Through late summer and early fall, Tim Ball spent as much time as possible underwater in his dive gear, scouring the seabed off the Burin Peninsula for scallops.
It’s an ocean-to-table operation that sees his hand-harvested scallops quickly making their way to dinner plates in the downtown of St. John’s.
“I try to keep it all local,” said Ball about his business philosophy.
With a provincial economy that’s in dire straits and in need of reversing its course, Ball thinks every little bit can help— especially if the focus is keeping as many of those little bits as possible in the province.
Tim Ball says dive harvesting is a scalable industry that would benefit rural Newfoundland and Labrador. (Adam Walsh/CBC )
For Ball, that means, among other things, using locally made bags and boxes for packing his scallops and using a Burin Peninsula cab company for sending his catch into St. John’s.
“Because this is a primary industry … we are in, and we are getting the actual resources from the bottom, this is creating new money for the economy,” Ball said. “If the money is staying in Newfoundland, then great.”
Terre Restaurant in St. John’s is one of the destinations for Ball’s scallops. Before the season ended last month they could be found listed on the menu as “Seared Diver Scallops.”
Matthew Swift is the chef at Terre Restaurant in St. John’s. (Adam Walsh/CBC )
“They’re amazing,” said head chef Matthew Swift.
“Anywhere else in the world … the idea of marketing day boat scallops is sort of a pipe dream. If I were to tell friends in other places that Tim gets out of the water, and I get the scallops in as long as it takes to drive in from Burin? It’s insane,” he said.
On top of the quality, it’s Ball’s business recipe that also interests Swift.
“Just in terms of having a diverse and smaller economy, where we can support people on a more individual level,” he said.
This is the end of the line for Tim Ball’s hand-harvested scallops — seared and served on a plate at Terre Restaurant in downtown St. John’s. (Adam Walsh/CBC)
This way of thinking is something that also strikes a chord with John Schouten — Memorial University’s Canada Research Chair in Social Enterprise.
Schouten says Ball’s operation means more than just local spending on his supply chain. There’s also a spillover effect which would also see Ball spend money at local businesses in and around Garnish, where he fishes from.
“So every hundred dollars that passes from me, to you, to somebody else here locally, that $100 is working the whole time in our favour here in the province,” said Schouten in an interview last month.
Patch the bucket
It may be a small example, but there’s a bigger lesson in it for the provincial government, said Schouten. He thinks the government should treat the economy like a leaky bucket, where money comes in and goes out.
“If the government could, using that metaphor, start patching the bucket to keep the money in the province longer, working harder for local businesses, local people, people who are making a living wage — that would do wonders for the stability of the economy here,” he said.
John Schouten is the Canada Research Chair in Social Enterprise at Memorial University. (Adam Walsh/CBC)
Speaking of helping the economy, Ball thinks what he’s doing is scalable. In addition to scallops, Ball also hand harvests sea urchin, but he thinks there’s more that can be harvested as well — including kelp, sea cucumbers and periwinkles.
For that to happen, there would have to be consistent licensing periods from the federal government and more divers with commercial dive training.
Eventually Ball would like to see a special school that trains up to a dozen divers a year for this type of work.
If a community had a handful of divers, Ball said, the economic spin-off is easy to see — you need people shucking scallops and spotting the divers, gear needs repairing, supplies need to be bought.
“I think it’s just a win-win situation for small communities,” he said. “It could be a good economic boon.”
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
