Halifax's Hub City Assets

By Fred Morley

 
Halifax is Nova Scotia’s and Atlantic Canada’s Hub City, one of 9 in Canada identified by the Conference Board.  What this means is that a healthy growing Halifax economy helps the economies around it succeed and they, in turn, help Halifax grow.  It’s a healthy symbiotic relationship.  A stronger Halifax means a stronger Nova Scotia and a stronger Nova Scotia means a stronger Halifax.  It’s not rocket science, but it’s a concept that didn’t carry much weight in Nova Scotia until lately. 

Halifax Stanfield International Airport is one of those hub city assets that make the concept real.  Stanfield accounted for over $1.27 billion in economic activity last year (2008), 11% of all economic activity in Nova Scotia.  The airport handles more passengers than all other airports in the region combined.  With about 5500 direct employees it’s larger than many towns with many of the same services, retailers, hotels, cargo, even a church. 
 
The Halifax airport is an important enabler for many sectors of the province’s economy.  It generates 55% of the province’s tourism revenue, many of them business travelers flying to and from Atlantic Canada’s business hub.   It is critical to our high growth and high wage sectors like banking, insurance, IT and aerospace and defense.  In short the airport connects us to the world and is one of the sectors that give us our Hub City status.

Next….more hub city assets, the port, the health care sector, universities, our regional and head offices.

What do think makes Halifax work as a hub city?

Fred Morley is the Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Greater Halifax Partnership

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Comments

[Giles Crouch]

Certainly the airport helps, as does our port capacity. Even if Melford develops and Halifax becomes a feeder port, that is still very important and I think, better for business overall. The business will be done in Halifax, the goods will move via Melford.

I also think we should count our Digital Hub: we connect to the EU from here, we're mid-point and great for hosting private data for foreign financial institutions doing business in the U.S.; this will become ever more critical in our digital age.