| By Silas White Silas White is the president of the book-publishing company Nightwood Editions, Chair of the Sunshine Coast Board of Education, and a founding director of VOICE on the Coast, a Sunshine Coast advocacy group for the younger (working) generation. He recently completed his Master’s degree in Public Administration at the University of Victoria, including a thesis report on attracting, retaining and engaging young adults here on the Coast. When I grew up on the Sunshine Coast in the 1980s, I suspect around 75 percent of my classmates were from families sustained by logging or commercial fishing. And when my dad grew up here in the fifties, not being involved in logging or fishing was almost unheard of. But today, BC Stats Quarterly Regional Statistics (Second Quarter, 2011) tells us that forestry, fishing, hunting and agriculture combined accounted for only 4.5% of our labour force in 2006 – which is surely less now (it is likely that many jobs in the BC Stats category of “manufacturing,” 8.1% of our workforce in 2006, were also forestry-related). More recently, a Vancouver Coastal Health presentation of Natural Resources Canada data showed that Roberts Creek was a “resource-reliant” community in 2001 with 72% of its employment income generated from forestry, but over only five years this figure dropped to 19% in 2006. Also from 2001 to 2006, the resource reliance on forestry in Sechelt dropped from 36% to 19%, in Gibsons from 64% to 47%, and fishery reliance in Pender Harbour–Egmont dropped from 35% to 6%. The most disturbing part of these statistics is not that we’re losing fishery and forestry employment, because this is a familiar reality to most coastal communities in BC and something we’ve all known for a long time now. But despite this steep decline, BC Stats still identifies the Sunshine Coast with a forestry economy. Clearly we haven’t adapted! The numbers actually show that construction was our top industry in 2006, at 12.9% of the workforce (1,830 jobs). So we at least have this to celebrate. But what is a “construction community” amidst a void of other employment? Many might, and many DO, call the Sunshine Coast a “retirement community.” Another strong indicator for this label is the fact that while Sunshine Coast population has grown by 10,000 since 1990 (a 50% jump), K–12 school district enrolment has dropped from 4,500 to about 3,000 during this same period. Clearly, very few of these newcomers have been families with children. Furthermore, the median age on the Sunshine Coast was 48.5 in the 2006 Census (now estimated to be over 50). This 2006 number was 7.7 years above the provincial average, and behind only one other regional district or census area: Parksville–Qualicum Beach. With an excellent reputation as a retirement community, and a 2006 median age of 56.6, all is not well in the Parksville-Qualicum area. In October 2010, CKAY-FM reported the plea of the Parksville and District Chamber of Commerce “to attract the sort of young, working and entrepreneurial families that will not only boost student numbers, but provide an economic boost,” calling on “local governments to work with the business community on initiatives to try to turn the demographic trends around and diversify the area’s economy.” Earlier that month, the area’s school district had announced it was considering the closure of Qualicum Beach’s only secondary school—which has almost identical capacity and enrolment numbers to those of Chatelech Secondary in Sechelt (both are projected to sink to about 400 students in 900 seats). Is this where we’re headed on the Sunshine Coast? How long will it be before BC Stats Quarterly Regional | Statistics switches the misleading classification of the Sunshine Coast as a forestry community, to the description for Parksville–Qualicum: known for its retirement community? Sadly, despite the work of the Chamber of Commerce and what the local paper is already calling a “volatile” upcoming election campaign in Qualicum Beach, many say it is too late to turn the tide in Parksville–Qualicum – with the possible closure of Qualicum Beach’s only secondary school as the nail in the coffin (perhaps literally – if it is repurposed to meet the needs of the current community, as one morbid CCBA member recently joked to me!). But perhaps we on the Sunshine Coast still have time, if we act now. At least our median age is eight years younger than the Parksville area, and a full twelve years younger if you isolate Qualicum Beach! But, we are acting now. This publication, the emergence of the CCBA over the past few years, and the success of the CCBA Home Show have helped to rebrand the Coast as a centre for innovation and industriousness; a place where we truly strive to make the most out of our great community and stunning natural landscape rather than keep things the same by naively hoping that no one else will notice us (this latter “vision” isn’t working, by the way, as proven by the 50% population growth in only twenty years). We are also acting through the work that the Sunshine Coast Community Foundation did last year to raise alarm over the trends in employment of young adults that were identified in their Vital Signs publication. This movement grew into a Task Force that included representation by the CCBA, a Community Plan presented in January to attract, retain and engage the younger generations on the Sunshine Coast, and finally an advocacy group of for the younger generations named VOICE on the Coast. And at the local government level, some important collaborative proposals have emerged in recent months to enhance both Coast-wide economic development, and affordable housing. The “We Envision: One Coast…” document, too, initiated by the Regional District’s Sustainability department outlines an exciting and ambitious approach to cooperatively addressing our community’s challenges (www.onecoast.ca); much of the Coast’s public and non-profit sector have already been engaged in this vision, but private-sector visionaries must also give the plan a read and enter the dialogue. So, like Qualicum Beach, do we need some “volatility” this November to shake things up? I, for one, hope not. We have way too much of it already, and it is exactly what we need to move beyond on the Sunshine Coast. Election campaigns, and the reaction to them, can set the tone for the full three-year term of a local government. From all candidates in November, the Sunshine Coast is in dire need of vision. We can no longer accept elections as popularity or slogan contests. Voters have considerable power in “setting the mandate,” and if the elected mandate ends up being “you’re not the other guy,” we’re not setting a very high standard for the next three years. Instead, we need to demand ideas, and principles. For example, if we’re not a forestry-dependent community any more, then what should our economy be based on? And how are we going to get there? How are we going to encourage the creation of real, year-long jobs and more housing that people can afford to live in? If candidates can’t answer these questions, or worse yet, make jokes out of them, these aren’t the individuals we need to be taking on the true challenges facing the Sunshine Coast right now. I was recently asked about a passionate group of young people who were involved in the Community Foundation’s attracting, retaining and engaging Task Force process last year. I had to admit that half of them are already gone, having moved off-Coast. And of the already-small number of 20-35 year-olds I know right now, four more will have left by the time this article is published. Despite the progress we’ve been making recently, change is still not coming soon enough for those struggling to find their place in an anonymous economy. This only puts more pressure on those who have stayed, but through intergenerational leadership and partnerships, we can make the Sunshine Coast a better place for all ages.Read More |
