A number of you will probably recall my periodic posts about the life and
times of Cape Breton Island...
Parker Donham is a well-respected local (NS) newspaper columnist. This
below appeared in the Sunday edition of the Halifax Daily News.
If anything, the technology which many of us had hoped would offer a
solution to the problems of centralization and concentration of
skills/skilled jobs/research and development provincially in Halifax,
overall has had the opposite effect.
Even as the jobless rate in Cape Breton increases to 3 times that of
Halifax (as our traditional industries are in free-fall) the technology
has only had the effect of facilitating even more centralization and
concentration of resources and jobs away from the Island as public
administration, wholesaling, banking, and medical services have all used
the technology to support the deskilling/dejobbing of our local area.
Even in a context where we for example, clearly demonstrated that from
Cape Breton we could cost-effectively administer (virtually manage) a
provincial program supporting rural development through technology for the
Province, after two highly successful "pilot" years the program, its
administration and the skills and employment that went with it were
repatriated to the provincial administrative centre in Halifax.
Mike Gurstein
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 14:02:46 -0300
From: Parker Barss Donham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PARKER:1835] 4-25-99 CB v. Mainland
25 April 1999
<I> For most of the past 200 years, the relationship
between Cape Breton and mainland Nova Scotia has been
characterized by a culture of colonization . . . . The
conjoining of Cape Breton and the mainland into one
province was not amicably received on both sides. But
the mainland needed resources, the king's brother needed
royalties to cover his gambling debts, and Cape Breton
had coal, fish, and timber. From its founding days,
it was clear the "royal reserve" . . . stamped the
relationship between the two into a colonial pattern.
>From the 1820s to well after the Second World War, most
of Nova Scotia's provincial tax revenues derived from
Cape Breton mineral royalties. <R>
-- University College of Cape Breton President
Jacquelyn Scott in testimony last week before the
legislature's standing committee on economic development.
Many readers will have heard excerpts from Scott's
thought-provoking presentation to the legislature on CBC Radio -- the
only metro-based news outlet to cover her remarks.
In measured terms, with incisive examples, Scott deplored the
widening chasm of misunderstanding, mistrust, and want of confidence
that divides Cape Bretoners from mainlanders. She cited it as an
impediment _ one of several, to be sure, but a key one _ to Cape
Breton's economic recovery.
Scott is singularly well-placed to plead such a case. An
educational technocrat who excels at "managing up," in the lingo of
management consultants, she has been in Cape Breton for only seven
years, a period of phenomenal growth in UCCB's programs and
facilities.
She is not as adept at "managing down." The pace of change
she has brought to UCCB, and her occasional penchant for imperiousness
toward subordinates who question her policies, have bred resentment
among some of the school's faculty.
If Scott has come to share any Cape Breton attitude, it's an
outlook she came by honestly, through the experience of managing a
provincially dependent organization in the province's most despised
hinterland.
Missing from the eloquent excerpts broadcast by CBC were any
of the telling examples she cited. Here are two.
The dozens of studies, surveys, and consultants' reports on
the future of Cape Breton's economy have all identified information
technology as one of a small handful of sectors on which development
efforts should focus. Yet despite years of lobbying by local
businesses and UCCB, the province and MT&T have failed to provide
industrial Cape Breton with the kind of backbone Internet connection
Metro universities take for granted.
The result? UCCB pays $15,000 more <I> per month <R> for an
Internet connection that is an order of magnitude less capable than
that which serves Metro universities. This is a major obstacle to the
small cluster of IT businesses already operating in Cape Breton, and
an absolute bar to future IT shops establishing there.
UCCB recently submitted a proposal to the Canada Foundation
for Innovation for a $25 million science and technology centre. It was
the only small university in Canada to submit a proposal in the "large
projects" category.
Because UCCB arose from the community development philosophy
of the Antigonish Movement, the plan was carefully designed around the
common conclusions of numerous economic development studies carried
out on the island. It would have provided critical laboratory
research-and-development support for various knowledge-based
industries that have shown promise in Cape Breton -- IT, aquaculture,
greenhouse agriculture, environmental technology, and petroleum
spin-offs, among others.
Backed by voluminous economic development research, the plan
was finely detailed and carefully thought-out. Scott and her
colleagues thought they had a killer proposal, and they were
disappointed when it failed to win approval, so they sought a meeting
with senior CFI staff to "go over the weaknesses in our proposal so we
could learn for another round."
CFI said UCCB's proposal had actually been very strong --
winning the highest possible marks from peer review panels in all but
one category -- the track record and quantity of the research
personnel. That's an understandable, chicken-and-egg problem in light
of the fact UCCB was breaking new ground for itself.
So how far short of qualifying as eligible for funding did
UCCB's proposal come? Your proposal was deemed eligible, came the
surprising reply, but we didn't have enough money to fund all eligible
projects.
"Were there any other factors," Scott asked. "For example,
were the views of the provinces sought on projects within their
jurisdictions?"
Yes they were.
"And did Nova Scotia offer a view?"
"Yes," the officials told Scott. "Nova Scotia indicated it
would support a project from Dalhousie but, if UCCB were awarded a
project, they would have to get their matching funds from ACOA."
In a telephone interview, I asked Scott how Education Minister
Wayne Gaudet and other senior officials responded when she confronted
them on this incident. "There was no denial," she said, "And no
inclination to get into a discussion of the issue."
As Scott points out, there has been no public debate within
the Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, or anywhere else,
supporting a policy that would match funds for Dalhousie initiatives,
but withhold them from UCCB projects.
No such debate was needed. All it took was an entrenched
attitude of misunderstanding, mistrust, and want of confidence -- an
attitude sadly prevalent among the mainland's professional and
governing elites.
<I> Copyright (c) 1999 by Parker Barss Donham. All rights
reserved. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <R>
--
------------------------------------------------
Parker Barss Donham | 902-674-2953 (vox)
8190 Kempt Head Road | 902-674-2994 (fax)
Bras d'Or, NS B0C-1B0 | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the list info you'll ever want: http://antler.moose.to/~server/parker
