A time of reflection is upon us during the holiday season and yet the hustle and bustle of the season has certainly not slowed the events affecting our Fredericton community. As we look ahead, it is important to connect the actions of the past year to the ongoing issues that continue to present as both urgent needs for action and potential to achieve impact in 2025.
A big theme of this past year has been the importance to communicate that a strong economy, driven by private sector growth and investment is foundational for society. That is why the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce’s organizational vision is stronger community through business prosperity. What our members tell us is that many key issues are ones that used to be siloed as ‘social issues’. Access to effective healthcare, housing availability, a strong education system and public safety, are all indicators of our connected community and economy.
The Fredericton Chamber of Commerce is proud of its action in 2024, and I write to you this December with great optimism about the impact we can achieve in 2025. The key to this impact will be continuing the learned practices of alignment and action with increased identification of resources and potential investment.
Housing, Rent Controls and Remaining Actions
To connect the actions with the results occurring this past month, I will start back to May 7th when the urban chambers of commerce of Fredericton, Greater Moncton and the Saint John Region wrote to the Premier’s office to address the critical issue of housing in our province, particularly the immediate challenges facing our communities and the urgent need for increased development. We stressed the absence of measures to implement property tax reforms or provide incentives for the construction of new rental housing units. Unlike our neighboring provinces such as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick has fallen behind in attracting investment in this crucial sector. The lack of competitiveness by not removing the provincial portions of HST and not reforming property tax assessment policy further exacerbates the challenging housing market by making New Brunswick a less desirable location for rental housing businesses as seen by new housing starts data for 2024. The intent of our call for action has been, and remains, to embrace a clear growth agenda to achieve a competitive livability aligning with our neighbouring provinces.
With the recent passing of the rent cap legislation, as of Feb. 1, 2025, New Brunswick landlords will only be able to increase rent on a unit up to three percent annually unless they have been approved for a larger hike by the Landlord and Tenant Relations Office.
Prior to the reading of this bill in the provincial legislature, on Wednesday December 4th, Jeremy Jackson, Killam Apartment REIT’s VP of government relations presented to the Standing Committee on Economic Policy. Regarding a raised suggestion of tying rent control to units, rather than the more common approach of linking it to tenants, Jackson stated “We would absolutely not be suggesting that that’s appropriate”, adding that such a course “would be highly punitive situation where we can’t recover our costs.” Willy Scholten, president of the New Brunswick Apartment Owners Association, also stressed to the committee that he and Jackson weren’t there to oppose rent controls, but to prevent it from exacerbating the housing crisis.
With the expediated priority provided to the rent cap, it is essential that the same expediency be provided to the other platform issues of the government concerning housing and development, those of removing PST on new multi-unit housing construction and introducing property tax reform in 2025.
Jackson reported that property taxes have accounted for 39% to 42% of Killam’s expenses in the last three years. Killam, as an example, operates in five jurisdictions with rent caps already, but the tax situation in New Brunswick sets it apart. Scholten reiterated the key issue that the tax rates in the province are 1.47 times that of the rest of the region. Any delay in implementing the corresponding reforms in our housing development legislation, would compound the obvious fact that our province is already in a less attractive place to develop.
With the rent cap measure implemented by the provincial government, the corresponding steps of the PST and Property Tax reforms must continue to express a message that New Brunswick is competitive and on the same field as our neighbouring provinces and development competitors. Any solutions to our housing crisis must begin by us first getting on the same level playing field as our neighbouring provinces and removing the obvious disincentives for growth.
