Savoie advocates a 'ratchet effect' for national economic policies, whereby regions take turns at high growth, with the slow-growth region of one period becoming the high-growth region of the next, with none moving from slow-growth to decline. He demonstrates how this pattern has been effective in countries undergoing long-term regional convergence and how it would recognize that what is good for the Maritimes is good for Canada no less than what is good for Ontario is good for Canada.

Visiting Grandchildren looks to history, accidents of geography, and to the workings of national political and administrative institutions to explain the relative underdevelopment of the Maritime provinces. Savoie argues that the region must strive to redefine its relationship with the national government and with other regions, that it must ask fundamental questions of itself about its own responsibility for its present underdevelopment, develop a cooperative mindset, and embrace the market, if it is to prosper in the twenty-first century. Savoie's work serves as the blueprint for a new way of envisioning the Maritime region.

Donald J. Savoie holds a Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at l'Université de Moncton.

Endorsements/Review Excerpts

?[Visiting Grandchildren] is, quite honestly, a book that needs to be read and discussed by all of us who care about the Maritime future.?

?Donald Savoie is perhaps the leading scholar in the country on economic development issues. This impressive book provides much reflection for Canadian nationalists everywhere by advancing a view of economic development that goes against the arguments of neo-liberal thinkers. In this sense, it is part of the story that is often ignored and provides a much more balanced account of reality.?

?Visiting Grandchildren can best be described as Donald Savoie?s ?magnum opus? on the subject he knows so well: regional economic development as it pertains to the Maritime provinces. Savoie has done a great service to academics, the policy community, students, and the interested public by providing a comprehensive and definitive analysis of the origins and causes of regional economic decline, the failures of the Canadian political system to adequately analyse, assess, and respond to the problem, and the various changes and initiatives that would be required, both in Ottawa and within the region, for a genuine solution.?

Shortlisted: 2007 The Donner Book prize

Table of Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Introduction
2. History Matters
3. Theories Matter Less
4. Trying This
5. Trying That
6. Mulroney: Inflicting Prosperity
7. Chrétien: Regional Economic Development Was All About Politics, Pragmatism, and National Unity
8. Heal Thyself
9. The Region Then and Now
10. The Problem: Big Dogs Eat First
11. The Solution: Where Can Little Dogs Eat?

Notes

Index