Population density in Canada. Source 2001 Census of Canada. Produced by the Geography Division, Statistics Canada 2002

 

Why New Brunswick? < previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next >

I have been asked on several occasions why I am looking at New Brunswick as the place I would like to start my business. A simple answer is why not New Brunswick? However there is much more behind my reasoning than that. To begin with, look at the population density of New Brunswick on the map at right as compared to the map for all of Canada above:

While not nearly as dense as the Toronto to Montreal corridor, relative to the distribution in the rest of the country, the rural population is significant. In Canada as a whole, population tends to be concentrated in urban centers. Land use in New Brunswick is quite different. Despite the urban centres, there is a large rural population in the province, which could translate into a reasonable market for the services I am interested in providing.

By contrast, other forestry oriented areas such as northern Ontario, northern Quebec, and most of British Columbia, have very little population on the land. The rural populations of southern Ontario and Quebec are large as well, but forestry is declining as a portion of their local economies these days. What demand there is appears to be already well served by a large number of nurseries, while the Atlantic provinces have fewer (see map at right).

Most of the nurseries that there are in the Atlantic region are large scale industrial nurseries, producing a limited number of commercial species for planting in intensively managed industrial forests. That is not a market sector I'm targeting. In fact the only native plant nurseries which I have located in the region are The Acadian Forest Restoration Nursery in New Brunswick, and The MacPhail Woods Native Tree and Shrub Nursery in Prince Edward Island.

Continued: Agriculture in New Brunswick

< previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next >

top of page