Nowadays, Keefe’s main concern is whether or not the Province can stay on the Plan, considering recessionary pressures, problems in primary industries, and a growing deficit. “(There) is a lot of noise going on that can knock you off your Plan very quickly. But, this is a long-term Plan. This isn’t a one-year short-term gain.”

The Island Prosperity Plan is supposed to mean equally big things for the aerospace industry, yet 10 months after the Plan’s much heralded arrival, Lindo Lapegna (president of Testori Americas) says he’s never even heard of it.

Testori Americas, founded in 1993, is situated in Slemon Park, PEI. It employs 200 people and is one of the leading firms in the Island’s aerospace industry. Lapegna says the provincial government has been very supportive of his company but he isn’t familiar with the Plan.

Andrew Hall, however, is decidedly familiar with the Province’s commitment to aerospace growth and development. Hall is president of the PEI Aerospace Industry Association and he says this Plan has the potential to create a great number of jobs in the sector. Although he’s not sure if this Plan can create 1,000 new jobs like it promises, he points out that it wouldn’t take a lot of money invested in research and development to “spin off into quite a few jobs.”

Money has to be put into research and development to develop anything downstream and with this Plan, the seed money is being provided by government, he explains. “The money downstream all comes from the intellectual property and that starts with the research and development stream. If you have a product or process that needs some additional research and development work, this (funding) takes some of the risk out of it and makes it easier to jump in and try to develop that. And if you find a unique way of making something or fixing something, that generates revenue, and revenue generates jobs.”

In the Information Technology sector, the Province hopes to increase annual sales from $30-million to over $100-million, as well as add an additional 800 workers to the existing 1,200 on the Island. This is hoped to be achieved through various program funding and by the building of a new E-Health Centre in the city of Summerside. The building is expected to have a $7-million price tag and will house simulation software and hardware to test healthcare IT products.

Though the Plan has lofty goals, Progressive Conservative opposition MLA Mike Currie says he has yet to see any new jobs created or movement on any projects. He claims the Biocommons Park is a waste of time and money when there are industrial parks in Charlottetown’s bedroom communities of Stratford and Cornwall that are 75 per cent empty. As for the Park itself, there isn’t any sign of progress at its proposed location sparing a sign stating it will be the future site of the Park.

“At the end of the week, when Friday rolls around, people just want a paycheque to take home and buy groceries with,” Currie says. “This Plan isn’t doing that.”

Currie asserts that the Plan’s funding structure is a sign that the Plan is “just for show.” Funding is not earmarked in one place but rather is spread throughout the budget. Some of the funding for the Biocommons Park, for example, is in the provincial capital budget while much of the program funding is preexisting under other programs.

Currie goes on to say that the greater majority of the province’s wealth (agriculture, tourism and fisheries) is outside of Charlottetown and Summerside and has nothing to do with IT, bioscience, aerospace or power development. He sees the Province’s focus as misguided and the report too hard for average people to understand. “This report is for academics, not everyday Islanders.”

Allan Campbell, Minister of Innovation and Advanced Learning, disagrees with Currie, saying the benefits will be felt across all of Prince Edward Island. “Our ability to invest as a Province is directly related to our economic performance. It dictates how we can allocate dollars to healthcare, to education, to highway construction.”

When Campbell went to a conference last spring in Atlanta, Georgia, he noticed how PEI has become recognized on the international stage. That’s no doubt due in part to the two large multinational companies which have a presence on PEI. Novartis has their global aquaculture fish health products manufacturing division on the Island, while Genzyme operates a diagnostic chemical plant in the province. Campbell says the Biocommons Park was conceived as something that would help companies like these, and others, achieve greater growth, faster.

As more companies are attracted to PEI, and as other companies expand their Island operations, Campbell anticipates welcoming Islanders back home from away. “That’s part of what we do – repatriation. We hear it all the time, about people going out West, and once they go it’s hard to get them back. So if we create more opportunity and more meaningful employment here, hopefully we’ll get some of them back home.”