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.
