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By all definitions, Oct. 12, 2008, was a good day for Larry Chappell. He was standing in the winner’s circle for the $25,000 Breeders Crown with his horse, R Es Mary, who had just stamped herself as the best two-year-old female racehorse east of Montreal. After nearly not qualifying for the championship race, she now stood victorious in front of a crowd of 2,000 people. It was a far cry from what Chappell had expected when he bought his first horse three years earlier.

The now 51-year-old Charlottetown, PEI resident is a contractor with his own business, Chappell Construction. He gets his materials from Metro Building Supplies, a company owned by Don Smith and his son Peter, who have owned horses for decades. Larry was talking to Peter one day and told him he was interested in getting a racehorse, even though he didn’t know anything about the business. Chappell had always dabbled in different hobbies (owning drag cars, stock cars and motorcycles) and the idea of having a racehorse appealed to him.

In the fall of 2005, he joined up with Don, Peter, and their partner (potato farmer Gerald Morrissey) and bought a yearling filly named Woodmere Britestar. They paid $4,700 for her at the Atlantic Classic Yearling sale in Charlottetown, where over 120 of the 400 Standardbred racehorses born every year in Atlantic Canada are sold.

The group turned the horse over to veteran trainer Earl Smith to get her ready for the following year’s harness racing season. Smith is a winner of over 2,000 races and consistently prepares some of the region’s best young horses.

Once a horse is bought as a yearling, it’s taken to a racetrack or training centre to be broke to harness. Harness keeps the race bike or jog cart, used for racing and training respectively, attached to the horse. Each horse is different, so they all respond differently to the harness, but once they get used to it, they begin training for races.

During a recent 7:00 am visit to Smith’s stable in Charlottetown, I found the 60-year-old plying his trade like he has been full-time for over 40 years. With the smell of straw in the crisp spring air, I grabbed one of the buckets of horse feed hanging on the stall doors and opened the first gate. The horse inside stared at me, then came pushing his nose against my shoulder trying to see what I had for him. I dumped the contents in and kept going to feed the rest. After that’s done, every horse is taken out to have their stall cleaned and fresh bedding put in. Then it’s exercise time.

This doesn’t always go so smoothly. One day at this stage, I went into a stall to put a halter on the horse (Mr. Pogge) so I could stand him in the aisle, hook him to the two chains on the wall so he couldn’t walk away, and put his harness on – but step one wasn’t in that horse’s plans. When I walked up to him in his stall with his head in the corner, he wheeled around at full speed, hugged the outside wall and ran out the door before I could catch him and get his halter on in the aisle. Smith just laughed. “He’s rearing to get at it today,” he said.

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When it was launched, PEI government officials said the Island Prosperity Strategy would double the size of the province’s aerospace workforce, attract a host of bioscience research and development, boost home-grown energy self-sufficiency and energize the domestic I.T. sector – all this while simultaneously modernizing traditional industries and encouraging the repatriation of Islanders who had had to move away for work.

The Liberal government claims their 70-page Island Prosperity Plan is the play book for all this, but the Progressive Conservatives say this plan won’t create any jobs at all – unless you get a job making glossy signs announcing government projects.

The Plan includes a $40-million investment in people, with a focus on attracting skilled immigrants and former Islanders to man the key sectors. Another $100-million are earmarked for investment in innovation. This includes programs like the pilot fund and the discovery and development fund which will provide money for high-risk projects with commercial potential in order to get them to market more quickly. An additional $60-million will be invested in infrastructure such as the new Biocommons Park and to triple wind energy capacity on the Island (more on this in “Whistling in the Wind?”).

The proposed Biocommons Park, valued at $35-million, is hoped to become the core of the Island’s bioscience industry and its 27 companies. It’s slated to be built on the outskirts of Charlottetown and is currently in the planning stages.

At the present time, PEI’s bioscience sector produces revenues of about $78-million annually and spends $75-million each year on research and development. The Province wants to see revenue grow to $300-million yearly and employment grow to 2,000 workers (up from the current roster of 850). Commercialization has been flagged as the key to achieving that – which is where the Biocommons Park comes in.

The 65-acre Park will be owned by government and will be run either by them or the bioscience industry (the details are still being hammered out). Government monies will be used to install the Park’s infrastructure (e.g. electrical and water and sewer systems) and construct a “business accelerator building” that will house incubation suites where businesses can grow and test products. Other lots in the Park would be available to commercial enterprises which would buy or lease the land from the Province.

Rory Francis, executive director of the PEI Bioalliance says the need for the Park is great. He says the sector is increasingly cramped for space, as the activities of individual companies and at the National Research Council building at UPEI have outgrown their physical footprint.

