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Early explorers to Canada's East Coast were hoping that finding a passage to India would make them rich. Halifax Port Authority president Karen Oldfield figures she has access to just such a passage -- across the Atlantic and through the Suez Canal -- and that it will give Halifax new life as a bustling gateway for Indian goods into North America. Ms. Oldfield, a 45-year-old lawyer who has run the port for five years, talks about her epiphany on an Indian highway and her vision for a renewed Nova Scotia.

Your pitch is that you are much closer to India than are the Pacific ports.

That is the elevator pitch. The magic number is 1,840 nautical miles closer. People have been talking about the Suez Express in relation to Halifax for many, many years, but the stars and the moon didn't really line up until now.

Have you been to India?

Twice. We have an office in India and we have folks on the ground -- Indians -- through an alliance with Jeena, an Indian company. We probably saved 18 to 24 months of developmental work by teaming up with Jeena.

That's where a lot of people from North America give up. You don't know where to stay, you don't know where to eat, you don't know where to go. You don't know who to talk to, who's real and who's not -- you don't know anything. It's a very tough way to break in, particularly in India. You just can't walk down the street and find people with good relationships.

Did you really feel and taste the Indian experience?

The first time I was there, it was 10 days, and by day three I couldn't sleep any more because I was over-stimulated. I had seen so much, taken in so much. Your eyes are going, and you can't keep up with what you're seeing. Your brain is in overdrive.

We had arranged to go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. There were two ways to go from Delhi, by train and by road, and we decided to take the road. It takes four times as long by car but that is how you really see India.

For the first hour out of Delhi, you see people living beside the road and they have their businesses there. They are very, very entrepreneurial. There may be a barber set up along the road beside a factory. If he is a high-end barber, he has a mirror; if he is not high end, he doesn't. There are tons of them and that is how they make a living.

Can you believe this will be the economic giant of the 21st century?

The sheer numbers are staggering. There are more millionaires in India than we have people in Canada. There is a big economic divide, but you can actually see the middle class growing and prospering, with more cars, more consumer goods.

I would say the Indian people are very flexible. When you think about their life and what they've had to go through, that is one of the pluses of their culture that will really help make them powerful. They can go with the punches. They are like water and they find their natural path. Of course, the infrastructure is a challenge and Indian people will be the first to say that.

You must come home to Nova Scotia with a different perspective?

You really do. It's very motivating in China and India because you've seen the art of the possible. And then you come home and know it can be done. You also know it can be done sometimes in circumstances harder than what we would have.

It sounds like you're a little frustrated because maybe we aren't striving as much.

I think that is a personal characteristic. Because I'm a person who strives for excellence, I find it very motivating to try to do better and be better, and push and push and push. I think that's what Indians are doing right now.

Maybe we sit a little too much.

Yes, maybe we sit a little. In Nova Scotia, we are not early adapters. It's good to have a part of your population who are not early adapters but you also have to have a part who are. Somebody has to be pushing and driving and striving for excellence. These other countries are, and we're not. And why not?

When I go away, I try to take something positive and come home and talk about it. Usually on the plane before I get home, I will write a letter to stakeholders and other people I know about what we learned on the trip. I do find it quite motivating to see what others are doing. If you can't find it in your own country, you have to go to find it elsewhere.

It's a strange out-of-body experience in India because it is such a country of conflict. On the one hand, you're seeing construction happening in which women carry baskets on their heads with rocks in them. The next day, you're sitting in a computer simulator learning how to work a container crane and it's state-of-the-art.

That's why I couldn't sleep. You just can't reconcile it. There is no logic.

Do you believe in this vision of an economic region -- some call it Atlantica -- that encompasses Eastern Canada and the U.S. Northeast?

I definitely believe in it. When you look at the port of Halifax's natural catchment area, it is the southern part of Quebec, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, the Atlantic provinces. That's all been our historical natural trading partner. It's the Boston area, as well.

The way I look at it, we have only 34 million people in this country but one thing we have is we know the United States as well or better than the United States knows itself. That's what we have to leverage, that's what we have to sell -- our knowledge and understanding of that culture.

Are you part of the old guard in the Maritimes?

I call myself the anti-establishment establishment. What I mean is, I like to shake it up; I don't like the status quo. What makes me tick is impact, getting things done, important things.

As a public-sector body, is the authority constrained in what it can do in raising money to develop the harbour?

I have a feeling that will change, and I hope it does. We have a ceiling, we have a borrowing limit, which was put in place with inception of [the] Canada Marine Act. Now with everything happening with the port, it's time to revisit that and I think that will happen.

Having said that, there is a path now [to do it]. You have to make an application to make a case, and you can move forward. Vancouver has done it and we need to do that very soon.

Wouldn't it be a good time to consider privatizing the port?

Yes, but I'm guarded, and it's only because I'm not sure it would be possible. That would be a major, major sea change. I don't know that it would be possible, and there are other alternatives. There is the potential for purely private development -- for example, there is discussion of a new private terminal for Nova Scotia at the Strait of Canso. And nobody would stop that.

Philosophically, would you want to go there?

Yes, I would. But can we go there? I'm not sure we can. But on the spectrum between fully public and fully private, we are closer to the private sector, anyway. We're not overly regulated.

How much longer will you stay in this job?

I have certain things I need to make sure get done or are well-established. We're talking a matter of years, not months. . . . But I don't know what I'm going to do next. If it were just the money, I guess I'd be in Toronto.

You were once chief of staff to a Conservative premier. Do you want to be premier?

No, I don't. A lot of people would say, 'Oh, you know, Karen is going to run for politics,' but I'm unequivocal on that one.

How do you find balance?

My 12-year-old daughter keeps me on the straight and narrow. I don't have a BlackBerry -- I have a Treo. If we go out for dinner, the first thing she does is take my phone and put it away. I have to respect that. She is absolutely right. Since when would you put a phone in priority to your child? I thank her for that. She is very, very jealous at times.

Karen Oldfield

Title: President and CEO, Halifax Port Authority

Born: March 25, 1962, in Halifax

Education:

1982: BA from Saint Mary's University

1985: Graduated from Dalhousie Law School

1986: Admitted to Nova Scotia bar

1985 to 1999: Practised law with McInnes Cooper in Halifax

1999 to 2002: Chief of staff for N.S. Conservative premier John Hamm

January, 2002: Joined Halifax Port Authority as CEO