Newfoundland is Bizarro world’s version of Japan

Work in Progress By Ivan Morgan

There’s a cynical joke which underscores the shape our province’s economy is in. What do you buy your kids for graduation?

Luggage.

Our kids leave because there is more opportunity elsewhere. I have two in Alberta, so it’s not all that funny to me.

This week a simple economics question.

From time to time, you will hear academics, politicians and the like comparing us unfavourably to other places in the world. Why can’t we be more like Iceland? Look at Ireland, they’re doing great! Norway has a better economic outlook; we need to learn from them.

Comparisons like this are mostly silly. We can learn from other places, but ultimately, comparisons only go so far. We are who we are. We aren’t Icelandic, Irish, or Norwegian.

Nor are we Japanese. Which brings me to my question. The Japanese have one of the richest economies in the world. We don’t. Why?

No one hates statistics more that I do but bear with me for a minute.

Japan has very few natural resources. They have little oil, few minerals, and even import a lot of their food.

Japan is roughly 10 percent larger than our province in land mass. Its population is 125.4 million to our 406,000.  That’s 347 people per square kilometre to our 1.4.

We are kind of the opposite of Japan.  We don’t even know the extent of our bountiful natural resources. New mineral deposits are discovered yearly. More oil is being discovered offshore. New industries emerge all the time.

Yet Japan is an incredibly rich, prosperous place, where we are just scraping by. On the face of it, we should be much richer, but we are not. Why?

One reason is we don’t have the people. We have too many old codgers like me, too many kids getting educated and moving to other parts of Canada and the world, and we live scattered all over. We need more people.

Its also because the world (including Ottawa) views us as an outpost.

We like to think we are the centre of the universe, but we are stuck out in the cold North Atlantic far from everything.

Unlike Japan, we are resource rich. Our economy is poor because, although we generate a lot of money, it doesn’t go to us. It goes to shareholders in other parts of Canada or the world. We have a history of letting companies take our resources for a pittance.

Danny Williams once campaigned on “no more giveaways.” Since his departure I have seen more of our resources sold for a song than I’d care to mention. Fish, aquaculture, dope (cannabis), oil, minerals ­– it’s enough to make you weep.

The world sees Newfoundland and Labrador’s resources as something to be exploited for their own benefit, not ours. If anything, they view us as a nuisance. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the original Churchill Falls project, Voisey’s Bay, offshore oil, foreign ownership in the fishery, aquaculture. Muskrat Falls was nothing more than an invitation to the world for a fiscal feeding frenzy.

I am not saying we need to have cities teeming with people and miles and miles of factories. I don’t think that’s for us. I drive a Toyota, I don’t think we need to make and export cars here (fun drinking game – what would a car made in Newfoundland be called? “Come drive the 2025 Crosbie Roustabout”? My e-mail is below, send me a few more local car names).

In the meantime, we need to fight back against the outpost mentality and get a better deal for our resources, and we desperately need to work on our most important resource.

The Japanese have a saying. “People are the most important resource.”

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com