Canada has a great reputation for government-funded research, but it doesn’t do as well when it comes to commercializing the results of that research, Francis says. He sees the accelerator building as a significant step in reversing that trend.

“With the new economy we’re all stepping out into the unknown here. It’s not like we’ve had a bioscience sector for generations or anything. We’re learning together what it takes to do this and create a science platform that’s credible globally,” says Francis.

Ron Keefe, CEO of Biovectra (a bioscience company), agrees that the Plan’s focus on that sector is much needed. “I think I speak for all the industry when I say this is a good Plan and will help us to grow,” he says.

Some incentives in the Plan include tax breaks for bioscience companies with long term agreements to stay in the sector, and tax breaks for specially-trained employees who have to be recruited to the province. This fiscal commitment, along with an educational and research partnership with Holland College and UPEI, is building the roster of biochemical professionals on Prince Edward Island, Keefe says. “This gives us a critical mass, and frankly will help move the sector forward and move the province forward in terms of employment opportunities and economic development. You focus in this particular area; you’re going to get some solid interest from a number of companies.”

Over $100-million in bioscience infrastructure spending has already been invested over the past five years. During that same time frame, existing companies have expanded and new ones have arrived on the Island. Keefe admits it’s not all because of government but he says there is a definite link.

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It’s probably not what occurs to most people as they wait for their morning toast to pop, but that day in my Cornwall, PEI home, I couldn’t help but ponder the possibility that water sitting behind a dam in the province of Quebec might soon be powering the appliance that makes my breakfast.

It’s all part of the promise brought to Island residents by the Liberal government in their Island Prosperity Plan. After what seems like an eternity of dependence on energy brought across the Northumberland Strait from New Brunswick, the PEI government wants to take charge of its energy future. For Islanders, who are paying more than twice the power rates of some jurisdictions, it’s not a moment too soon.

The Province’s Minister of Environment, Energy and Forestry, Richard Brown, believes the best way to reduce power rates is via “sustainable” energy. Ron Estabrooks, Energy advisor with the same Department, affirms that wind power can be less expensive than oil and natural gas. In 2007, the PEI Energy Corporation established has a 39 MW Power Purchase Agreement with Maritime Electric at an initial price of $77.50 per megawatt hour (7.75 cents per kilowatt hour) for power generated at East Point and the Norway facilities. This price has a component linked to the consumer price index. As the price of petroleum products goes up, the more economical Island-produced green power becomes.

That may be the case, but even the green route is not one that PEI can go alone. The Island has strong winds blowing in many places, which makes wind power a viable source for energy but it’s far too costly to be the sole source of power. “People always ask, ‘Why don’t we use all of our wind power here?’” Brown says. “That will never happen.”

Why is that? It’s because the wind only blows approximately 40 per cent of the time, so those are the only times that power can be produced from turbines. The Island currently has a 156 megawatt wind power capacity. While that would normally cover all of the Island’s everyday energy needs, rules set out by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) say that a jurisdiction needs the capability to be able to cope with its possible peak usage at any given time. Each year on December 24, PEI’s power usage spikes to around 220 megawatts.

While provincial wind turbine capacity is expected to expand to around 500 megawatts by 2013, the energy produced is too costly to store. Brown says that it would require the construction of a power storage facility as big as three aircraft hangars. According to the Minister, that just doesn’t make sense – at the moment, anyway.

Instead, the Province is leaning towards a balanced energy approach that includes either Quebec or Newfoundland and Labrador. If successful, the initiative would make the Island 100 per cent green energy powered.

The Plan is to increase PEI’s wind power capacity to 220 megawatts or more. When the wind is blowing, that would be the Island’s energy source. Any excess energy would be sold to a partner province. In exchange, the partner province would send hydro power to PEI when no wind power is being produced on the Island. The hope is to sell the wind power to the other province for 7.5 cents a kilowatt hour and buy the hydro at the same rate.

The logistics may be tricky but the basic concept is simple, Brown says. “We give you wind and you give me hydro, we load balance, and we all win.”

The coming June closure of the Dalhousie power plant in northern New Brunswick was originally considered a significant blow to the Island’s energy supply – it supplies approximately 13 per cent of the Island’s electricity. Now, however, the impending loss has become a catalyst to speed up the “100 per cent green power” plan. “It (Dalhousie) was very expensive dirty power anyways, and it was only getting more expensive,” explains Brown.

Other gas fired plants could be found to replace that energy, but Brown predicts carbon taxes are not that far down the road, which is why PEI is using this opportunity to make the green energy switch now.