Kings can capitalize on strengths as newcomers check us out

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

The grass may not be as green as we’re led to believe in Canada’s west.

There are workers and families moving from there to here: more than you might think. “I’ve made 132 visits in six months,” says Welcome Wagon rep Ellen Clarke. She looks after the communities from Greenwich through to Aylesford. “There were 24 families from Alberta - I spoke to three in one week.”

Clarke lines up her visits through word of mouth, or just keeping an eye out for “Sold” stickers on residential real estate signs and popping her card in the door. “There are young couples buying their first home, there are people moving for work - half of them are coming from other places in Nova Scotia. The ones from away either have ties here, or they’ve vacationed here and fallen in love.”

The Kings Community Economic Development Agency’s Invest in Kings program - launched 11 years ago as Move to Kings and aimed at retirees, has made contacts with 5,000 people and, of those, 271 families have moved to Kings County. Program manager MaDonna MacDonald says it’s not a hard sell. “This is a great place to live, work and have a business,” she says. “Those 271 families are spending millions” on new houses, business investments, local shopping, property taxes and even registrations for the kids’ soccer and horseback riding lessons. “The program shows us the money, and it’s easily tracked.”

Kings CED runs its attraction program, and also has a partnership with the Nova Scotia nominee program for immigrants, another pool of people with professional skills, money to invest and reasons to be interested in Kings County. “That’s a slower process - six to nine months - but the number of people getting in contact with us is growing,” she says, listing people from Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom - “all over. “The issue is, once we get them here, we want to keep them.”

Kings CED has a new immigration committee to look at those challenges: professional licensing barriers, making bank and insurance connections, having doctors here to accept new families.

Berwick’s Dave Keddy is an “implant” himself, arriving four years ago after living and working in Calgary for 15 years. “It was a huge lifestyle change, but a good time for us. There are opportunities here, and potential: it’s an hour-and-a-half from the city, we’re looking for people with entrepreneurial skills to establish themselves or work for someone else, we’re developing our infrastructure,” referring to the future community complex, the Kings Mutual Century Centre. “It’s the pace.”

Keddy himself is now “selling” that as an economic development officer for Western Kings, based in Berwick and working with Kings CED. Two weeks ago, he lugged local brochures from the summer town visitor information centre down to his office. He’s got displays and layouts for the Kings Mutual Century Centre against the wall. He’s visiting a few businesses a week (on a list of several hundred), looking for data on their challenges and opportunities. He’s started a newcomers’ network. And, now, he’s pitching Welcome Wagon contacts. “I can’t imagine coming here and not having the kind of information” in those baskets: garbage collection dates, library hours, local businesses and services, recreational programs and more. “That knowledge is power, and it’s community building.”

He says it’s crucial to help newcomers make those connections. He met a family last month from England on the sidewalk, looking for information. By the end of the afternoon, he’d driven them around town, visited both local high schools for their son, showed them some business development opportunities and lined up information for their potential move. “My only concern is when people come, we’re ready. If I’m not here, or someone doesn’t ask the right question at the corner store to make a connection in the community, they could keep going. “The town office, the post office, every business - we should all be ready to be a point of contact.”