In his splendid book Nova Scotia’s Lost Century: Can We Change Course?, Ian Thompson zeroes in on an all-important but immeasurable factor in the province’s underperformance since Confederation: our loss of confidence.

Our historical underconfidence is a treacherous subject for a pundit, as it tends to raise hackles. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was vilified in 2002 when he spoke of the need to change Atlantic Canada’s “culture of defeatism”. But citing such revered Bluenosers as Robert Stanfield and Mike Savage, Thompson shows that Harper was not alone in bemoaning the weak gusto in our collective psyche.

“Confidence, or lack of confidence, can affect prosperity,” writes Thompson. “Nova Scotian economist John Graham wrote that communities suffering from continuing economic failures and wasted public resources often fall into a ‘depressed psychological state.’ Confidence, ambition, and investment suffer.”

Thompson casts a broad net when assessing what the province has done well and badly in the past century and a half. While the economic under-performance is central to his thesis, he delves into myriad facets of the province’s life, devoting one chapter to our success in paddling and another to our production of hockey stars.

Thompson is uniquely positioned to analyze the state of the province, as he has thrived in the business community. He led the MT&L public relations firm (now National PR) and served as Deputy Publisher of The Chronicle-Herald. In the public sector, he was the Deputy Minister of the province’s development department. And before all that, he was a hell of a journalist. I covered Halifax City Hall for the Herald in the early 1980s and Thompson was still revered for the job he had done in that role a decade earlier.

He also has an historian’s eye, and catalogues the various blows that Nova Scotia has suffered from policy-makers in Ottawa – from Sir John A. Macdonald’s National Policy of 1878 to C.D. Howe’s decisions favouring Central Canadian industry during the Second World War to Harper’s moves to seize offshore gas revenue early in this century.  

“While many of us blamed Ottawa for our underdevelopment, Ottawa wasn’t the only problem,” writes Thompson. “We often declined to develop our own resources, believing the risks were too high or, perhaps, the task beyond our abilities. We often said ‘no’ instead of engaging in the hard work of understanding the science or finding sensible compromise.”

As well as handing money to multinationals that were soon gone, Nova Scotians and their governments were too quick to turn their backs on economic opportunity. Fracking and uranium-mining were banned for decades, and excessive regulations were placed on the aquaculture industry, says Thompson. He notes that Nova Scotians are reluctant to change their ways, even when change could produce greater wealth, which would translate into better healthcare, education and social supports.

But the tide, says the author, is turning.

Thompson focuses on three events that have helped to rewire our luddite mindset: Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding won the national shipbuilding contract; Nova Scotia and other Atlantic Provinces handled the COVID-19 epidemic better than most other jurisdictions; and the province produced three of the greatest hockey players in the world in Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, and Brad Marchand.

“In Ships, COVID-19, and hockey we scored more than a hat-trick,” says Thompson. “In those victories, and in the thousands of small deeds in which countless Nova Scotians supported each other, we gave ourselves more reason to be confident than at any time over the last hundred and fifty years. We proved to ourselves, and to the world, that we can take on mammoth challenges and win. We proved that, even when the odds are against us, we can overcome.”

Thompson sees one factor – linked to the first of those factors – that could finally help Nova Scotia find its economic footing. There is a new awareness of the potential of ocean industries and oceantech. The shipbuilding contract led to the creation of COVE in Dartmouth, the opening of the DIANA accelerator, and the growth of oceantech. He’s similarly excited by Premier Tim Houston’s plan to develop offshore wind farms. He describes marine industries writ large as “a glorious once-in-a-century opportunity”.

Though he doesn’t single out the startup community in such glowing terms, Thompson believes the province must capitalize on its innovators and research facilities to develop products that can be sold to the rest of the world. It’s all part of the changing attitude that Thompson hopes will ensure the province doesn’t lose another century.

Editor’s note: Though Nova Scotia’s Lost Century won’t be officially released until Sept. 23, Thompson tells me it has been on sale at some bookstores, including Bookmark on Spring Garden Road.