A Community Wealth Building analysis of the Atlantic Economic Panel’s new report Bolder Ambitions: Greater Prosperity for All.
October 21, 2026
Andy Horsnell, Executive Director of the Centre for Local Prosperity
The Atlantic Economic Panel’s new report, Bolder Ambitions: Greater Prosperity for All, makes a pretty straightforward case: Atlantic Canada needs more. More investment. More productivity. Bigger firms. More exports. Faster project approvals. More natural-resource development. More activity in sectors like defence, energy, oceans, and technology. The Government of Canada has framed it in much the same way, as a plan for greater “growth, productivity and investment attraction.”
There’s a lot in the report that I like. It talks about place-based development, local supply chains, Indigenous ownership and equity participation, keeping more Atlantic Canadian businesses headquartered here, creating better jobs, and making sure prosperity is more broadly shared.
But I keep coming back to one question: why are we assuming that growth itself is the goal?
In my own work with community organizations and social enterprises, I’ve always tried to start with impact: how will the community actually be better or different if we succeed? Only then do we get into strategies, activities, money, and growth. Growth can be useful. But it’s a means, not an end.
So, what if we applied the same logic to Atlantic Canada? Instead of starting with “How do we grow the economy?”, what if we started with “What kind of Atlantic Canada are we trying to create?” Then we can ask what needs to grow, what needs to shrink, who should own what we build, and where the wealth should go.
Beyond the Growth-Versus-Degrowth Debate
Neil McInroy, the Democracy Collaborative’s Global Lead for Community Wealth Building, gets at this nicely in his essay Beyond Growth, Beyond Collapse: Community Wealth Building and Economic Transition.
He pushes back on both ends of the usual argument. On one side is an economic model that relies on continued expansion, despite ecological limits and the concentration of wealth and corporate power. On the other is the reality that we can’t simply switch growth off tomorrow. Jobs, wages, pensions, tax revenues, and public services are all tied, to varying degrees, to an economy built around expansion.
McInroy’s alternative is to build an economy that can provide security, prosperity, and wellbeing while becoming progressively less dependent on perpetual growth. That’s where Community Wealth Building gets interesting. CWB gives us practical tools we can use now – procurement, locally rooted finance, democratic ownership, fair work, and community control of land and property – to change who benefits from the economy we already have.
Seen this way, the question isn’t really “growth or degrowth?” Housing needs to grow. Renewable energy needs to grow. Local food systems, public transit, community enterprises, and good jobs could all use much more investment. Pollution, carbon-intensive consumption, waste, speculative extraction, and economic activity that removes wealth from communities while leaving the costs behind? Not so much. GDP doesn’t make these distinctions very well. Community Wealth Building does.
1. Progressive Procurement: Start With the Money We’re Already Spending
Bolder Ambitions is strongest, from a CWB perspective, when it talks about procurement. It recognizes that major investments in energy, defence, natural resources, and technology will create supply-chain opportunities, and that Indigenous, Black, newcomer, rural, and other underrepresented businesses should be active participants, not afterthoughts.
But why stop at major projects? Governments, municipalities, universities, colleges, hospitals, Crown corporations, and other anchor institutions already spend billions every year.
We don’t need a new mega-project to create that money. It’s already being spent. The question is where it goes.
Our own research at the Centre for Local Prosperity has shown substantial leakage in institutional purchasing and real opportunities to shift “influenceable spending” toward competitive regional suppliers. When an institution moves some purchasing from an outside supplier to a local one, that money has a two- to three-times better chance to circulate through local businesses, wages, and supply chains.
Before we go looking for the next dollar, let’s do a better job with the dollars we already have.
2. Locally Rooted Finance: Whose Capital Is It?
The proposed $1-billion Atlantic Prosperity Fund referenced in Bolder Ambitions is promising. It would bring together governments, Indigenous partners, pension funds, institutional investors, and private capital to help Atlantic firms start, scale, and remain headquartered here. The report also touches on business succession and Employee Ownership Trusts.
But the discussion still leans toward a familiar question: how do we attract more capital? CWB asks a different set of questions. Who owns the capital? What kind of return does it require? What is it financing? And where do the returns ultimately go? Ultimately, CWB is concerned making better use of the capital that already resides locally – i.e. investing in locally-owned enterprises.
