March 9, 2009 - Submitted to the Rural Observer
The world economic restructuring we are experiencing is causing governments, businesses and communities to search for new and innovative ways to generate wealth and manage the transformation of how we live together. In these challenging times the protection of rural values and communities is particularly important.
Boom and bust resource industries drove our economy in past centuries. Recently, residential housing and other large-scale developments have been essential to local job creation. Regional growth strategies are more important than ever as we look toward an uncertain future. Development guidelines will help shape the south Island with Langford leading the way in residential and commercial growth. But what about the rural counterpoint to the concrete and asphalt of urban development? What economic activity will sustain our rural way of life in the coming years?
The District of Sooke has long been the economic centre west of Victoria. Careful planning and some strategic investments in infrastructure will ensure it remains the commercial hub for the west coast. But what does the future hold for communities like Highlands and Metchosin as well as the unincorporated areas out to Port Renfrew?
Can we develop a value added forest sector from the ashes of the old economic model of the big companies? Access to the land base will be vital if smaller, more locally focused forestry is going to succeed.
Local food production will be increasingly important in a carbon-constrained future. Transportation costs will make our local producers more competitive and demand from local consumers to support their neighbours will turn more retailers to our farms for local products. That emerging reality means that our agricultural areas will become increasingly valuable and the protection from the Agricultural Land Reserve all the more important.
I have written extensively in this space about the need to resolve the confusion resulting from the Western Forest Products land fiasco. Two years on and there is less certainty than ever. Treaty settlements, land use planning and coastal wilderness protection rest in the balance as we muddle through the fallout of the land removal decision. Despite the dramatic decline in traditional resource industries over the past decade, there have been a few bright spots for our more remote west coast communities, notably the growth in sport fishing and eco-tourism.
Sport fishing has increasingly become an activity that draws anglers, anxious to try their luck fishing for halibut, chinook or coho salmon, to communities up and down the coast. Sooke and Port Renfrew have been real beneficiaries of this growth in sport fishing because of their proximity to Victoria and the Lower Mainland and the consistent quality of the area's fishing opportunities.
According to a recent study conducted for the BC Seafood Alliance, the saltwater recreational fishery in BC produces $642 million in annual sales, pays $150 million in wages and benefits, creates more than 7,800 jobs and contributes $240 million to the province's Gross Domestic Product. More importantly, sport fishing has the added advantage of creating significant economic benefits while having a small impact on our fisheries resource.
Stream revitalization projects and watershed protection, things that we need to preserve the very character of our rural communities, are essential if we are to save our salmon stocks for future generations. A commitment to our rivers and streams provides jobs on the land base to grow the local economy.
Maintaining our rural character is a priority for the majority of residents along the coast from Metchosin to Port Renfrew. But economic opportunities based on rural and wilderness values must be nurtured. Niche market agriculture, value added forestry and tourism cannot be fully realized without a plan that is formulated at the community level and supported with public investments from senior governments. In many cases the costs are modest; in others they are significant. But our way of life on the west coast is precious and certainly worth the hard work to preserve it.
John Horgan, MLA
Malahat Juan de Fuca
