Mills was one of the guest speakers, Wednesday, at the Greater Summerside Chamber of Commerce’s business forum ‘The Way Forward’ held at Slemon Park.
Mills said Atlantic Canada is at a crossroads with aging demographics, government cutbacks, and immigration affecting the area’s ability to do business and grow the economy.
“We have gone through the worst economic period in living history in this region.”
He said economic growth has not kept up with the cost of living.
“Canada’s growth has (over a six-year period) averaged 1.3 per cent,” Mills said. “That is anemic. That is below the rate of inflation. There are two Canada’s. There’s western Canada and Newfoundland and then there’s the rest of us.”
Mills said of all the Atlantic Provinces, Prince Edward Island has done the best over the past six years.
“Most people would say Newfoundland but Newfoundland hasn’t done very well.”
He said the problem with Newfoundland is the economy goes up a lot and then goes back down over and over again because the economy is based on oil.
Job security is a concern on Prince Edward Island.
Mills said the reason P.E.I. has a high unemployment rate is its dependency on seasonal employment.
“Seasonal work is very important to this province but seasonal work is not good for the economy. It lowers the GDP (Gross Domestic Product.”
He said with seasonal work, it means that sector of the population is unemployed during part of the year.
Mills said there needs to be a way around seasonal employment and new full-time permanent jobs needs to be created.
Statistics show that urban centres fair better with employment than rural areas and economic growth, he said.
“So what we need are more urban areas.”
Mills said he wasn’t proposing to reduce rural areas but rather have the major municipalities of Charlottetown and Summerside become more regional creating an urban-centralized environment.
He said Charlottetown serves a catchment area of 50 kilometers involving 98,000 people.
Summerside has a catchment area of about 60,000 people, although both municipalities include some of the same areas in the middle of the province.
The two municipalities service 90 per cent of the Island population.
“Make Summerside grow,” Mills said. “Make Charlottetown grow.”
He said that will help the urban areas grow as well.
Mills offered several suggestions to help Prince Edward Island more forward in employment and economic growth.
He said the population of the Island is aging and a key to the province’s future prosperity is to retain youth.
Mills said there needs to be a type of internship program that would educate and employ youth and keep them on P.E.I.
Immigration, bring more people to the province, is another economic engine.
Mills said the province should look towards “educating the world” by creating a recruitment process for colleges and universities that would position P.E.I. as the best place in Canada to be educated.
This would also help increase the population base in the province, he said.
