid-back, balanced lifestyles that people in so many places talk or dream about. Lunchtime joggers weave among shoppers, whisking past the numerous sidewalk patios. Commuters strip off suit coats and jackets and check their phones at bus stops or daydream in the early evening sunshine upstairs on the harbour ferry. Museums are full of summer-break school kids and tourists. Summer students thinking great thoughts on the lawns and quads of universities.

There are outdoor concerts and people—seemingly everywhere—playing games from slo-pitch and soccer to ultimate Frisbee and cricket. The bars are buzzing; the pristine beaches just minutes outside the city are spectacular.

And soon, the latest jewel in the Seaport, the Farmers’ Market, will be thriving with people buying locally grown, seasonal food and produce as well as the quality goods of local craftspeople. Cruise ships seem to continually drop off new and returning visitors to our city with their curiosity and, of course, their credit cards and cash, which they will spend in our restaurants and shops.

But it’s not all fun and games.

Back at the office, tens of thousands of people are busy from RIM’s offices in Bedford to the Port of Halifax to the many financial institutions and regionally headquartered companies and businesses choosing to operate in Halifax. People working in meaningful jobs that create the wealth needed to build and sustain the kind of city we all want to live in. Developers and construction companies toiling hard to build the modern offices, homes, apartments and condos that people want to work and live in.

Halifax isn’t perfect but we have tremendous potential to be even better. It’s an opportunity we must seize and a challenge we must meet.

The Greater Halifax Partnership is, to borrow a phrase, trying to make hay while the sun shines during these dog days of summer. We’re working on what I believe to be the single most important economic-development initiative currently before us: the renewal of our city’s five-year economic strategy. A strategy that we believe will positively and profitably transform the economy of Halifax, Atlantic Canada’s economic hub, with benefits for the entire region.

It’s a four-phase process that started in June with an intense but gratifying series of 14 industry-specific consultations. In all, we’ve heard from more than 250 people from key sectors: digital industries, finance, insurance, real estate and development, aerospace and defence, advanced manufacturing, transportation and distribution, education and knowledge, oceans, life sciences, green tech, and tourism, culture and hospitality. We also heard from the voluntary sector and we held a session aimed specifically at the needs of young professionals.

You cannot build something as important as a strategy for growth and the future economic well-being of a city without collaboration and consultation. It’s important to note that a key partner in our economic development work, the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, has held its own consultations. We’ll integrate its work with ours.

We are now pulling together the findings from the initial consultations. We’ll then take all the insights, thoughts and recommendations as input into the first draft of the plan.

To make sure we’re on the right track, we will hold further stakeholder events this fall to review the key themes that will make up the strategy and the development of the action plans to achieve the strategic goals. At that time, we’ll also have the results of new economic research we‘re undertaking which will give us a clearer view of where to focus.

And here’s what we think will really make this strategy drive growth: we will identify exactly who is responsible for the things we need to do. The roles and responsibilities of the private sector, the public sector and governments will be clearly defined.

Interestingly, it’s already apparent that a majority of people want to see more smart and strategic investment in the downtown core: changes to taxation that provide incentives to start and grow a business here, the encouragement of a more positive business climate and the vigorous promotion of economic development in Halifax and a shift in focus to marketing our world-class services internationally in Europe and especially Asia. We’ve also heard that people understand the importance of acknowledging and growing

Halifax as a key economic hub of the broader provincial and regional economies.

These are the kinds of insights you get from consultation and from aligning the interests that go into sustainable economic
development—growth that reflects the real needs of real people.

But every citizen can take part. You can find more information and share your comments here: www.greaterhalifax.com/economicstrategyrenewal

We are committed to an aggressive schedule that culminates in March of next year with the plan being considered for approval by our Municipal Council. The plan will be more than a wish list. It will include specific responsibilities, accountabilities and implementation roles for everyone involved in the economic well being of our region.

Whatever you like to do, whatever career you want to pursue, whatever vision you have for how our city should grow, get involved, ask questions, and offer ideas. That is, of course, while you’re having fun in the sun and enjoying Halifax at its best.

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