Health Care – Continual Impact of Past Actions (*and Inactions)
This time last year the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce wrote to the Minister of Health regarding the future of medical services in Fredericton, specifically the alarming change to plans for a Hybrid OR suite. This surgical suite is in fact a very common housing of standard operative and imaging equipment and the completed operating room was especially required by surgeons specializing in the vascular field. Beyond the value of their own speciality, assuring that we retain the vascular surgeons’ ability to work and remain in Fredericton is paramount due to their essential resource to other surgical specialities, providing exposure, control of hemorrhage, and vascular reconstructions, often in emergent situations. Fredericton is a rapidly growing city and a vascular surgeon with the routine equipment required by the field is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
Last week, MLA David Coon stated on December 12th that vascular surgeries have been halted at Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital (DECRH) due to a lack of staffing. Subsequently confirmed, the DECRH has temporary suspended vascular procedures, according to a statement by Dr. Ash McLellan, Horizon’s medical director for the Fredericton area. Dr. McLellan assured that “We are aggressively engaged in recruitment efforts to bring a new vascular surgeon to the DECRH and are fully committed to restoring this important service as soon as possible”. Health Minister, Dr. John Dornan also added “I know that new graduates would prefer hybrid (operating rooms). However, they don’t exist in very many places yet – there may be one in Atlantic Canada – and so we’re hopeful that those people will come and work with us, use the skillsets they have, take leadership from our surgeons that are here now, and at some point when we evaluate the hybrid (operating rooms) in more hospitals than Saint John, for example, we hope that could become a recruiting tool.”
This most recent series of statements demonstrates the importance of our work and the work of so many in our community, including the Greater Fredericton Area Physicians Staff Organization, to call attention to the hybrid OR decision, and the critical need to assure Fredericton has the services of a vascular surgery department.
We once again thank Minister Dornan for taking part in Fredericton’s Health Care Summit, “Clear and Present Needs of a Growing Capital City”, on November 12, 2024. We now seek to follow-up on next steps to address the urgent primary healthcare crisis within the Fredericton Region.
The summit, the result of collaboration between the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce and the City of Fredericton, in partnership with St. Thomas University, and the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation, clearly identified the obvious steps forward in our shared goals. These include an immediate focus on health care infrastructure and future collaborative care centres in Fredericton to attract and retain medical professionals.
To achieve these ends we must immediately in 2025 see impact within these areas, most especially the issue of vascular surgery, as nowhere is the need for decisive action more evident than the situation we are experiencing due to the hybrid OR decision from one year ago.
A Holidays of Reflecting Back and Looking Forward
The holiday season certainly serves as a reminder of how quickly time has passed and how much has occurred this year. On a very personal note, this marks my first full year as CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce. Looking back, all our work only serves to confirm all the things I believe and write about monthly.
Fredericton is an amazing place to live to and work and we need to tell that story more. Yes, there are challenges like anywhere, but what we have going for us far outweighs these obstacles. We have an amazing foundation as the heart of the province’s knowledge economy.
Moving forward we will continue to recognize the benefits of investing in education as the industry that feeds all other industry. Education supports our community by offering a consistent talent pipeline as we strive to improve our K-12 system and highlight the benefits of worldclass post-secondary education. This complete pipeline intrinsically connects to the business community and industries across the province as we recognize the critical element for the future – from AI to Robotics – is the human element and critical thinking.
As we have continually cited and has been proven over and over, the investment in education is an investment across all social issue areas, including healthcare, housing, public safety, and more. The Knowledge Industry that exists and its potential for further growth elevates Fredericton and New Brunswick by directly playing a part in improving all other social issue areas.
Our educational institutions are economic entities in their own right as employers and drivers of GDP, but their impact goes well beyond that. Like so many others, UNB is what brought me here in the first place and my wife and I fell in love with Fredericton – which only grew after we had kids. Our local economy is entrepreneurial-minded and partnership-focused, including Indigenous communities, businesses and entrepreneurs in our area.
Moving into 2025, I can say now more than ever that I love partnerships and am so grateful of the relationships we have with so many local and provincial groups that allow us to amplify our efforts, groups like Ignite, Downtown Fredericton Inc., Business Fredericton North, the post-secondary institutions, YFC, the Fredericton Convention Centre, ResearchNB, Fredericton Tourism, student groups, various healthcare groups, the Apartment Owners Association, the NB Real Estate Association, MCAF, and so many more.
Our organizational vision is Stronger Community through Business Prosperity – which I very much believe in, but I also think a lot about the inverse of that – Business Prosperity through Stronger Community – it’s a reciprocal relationship.
With that relationship at the forefront of my mind and in appreciation of all we have achieved this past year, I would like to wish you all a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a happy and healthy New Year!