‘Absolutely on the right path’: Oldfield shares vision for Accelerate Nova Scotia

Michael Gorman · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 21, 2026 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

Karen Oldfield understands why people are asking questions about the new job she started earlier this month, but the former interim CEO of Nova Scotia Health is unfazed.

Oldfield is just a few weeks removed from the announcement that she was leaving the helm of the provincial health authority to become CEO of the newly created agency Accelerate Nova Scotia. Premier Tim Houston appointed her to the top job at Nova Scotia Health in 2021 shortly after he took office and fired the board and CEO.

“When I look at what I’ve done over the past five years and what I’ve learned and the relationships that I’ve built and the models I’ve seen, I have every expectation of taking all of that knowledge and putting it to work to bring, you know, more jobs and investment to Nova Scotia, and it’s as simple as that,” Oldfield told CBC News.

While the June 30 announcement marked the first time most people in the province had heard of Accelerate, Oldfield says she started to see possibilities for something like it early in her tenure at Nova Scotia Health.

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“It was very early days,” she said during an interview last week in a room in the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub overlooking downtown Halifax.

Oldfield said as she and other senior officials worked to advance Houston’s 2021 campaign promise to fix health care, her observations about the system started to evolve in a way that would eventually plant the seeds for an idea that grew into Accelerate.

“Once we started to make the investments, then I saw it in a slightly different way, which was opportunity. Like, if this is working for us, it could work for somebody else.”

Leaving money on the table

At its core, Oldfield said, Accelerate Nova Scotia aims to find ways to generate jobs and economic activity using health-care technology, research and ideas developed in Nova Scotia.

That could mean attracting more activity here, or taking an equity stake in products developed here so that if they are sold or marketed elsewhere, the province would get a cut, which could be reinvested in a health-care system that consumes the lion’s share of the provincial budget.

“For too long, we’re leaving money on the table,” she said. “Why?”

Oldfield said that while she didn’t see herself continuing to run the health authority long term, she was interested in finding ways to support it. To that end, she said, Accelerate will focus on opportunities in three areas: clinical trials; medical technology and services in the life and health sciences; and health data and data infrastructure.

The big dream

Oldfield is particularly bullish about clinical trials, an area in which she sees opportunities to work with researchers and the pharmaceutical industry to create more jobs and attract investment to the province.

“The big dream is to actually take that one step further to pharmaceutical manufacturing of some kind. And why can’t we do that? I think we can,” she said. “Let’s build the clinical trials and our expertise and so forth.”

But blanks remain to be filled in.

Information still to come

The only thing known right now about Accelerate’s budget is that Oldfield’s contract is for two years and pays her $310,000 a year.

She’s the agency’s only employee and isn’t sure yet if there will be many — if any — more. Oldfield said she has “no intention of creating any kind of an empire,” viewing her role as a facilitator who will bring the necessary players together.

“There is no sense taking a bunch of people and trying to find jobs for them. The more strategic thing is to identify the priorities, the targets and then recruit or bring to the table the people who can fulfil those roles,” she said.

Prior to that, Oldfield must complete a charter defining the agency’s scope, metrics and accountability guidelines. She’ll also produce a strategy detailing milestones for the agency’s first 30, 60 and 90 days and beyond.

“And I’m gonna know soon — maybe six months — if this is the right track or not the right track,” she said.

“And I will tell you one thing: if it’s not the right track, I will take myself out of the equation. So, you know, it’s gonna be that simple. But I don’t think it is the wrong track. I think we’re absolutely on the right path.”

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