Has the economic downturn really hit PEI? Kathy Hambly, executive director of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce doesn't think so and neither do I.

I haven't heard of any mass layoffs, except for Bell Canada/Aliant. Then again, when things are going good we don't exactly see lots of new companies coming in adding 100's of jobs to our economy like in the bigger centers.

I still believe that the PNP program may also be a major contributing factor since it did inject $400 million into our economy. Considering that is $400 million dollars extra sitting in companies bank accounts, I don't exactly think it just sat there. Most would have spent it on something they were planning on doing.

That being said, I don't exactly put much faith into everything Kathy Hambly says after attending a presentation where she spoke about web design and development and gave credit to a local company for being the first company that would actually design your website (and any needed graphics) and put it to HTML format.