D7

Rod Allen
City Views

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Though I have been back home for a couple of weeks since wrapping up a recent assignment out of town, a few housekeeping items remain, topmost being an expansion on the theme of the remarkable similarities to be found between Metro Moncton and the Greater Dubai Area.

For one thing Dubai, one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, is known far and wide as the Hustlin' Hub of the Arabian Gulf (or words to that effect) for shipping and tourism.

Just like poor old Moncton which doesn't enjoy a lot of natural resources wealth, poor old Dubai doesn't sit on a gigantic oil well as its fellow UAE members do.

So just like Metro, Dubai started moving toward a diversified economy some years ago and to do it, its government dredged and cleaned up its tidal estuary, Dubai Creek, in 1965 -- three years before we built our causeway over our own tidal estuary, a.k.a. the Petitcodiac River.

The cost of 200,000 pounds sterling was a bargain (about $750,000 Cdn in 1965) compared to the approximate $70 million price tag we cash-strapped Metro-Gnomes are looking at here today, even accounting for 40 years worth of inflation.

And it turns out it was money well spent as The Creek is doing quite a bit better than the Petitcodiac in the shipping department -- eight wharves over its 14 kilometres, handling about 750,000 tonnes of cargo annually compared to Metro's total of zero.

Incidentally this is just a fraction of Dubai's total shipping value along the rest of its coastline which, unlike most nations of the world with the arguable exceptions of the Netherlands in the Middle Ages and old l'Acadie of the 1600s, is growing.

An artificial palm-tree-shaped peninsula and archipelago completed two years ago adds 120 kilometres to the city's coastline and now there are two more.

They're also currently building two more archipelagos out in the Gulf, one of them a collection of 300 artificial islands.

It will replicate the map of the world and yes indeed, a perfect scaled-down version of New Brunswick will soon grace the waters of the Arabian Gulf. The resident 'herring-chokers' will probably fight with the 'Islanders' located just across the 'Northumberland Strait.'

I note for the record it is easy to digress when writing about this strange, exotic and breath-takingly wealthy city; my point is actually that Dubai's version of "municipal taxes" on revenue derived from shipping alone is fairly substantial, and contributes to a healthy annual budget for Dubai.

Now, Dubai is a city-state with its own hereditary ruler, and not being a democracy, the "municipal government" doesn't feel compelled to share its annual combined operating and capital budget with the likes of me and you.

However, you can imagine the scope of the overall budget by sifting through news accounts of some of the municipality's projects, such as the world's largest ocean-water desalinization plant.

That continuing capital project contributed to a 2008 combined operating/capital budget for the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority -- one department of the "municipal government" -- of a little under $16 billion Cdn.

Now your average, garden-variety Monctonian is probably thinking "well that must be nice for them" given the combined operating and capital budgets for all departments in all three of Metro's municipalities in 2008 was in the relatively modest neighbourhood of $200 million.

Compare that $200 million to the value of one day's worth of land transactions in Dubai -- about $130 million Cdn on a recent Sunday which, granted, is the busiest business day of the week there right after the two-day Sabbath.

But consider this, dear jealous readers, another snippet of news mentioned in the New York Times's online paper this week is that Dubai's current debt sits at about $96 billion Cdn.

The Times notes that it is highly unusual for the municipal government of Dubai to be that open about its financial matters.

And it speculates this might be a signal to other UAE members, particularly the seat of UAE government in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, that a petroleum-fueled bail-out from Abu Dhabi (which does sit on a giant oilwell) might be in the works.

Although the UAE members often squabble with one another, notes the Times, they tend to close ranks when the going gets rough and the world's richest per-capita nation for oil wealth will spread that wealth around.

Now just like Dubai, the City of Moncton hovers on the edge of financial embarrassment; our $107 million debt is the largest of all New Brunswick cities.

Our Metro sister communities fare no better.

Riverview's debt of $24 million is the largest among all of New Brunswick's towns and Dieppe's $77 million is easily the largest per-capita debt in all New Brunswick.

Now I suppose this is where our two communities diverge just a little; a combined Metro debt of $200 million (interestingly the figure almost matches the combined 2008 budgets of the three) is not so bad compared to $96 billion.

On the other hand we don't have an oil-rich cousin to fall back on for largesse despite recent encouraging, if modest, oil and gas developments right next door in Albert County.

That means we'll have to work even harder than Dubai to manage our debt.

Of course, current global economic conditions, troubling both Dubai and Metro Moncton, are temporary and demand for forest products and minerals will inevitably rebound one day soon.

Perhaps its time Moncton strengthened its relationships with neighbouring city-states such as Sussex, Bathurst and Miramichi.

n City Views appears daily, written by various members of our staff. Rod Allen is an assistant managing editor with The Times & Transcript. His column appears every Thursday.