Oil and gas off Canada’s East Coast is providing unprecedented potential for
Nova Scotia to become self-sufficient and economically independent. Today,
Nova Scotia natural gas supplies the equivalent of 25 per cent of New
England’s market demand. By 2005, Nova Scotia natural gas could be
supplying half of the entire New England market.
In the 1980’s the federal and Nova Scotia governments signed the Canada-Nova
Scotia Offshore Accord which guaranteed that Nova Scotia would be the
principal beneficiary of its offshore resources. Despite this agreement,
the principal beneficiary of offshore development is the federal
government — for every dollar produced by Nova Scotia’s offshore industry,
Ottawa gains 81 cents, with the remaining 19 cents staying in the province.
For 30 years John Hamm worked as a family physician in rural Nova Scotia
before entering public life in 1993. Elected premier in 1999, John Hamm’s
efforts to promote Nova Scotia as a prime location for trade and investment
in North America were recognized last year when he was presented with the
New England-Canada Business Council’s Leadership Award.
