Task force hands down final report

New Brunswick premier Shawn Graham has been handed a big "to-do" list by the Self-Sufficiency Task Force and the clock is already ticking.

Task force chair Francis McGuire said he wants most of the 91 recommendations made in the final report implemented within a year.

The task force was created in early 2007 to find a way to end the province's dependence on equalization payments from Ottawa.

The commission said for that to happen, New Brunswick will need a bigger, better-paid workforce. That means using tax credits, not grants, to encourage companies to modernize and train their workforces, the commission said.

Some of the proposals will create controversy, such as reducing the number of local governments by amalgamating many cities, towns and villages.

The commission also recommended implementation of a single electronic health record system for all New Brunswickers, something previous governments have spent millions of dollars trying to set up.

The commission backed away from earlier comments by co-chair Francis McGuire that people in rural areas should commute to where jobs are available.

It now suggests major highway and tourism spending in the economically depressed northeast of the province.

Other ideas include tying pay raises of senior civil servants to job performance, tripling the number of daycare spaces for children younger than two and moving some government offices outside the capital.

Among the recommendations is one very ambitious goal: to reverse the decline in New Brunswick's population, and instead increase it from 750,000 to 850,000 people in less than twenty years.

To achieve that, the report recommended a big increase in the number of trees forestry companies can cut, and eliminating grants for fish processing plants unless they invest in new technology, new equipment or new products.

Jean-Pierre Hebert of Belle Isle Fisheries on the Acadian Peninsula said he supports the recommendation. Fish plants other than his have been hooked on government subsidies for too long, he said.

"What we're against is bailouts, or companies that are not productive, just a bailout because they did some bad moves and they don't follow the market," Hebert said.

Finally, the report called on Ottawa to help, saying New Brunswick can't become self-sufficient without an injection of federal dollars.