That opens the door to credit unions, Community Economic Development Investment Funds (CEDIFs), pension assets, employee ownership, and Indigenous and community investment alongside conventional private capital. The goal isn’t just to get more money flowing into Atlantic Canada. It’s to keep more wealth here.
3. Inclusive and Democratic Enterprise: Ownership Matters
One of the strongest parts of Bolder Ambitions is its treatment of Indigenous economic participation. The report goes beyond consultation and compensation and recognizes that Indigenous communities may seek equity ownership in major projects. It also talks about shared governance, procurement, employment, stewardship, and long-term community benefits.
That matters because ownership changes things. It changes who receives the income, who builds wealth, and who has a say in decisions.
So why not follow that logic further? Could more retiring business owners sell to their employees rather than outside investors? Could municipalities and communities retain stakes in energy infrastructure? Could more businesses be structured as co-operatives, social enterprises, employee-owned companies, or community enterprises?
These models are largely missing from the report’s main growth agenda. If we want wealth to stick around, ownership is one of the most direct ways to make that happen.
4. Fair Work: Jobs Are Not Enough
Bolder Ambitions is rightly concerned about workforce participation and barriers facing newcomers, women, youth, Indigenous people, and rural communities. But much of the discussion still treats workers primarily as an input: we need enough people, with the right skills, in the right places, to support growing industries.
Let’s turn that around. What should the economy provide for workers? Fair wages, secure employment, predictable hours, benefits, worker voice, dignity, opportunities to advance, and a reasonable share of the gains from increased productivity.
The test of a billion-dollar project shouldn’t just be how many jobs it creates. It should also be what kind of jobs it creates, under what conditions, and whether those jobs actually help people build secure lives over the long term.
5. Land and Property: The Biggest Gap
Land and property is probably the weakest of the five CWB pillars in Bolder Ambitions. The report talks about serviced industrial land, housing, ports, infrastructure, and investment-ready sites. But land is treated mostly as something needed to enable development.
CWB looks at land differently. Land ownership = wealth = power. Who owns the land around a major new infrastructure project? Who captures the increase in value created by public investment? Should municipalities sell public land, or retain it and lease it? Could community land trusts help preserve affordable housing? Could communities own strategic energy sites or commercial property?
These questions are worth asking before development happens. Once land values rise and ownership changes hands, it’s usually too late to go back and rethink who should have owned what.
The Missing Piece: Anchor Institutions
There’s one final gap that cuts across all five pillars. Bolder Ambitions recognizes universities and colleges as part of our economic infrastructure, but it doesn’t really develop the idea of anchor institutions.
Anchors – universities, colleges, hospitals, municipalities, utilities, and other large locally rooted organizations – buy things, employ people, own land, invest money, and shape markets. CWB asks them to use that economic power intentionally in support of the places they serve.
To me, that’s one of the most practical opportunities in front of us. It doesn’t require waiting for the next outside investor, federal program, or mega-project. We can start with institutions, assets, and spending that are already here.
A Different Kind of Ambition
So, I don’t think the problem with Bolder Ambitions is that it’s too ambitious. I think it may not be ambitious enough about what prosperity actually means.
Atlantic Canada needs investment, housing, renewable energy, infrastructure, productive businesses, and good opportunities for people to build lives here. But growth shouldn’t get an automatic pass simply because it’s growth.
We should be asking whether development improves people’s lives, operates within ecological limits, creates fair and secure work, broadens ownership, keeps wealth circulating locally, and leaves communities with assets they will still control a generation from now.
That would give us a different scorecard from GDP, investment, and exports alone: how much institutional purchasing stays in Atlantic Canada; how much major-project equity is Indigenous, community, or employee owned; how many businesses transition into local ownership; whether workers are actually more secure; and whether communities retain control of strategic land and assets.
Bolder Ambitions already contains some important pieces of this: place-based development, inclusive procurement, Indigenous equity, local processing, regional headquarters, and community benefit. Community Wealth Building helps connect those pieces and pushes the conversation a little further.
The question, then, isn’t simply “How much can Atlantic Canada grow?”
It’s this: What should grow, what should diminish, who should own what we build, where should the wealth go – and will our communities actually be better off because of it?