The recession may be turning, slowly, but the Coast still faces significant economic challenges.
These challenges include high unemployment, pensioners struggling on diminished income, a lack of jobs for young people, an insufficiently welcoming attitude towards business, and a lack of succession plans for business owners approaching retirement.
This was the message conveyed by a range of speakers at the District of Sechelt's 2010 Fiscal Outlook forum on Wednesday, Nov. 18. The session was held, in part, to give council some solid financial grounding before they begin budget planning for 2010.
Helmut Pastrick, chief economist for Central 1 Credit Union - an umbrella organization for the credit unions of British Columbia and Ontario - kicked off the session, presenting evidence that globally, nationally and locally, the recession is turning.
"We've gone through a very significant and substantial financial crisis, a once-in-a-career event," he said. "During the worst of it, we didn't know where bottom was and when it would occur. But the outlook now is becoming relatively more certain."
B.C.'s unemployment rate, for example, he said, while still high at over eight per cent, is starting to stabilize.
"The full-time employment numbers are a little more positive, the part-time numbers are coming down, which is what you want to see over time," he said.
On the Coast, Pastrick said, the economy is still feeling the effects of recession. Residential construction dropped off considerably in Sechelt in 2008. Also in Sechelt, there's been a large drop in investment on new non-residential buildings, which include commercial, industrial and public buildings. On the Coast generally, tourism growth, measured by the Coast's annual room revenue, levelled off as of 2007, following dramatic growth in the four years prior.
But he also pointed to some rays of hope.
Local unemployment, he said, while still near a decade high, has just recently begun to turn. Local new business formations are down but aren't plummeting downwards as was occurring in 2007 and 2008. Housing prices in Sechelt, while down since 2007, are still near their historical high. Residential housing sales in Sechelt are down, but since January of this year have started to creep up.
With Pastrick's presentation as an economic backdrop, the remaining speakers addressed a range of areas of concern for the Coast.
Dale Eichar, chief executive officer of the Sunshine Coast Credit Union, spoke of the economic struggles Coast pensioners continue to face, after losing a lot of capital when markets contracted. Many, he said, moved their investments out of the markets to reduce their risk exposure, but as a bi-product, reduced their incomes as well.
"So in spite of the market recovery in recent months, a lot of senior citizens here on the Coast are suffering," he said.
Don Basham, manager of the community assessment project Vital Signs, and Chris Moore with Coast Community Builders' Association spoke of the Coast's lack of opportunities for young people.
In Sechelt, Moore said, there are only about 1,100 young people between the ages of 15 and 30, most of whom don't vote, compared to nearly twice that many in the over 65 age group - most of whom do vote. Moore said he is the patriarch of two combined families with seven young people in the 15 to 30 age range, only one of whom has stayed on the Coast.
"That is not sustainable," he said. "I don't know what's going to happen because I'm getting grey and I see a lot more grey happening. Where are the young people going to go? We have to create an environment that embraces youth."
The CCBA, he said, tries to attract people to the sub-trades.
"But there's no work," he said. "We're too busy reacting."
Jim Cleghorn, president of the Sechelt Chamber of Commerce picked up on Moore's secondary theme - a lack of new business or development, due to community backlash and government moves which stall or halt projects.
"Unfortunately, I think a lot of municipal governments on the Sunshine Coast are sending the wrong message to business people," he said. "And part of that is some of the opposition is voiced by various groups in the community and that's their right. But you've also got to realize that quite often those people are not in a majority. And yes they're vocal and yes they make it difficult to do things. But in the District of Sechelt, there is a silent majority out there. They don't come out. They are more or less if favour [of new projects]."
Only seven per cent of Sechelt's tax base, he said, is commercial: the lowest commercial to residential ratio in B.C.
"The reason for that is probably that over the years there hasn't been as welcoming an attitude towards business as there might have been," he said. "And so [business people] have located in other areas of the Sunshine Coast or other areas period."
Like a number of the other speakers, Cleghorn spoke about the economic impact of having many boomer business owners on the verge of retirement, with no succession plans.
"A lot of businesses are going to sell over the next little while and we need people to come in here and buy those businesses, because otherwise what's going to happen is that people are just going to wind those businesses up and they're going to retire," he said. "And a lot of goods and services will not be available."
But beyond noting the problems, speakers advocated some solutions.
Cleghorn recommended that the District look at contributing towards funding an economic development officer, such as Gibsona and Area now has, to sell off-Coast people on the District's business opportunities.
Nancy Baker, program co-ordinator for the Sechelt Visitor Centre suggested that Sechelt look to attract tourists by creating a hike up Mount Richardson or a three to four day trail in the inlet, or by developing the Chapman Creek trail to make it more usable. She also advocated improving public transportation, and marketing the region to Vancouver as a recreation area.
Al Mulholland, executive director of Community Futures Development Corporation of the Sunshine Coast - which does community economic development - said that while municipal coffers are low, there are opportunities for the Coast to band together as a region, honing in on a shortlist of specific projects, in order to leverage provincial and federal funds.
"We've got to show that we're working together, that we've got our act together, that we're all moving in the same direction," he said. "It's the only way that we're going to get federal, provincial and [Island Coastal Economic Trust] money."
