Clark to boost rural spending to tackle British Columbia’s economic divide

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B.C. Premier Christy Clark says her government is prepared to ramp up infrastructure spending in rural communities to address a growing economic divide within the province.

Over the span of 2016, the average number of employed people in urban communities in B.C.'s southwest has climbed but in almost every other region in the province, the average number has declined.

Ms. Clark told reporters her government will roll out a new rural-technology strategy in the coming weeks to encourage diversification in communities that are falling behind.

"It's infrastructure investments we need to make anyway to grow our economy. Let's spend that money now and put people to work in rural B.C. while the commodities market is very low," she told reporters at a natural-resources forum in Prince George on Wednesday.

While her B.C. Liberal Party continues to promote the province's status as the strongest economy in the country, jobs are disappearing in communities outside of the urban centres in the southwest.

The next provincial election is a little more than three months away, and the B.C. Liberal government recently revamped its jobs plan to acknowledge that employment in forestry, mining and liquefied natural gas has not taken off as it had hoped.

At the conference, the Premier faced a string of questions from participants about the future of B.C.'s softwood-lumber industry, as Canada girds for a renewed trade war with the United States over exports.

An anticipated rebound in mineral and natural-gas prices will help some sectors of the economy, but uncertainty about forestry remains. In addition to the prospect of punitive tariffs imposed on B.C.'s softwood exports to the United States, there is a shrinking supply of fibre for the province's mills. Already the forestry sector has shrunk since the B.C. Liberals came to office in 2001, when there were 91,000 workers. In 2016, that number declined to 60,000.

John Horgan, Leader of the opposition New Democrats, said the Premier has long ignored the challenges facing rural communities.

"We are going to be reminding people in the coming election campaign that 30,000 fewer people are working in forestry than there were when the Liberals came to power. We're going to be reminding people in the coming campaign that the mining sector and the forestry sector have been shedding jobs significantly since Christy Clark became premier," he said in an interview.

The NDP recently announced a campaign commitment to reduce raw log exports, to ensure more manufacturing jobs remain in B.C. Mr. Horgan said his party will release more details closer to the May 9 election. He suggested the platform will include the revival of the B.C. Job Protection Commission, an agency established during the NDP government of the 1990s that studied changes in the work force.

As well, he hinted an NDP government would review the incentives offered by B.C. to encourage the establishment of an LNG sector. "The BC Liberals have tried to incent an industry that doesn't exist, rather than give incentives in existing industries," he said. The B.C. Liberal government passed legislation in 2015 that promised LNG proponents that government would hold the line on industry-related taxes for 25 years. To date, only one project has moved forward with a final investment decision.

The new jobs plan promises to create "the most diversified economy in Canada by 2022."

The announcement comes on the heels of Ms. Clark naming University of British Columbia president Santa Ono as her chief adviser of the Innovation Network to drive collaboration between postsecondary institutions and the knowledge-based industry.

Ms. Clark said Wednesday that new plan has to include all regions of the province.

"In our jobs plan update, we talked specifically about the increasing economic divide, not just the cultural divide between rural and urban British Columbia, but the economic divide that has emerged."