Northern New Brunswick is cold, remote and in economic decline, making it the ideal place for a cold-weather testing area in the eyes of consultants hired by the provincial government.

Roc Consulting Group identified cold-weather testing and several other sectors that Business New Brunswick (BNB), in charge of attracting investment to the province, should consider pursuing for job opportunities, according to documents obtained by CBC News through the Right to Information Act.

Roc received a $70,000 government contract, which eventually ballooned to $110,580 as the consultants added responsibilities, to come up with the proposals, even though Business New Brunswick has its own civil servants who are normally tasked with attracting outside investment.

The investment and export division has roughly 50 employees, but a spokesman said only about 14 officers are dedicated to investment attraction.

'If there are things that take up huge resources with minimal benefit back to New Brunswickers, then we'd have questions about that.'— Opposition Leader David Alward

Business New Brunswick sought approval to sole-source the four-month contract to Roc on Dec. 3, 2007. The department said the consultants would target "marquee" companies and help bring them to the province.

According to a BNB document sent to the Department of Supply and Services to seek permission to issue the contract without tender, the consultants were brought on board "for assistance in the realignment and refocus of the investment branch."

The province argued it was necessary to bypass the normal tendering process because of the "highly confidential nature of this initiative" and the lack of other companies with this skill.

Sweden an example of cold-weather testing hub

The Roc consultants identified data centres as one potential new industry for the province although even they admitted the centres did not generate many jobs and used a lot of power.

They also proposed cold-weather testing as a potential growth industry, but later described that sector as not a priority area.

BNB was advised to hit up major manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace and defence sectors in the U.S. and Europe, and convince them to use New Brunswick as their cold-weather testing hub.

"Northern New Brunswick provides very cold weather for a sustained period of time as well as the remoteness many companies seek to ensure privacy and eliminate the threat of industrial espionage," a consultant's memo stated.

The provincial government was pitched the cold-weather testing concept by way of a temperature comparison with Lapland, Sweden. New Brunswick's north has a mean temperature of –10.5 C between December and March compared to –10 C at the Arjeplog Test Centre in Sweden, which has attracted many big companies, such as BMW. BMW recently invested about $26 million in a new facility at the site.

The four-month contract with Roc was the first of two given out by BNB that circumvented the normal public tendering process. The provincial government recently extended the second contract for another four months. The combined value of the two contracts is more than $550,000.

The initial contract sought to identify general sectors that could be targeted for investment. The second required the consultants to come up with 400 investment leads, 40 potential economic development projects and four actual investment deals — benchmarks that have yet to be met.

The recent extension of the second contract is to allow the consultants more time to recruit companies interested in transforming the north into a component construction hub. Neither data centres nor cold-weather training have been included in the new contract.

Opposition Leader David Alward said he wants to see the provincial government attracting high-paying jobs that add value to traditional industries or focus heavily on research and development. Alward said he's skeptical about the consultants' ideas.

"If there are things that take up huge resources with minimal benefit back to New Brunswickers, then we'd have questions about that," he said.

Data centres a flashback to call centres

When pitching the prospect of data centres to the province, the consultants described them as business process outsourcing (BPO) operations that offer server storage and handle data processing tasks for companies anywhere in the world.

'These centres are not labour-intensive, which in the short term might be a good thing given our skilled workforce intelligence challenges!' — Roc Consulting Group

The consultants argued that New Brunswick is an attractive place for data centres because it is remote, secure, free from natural disasters and possesses advanced telecommunications and cheap electricity compared to other locations, such as Maine and New York.

One data centre used as an example would draw on as much as 60 megawatts of power and require two hectares of land.

Despite the government's stated mandate to create jobs, especially in the north, Roc advised BNB these operations wouldn't bring a lot of additional employment to an area but said that could be an advantage.

"These centres are not labour-intensive, which in the short term might be a good thing given our skilled workforce intelligence challenges!" the report said.

The consultants argued that data centres were the natural next step for a province that had had such success with call centres in the 1990s.

"One of North America's [marquee] jurisdictions and the one that started the call centre phenom is now entering the data centre and BPO marketplace aggressively," the memo said.

Consultants warned U.S. firms could start pulling out of N.B.

The consultants lobbied the province for the contract in one memorandum with a grim reality check on how New Brunswick's business climate is stacking up and the effectiveness of existing government programs.

'The department requires a new approach and a more intensive retention and after-care program if the province is to retain these companies and to have them continue to expand within our borders.'— Roc Consulting Group

"Some foreign firms, particularly from the U.S. and primarily in the call centre sector, that have located in New Brunswick are revisiting their rationale for locating in the province, particularly in light of the strong Canadian dollar," stated the memo when the Canadian dollar was near par with the U.S. dollar.

"The department requires a new approach and a more intensive retention and after-care program if the province is to retain these companies and to have them continue to expand within our borders."

That need for a new approach was reflected in another BNB memo that described results from traditional investment tactics as "un-spectacular."

Although the names of the Roc consultants used on the first contract were all blacked out in the documents turned over by the department, the individuals named in the second contract were all senior bureaucrats tied to the Department of Economic Development, especially during the time of Frank McKenna in the 1990s.

The consultants didn't shy away from reminding their employers about how they operated a decade earlier.

In a Jan. 22, 2008, email regarding marketing budgets, the consultants argued for a certain figure by pointing out how much money they had to work with in the 1990s.