Moncton wants a $40 million convention centre, a $68 million river fix and 7/24 airport service from Canada Customs, funded to a large extent by the Federal Government with some help from the Province.

Coincidently, Air Canada has announced a new jet service from Moncton to Ottawa, beginning on October 28th, presumably to permit more aggressive lobbying of the Feds.

The most pressing of the three wants is the customs service. I say this because 24 hour customs service is crucial to development of air cargo and passenger services to and from Moncton. Cargo flights operate night and day without respect for government bureaucracies and their nine to five work hours. International passenger flights are an essential component of economic development and convention site-selection.

With all due respect to the river-fixers, I think the convention centre is the second most important want for two reasons: it could be a significant economic generator and it would serve as a magnet for downtown waterfront development – assuming there is a waterfront.

On August 7th, New Brunswick’s Supply and Services Minister Roly MacIntyre announced a preferred option for the Petitcodiac River Causeway. His option is a 280 metre long bridge that would cost an estimated $68 million. MacIntyre’s rationale "It offers the most positive environmental benefits for the river”.

The problem with the preferred option is that it is contingent on a federal/provincial funding agreement. The Feds appear not to want any part of it. MacIntyre says the Federal Government is obligated to support the river-restoration because it provided the original financial support and approvals that created the current environmental mess. That may prove to be a matter for the Courts to decide.

Subject to a funding agreement with the Feds, the project would take about eight years to complete: two years for planning and site preparation; two years to open the gates and monitor the environmental impact on the river and three to four years for construction of the new bridge. The process and timetable sounds worse than the Gunningsville bridge saga, a structure that took longer to build than the twelve kilometer Confederation Bridge.

Presumably, we could build a convention centre in less than eight years but who knows. The City of Moncton announced this week that it is funding a $55,000 study to re-assess the need for a convention centre and to determine if there is a business case for the centre without federal funding. In 2000, Horvath Business Consultants did a feasibility study that indicated Moncton had need for more meeting space but this week, spokespeople for the City indicated that things have changed since 2000 and the meeting and convention market may not be what it was then.

I can’t argue with the notion that things have changed since 2000 or more precisely 2001 but I do know that Convention Centres seldom make money. That’s why they are usually funded in whole or in part by governments.
The money generated by a convention centre comes from the expenditures made by visitors for accommodation, food, transportation, entertainment and/or the purchase of goods and services. The payback for governments is the direct and indirect impact of job creation and tax collection.

In larger communities like Moncton, there is an internal demand for people to get together for seminars, product demonstrations, training sessions, parties, weddings, anniversaries and other celebrations. These users will pay to rent facilities for a few hours, but generally they do not contribute to overnight visitation numbers. It is the overnight visitor that creates the real economic impact for a destination.
It is the money imported from outside the city, from outside the region which stimulates real expansion in the local economy. One-day meetings are in and out events that draw people from short distances. While they contribute to the economy, they have little opportunity to spend significant amounts of money in the community.

Investment in a convention-centre is a tough decision to make with or without federal government funding because developers have to be certain that the city has the potential to be a continuing destination draw for large meetings. One has to be realistic in assessing the attraction power of the community.

What would motivate potential users to come to a Moncton convention centre?

Would it be the convenience of location? Would it be the friendly people? Would it be our Maritime heritage, nearby attractions or the bilingual nature of the community? What are the alternatives – the competition - what do they have to offer? Is there enough interest in Moncton as a destination to sustain a convention centre on a year round basis or would it make more sense to build another large hotel with significant auditoriums and meeting rooms?

The best convention centre in the world would not be enough in itself to attract large meetings to Moncton. There are other considerations like the availability of quality hotels and convenient air service. It’s hard to move a thousand delegates into a community served a few times a day by fifty passenger aircraft. Quality hotel rooms must be available in sufficient quantity to service a large conference. They must be in close proximity to the meeting facilities, to transportation and airports.
You also have to have offsite attractions to create interest in the destination. .
This newspaper rails against the Federal Government for its apparent disinterest in funding the three Moncton wants. A province that hopes to become self-sufficient doesn’t base its hopes on the largess of others; it grabs the reins of opportunity and makes things happen on its own terms.


If a combination of customs clearance, conference centre and river-fix makes economic and environmental sense for Greater Moncton, let’s get on with it.


If the Feds see fit to jump on the wagon, so be it. If not, we can hire our own customs agents.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com