Premier Wade MacLauchlan was the guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Summerside’s weekly meeting. He spoke about business confidence and economic growth, noting that the province currently leads the country in business confidence.
And when it comes to business confidence, the province is leading the way in Canada, which bodes well for the Island’s economic growth, said the premier.
“If you are trying to figure out what a community or a province or a region or a country is going to do, economically, the No. 1 thing to try and measure is confidence,” Premier Wade MacLauchlan told a room filled to capacity with Summerside Rotarians. “That, in turn, will translate into prosperity.”
MacLauchlan was guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Summerside’s weekly meeting, where he spoke about how P.E.I. is a leader in small business confidence.
“If we had stopped you in the parking lot this morning and said which province, do you think, is leading and has led the country in business confidence, there would be very few of us that would say, ‘it’s Prince Edward Island’,” said the premier.
At each table there was a card detailing statistics the premier touched upon to during his 20-minute talk, numbers that came from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). On the flip side, was a graph comparing the province’s gross domestic product to the national trend, with P.E.I.’s GDP steadily increasing over the past 15 years, currently at around 75 per cent.
In July, P.E.I. led the country provinces in business confidence, with 68.8 per cent of small business owners surveyed feeling positive where their business is heading.
“A monthly measure with a survey might not be something you want to run to the bank with, but when you see the sustained trend that Prince Edward Island has shown for almost two years, relative to the rest of the country — we led in July, we were No. 1 in May, we were No. 2 in June — there’s some substance to this,” said MacLauchlan. “Roughly 20 per cent of P.E.I. small business owners with permanent hiring plan to make permanent hires in the next three months.”
It’s telling of the future confidence and growth of small business, he added.
“About 58 per cent of business owners that are part of CFIB said they feel good about the health of their business. That is the highest in the country,” said the premier. “That has meaning. That is something that we should see and recognize as having not just the potential but the active capacity to transfer into prosperity.”
A more than 30-per-cent growth, from the 1970s to present day, of the province’s GDP, “is a major accomplishment for any province,” added MacLauchlan.
As well, immigration is on the upswing, with P.E.I. having a one-per-cent-a-year edge over the other Atlantic Provinces in attracting new residents.
“What that translates into, that one per cent over a decade, is 10 per cent more people that are engaged in a community. They are buying vehicles, putting up the price of real estate, they are starting businesses.”
MacLauchlan said as confidence and, in turn, the economy grows — something that is a collaborative effort of the community, business and government — more Islanders will choose to stay on P.E.I. to work and raise a family.
“The No. 1 measure of whether this province and this city will continue to progress… is whether young people will be here, whether they will stay around and whether they will put down roots, contribute and get involved in community organizations,” added the premier.
“That will attract others who will see this as their preferred place to be.”
