Education essential to northern economy
This week, the heavyweights come to town. I don’t mean boxing but politics. MLA Mike Morris is hosting the 15th annual B.C. Natural Resources Forum. This is a legacy event started by Pat Bell when he was in government. It is a major congregation of individuals including the likes of Daniel Muzyka, president and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada and Natural Resources Minister James Gordon Carr.
Premier John Horgan is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech at the luncheon on Wednesday.
National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations will give the opening keynote address at breakfast earlier that day.
For the hardy souls, there is a Ministers’ Breakfast at 7 a.m. featuring provincial ministers Bruce Ralston, Doug Donaldson, Michelle Mungall, George Heyman and Scott Fraser.
Lots of politicians. Lots of business people. CEOs, executive directors, presidents and chiefs from all over the natural resource sector. This annual conference is a major affair and it is certainly a bipartisan effort as there will be people of all political stripes in attendance.
In all of this, though, I hope the fundamental messages do not get lost.
First and foremost, rural B.C. is a major contributor to the provincial economy. Just this past week, the Citizen featured an article discussing the 2017 State of the North Report from NDIT.
Up front, the report addresses the question: “How much does northern B.C.’s economy contribute to the economy as a whole?”
To summarize their answer “quite a lot.” About 78 per cent of B.C.’s annual commodity exports come from rural B.C.
This is generally expressed as 80 per cent of B.C.’s exports come from the 90 per cent of the province which houses 10 per cent of the people. We contribute somewhere between $24 and $30 billion in export value on an annual basis, depending on commodity prices.
The vast majority of this is tied up with our natural resources and, hence, it is fitting to have a forum with natural resources as the focus.
But the second fundamental message should be diversification.
Yes, we are presently responsible for much of B.C.’s exports but we need to diversify the economy.
If rural British Columbia is simply the home to the “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” then the economy in the north will always be cyclic and susceptible to the whims of global markets.
After all, every mine we open has a limited lifespan. This is part of the calculation in developing a mine in the first place. They typically last for 20 years or so and when the ore has been fully exploited they shut down. Workers move on. Towns disappear.
We need to hedge against this happening. It is not healthy for our economy.
The same is true for the oil and gas sector. Plays get played out.
The same is true for the forestry sector, particularly with the infestation of beetles due to changing climate. Whole industries can come and go when they are based on limited natural resources.
If rural B.C. is to remain a contributing component of the economy, then we need to diversify. We need to rethink the fundamentals and not simply be about “natural resources.”
As a consequence, I would suggest the third fundamental message is education.
Economists around the world understand the need for a highly educated populace to support economic development and diversification. John Kenneth Galbraith once said of development efforts in India, “We should have thought of education first.”
Education is the cornerstone of the next century. Ensuring everyone in the province has access to equal quality education is critical.
It is also difficult to do. It is much easier and less costly to build a school in Surrey than Smithers. It is much easier to achieve high speed internet connections in Victoria than Terrace.
But in a digital age, we are doing the future a disservice if we do not afford each and every one of our students the chance to achieve their educational potential.
More to the point, they need to be able to achieve it in the regions where they live.
A series of studies by StatsCan show 90 per cent of post-secondary students work within 90 kilometres of their educational institution.
The distance might be a little longer in the north but educational opportunities are critical to maintaining a healthy northern economy.