“If you don’t like it here, you can leave.”
Often it seems whenever someone raises a concern or criticism of the place they call home, there’s someone who responds with this ridiculous retort, this irrational us-or-them position, supposedly born from some sense of local pride.
To me, it’s an expression of ignorance, complacency and/or defeatism. For anyone who truly loves where they live must be willing to acknowledge when and where there may be an issue.
The Southern Interior Beetle Action Coalition (SIBAC) and chair Rhona Martin should be commended for their reluctance to sugar coat the state of rural B.C., whose communities, she says, all appear to be “suffering the same dire fate.”
Established to find ways of mitigating the devastating impact of the mountain pine beetle, SIBAC and sister coalitions in Omenica and Cariboo-Chilcotin, are attempting to return prosperity to affected rural communities.
The fact is, many people have already left rural B.C. out of necessity. With the Rural BC Project, these coalitions hope to change this. The project represents a guideline to stimulate economic and social development.
“What we want to see is communities healthy for all ages and all types of people,” says Martin. “It’s not an easy fix. We’ve been suffering for a long time.”
A related document entitled, The Pathway to Prosperity in British Columbia Runs Through its Rural Places, states that while rural populations are in decline, the opposite has been true in the Lower Mainland and other B.C. urban centres, and that this growth has been “stimulated by massive senior government investments in supporting public infrastructure like international airport upgrades, cruise ship terminals, conference centres, stadiums, and commitments to major initiatives such as Expo 86 and the 2010 Olympics.”
The disparity between the Lower Mainland and the rest of B.C. is staggeringly obvious. Take the new, $3 billion Port Mann Bridge. While this key piece of provincial infrastructure may have improved traffic flow relating to goods and services, we have bridges that perform the same function along the nation’s highway also in need of repair or replacement. The Salmon River Bridge in Salmon Arm and Sicamous’ Bruhn Bridge, pieces of which have actually fallen onto boats passing beneath, are prime examples.
The economic downfall that has stunted growth in rural B.C. does not appear to be impacting the Pacific Gateway in the same way.
So how does one attract investment and resources away from the Lower Mainland and into rural B.C., let alone stem the ongoing centralization of services from rural communities to cities such as Kamloops, Kelowna and Prince George? SIBAC and company make some key recommendations, which include the province developing a long-term rural strategy, as well as a regional development program that would provide capital and financial building resources to rural communities. Also recommended is the creation of a rural dividend that would return a portion of the revenue created by rural-based resource industry activity. This reflects, in part, on one of the reason’s for supporting B.C.’s rural communities: approximately 76 per cent of the goods exported from the province originate from non-metropolitan areas (with oil and gas on the rise).
Publicly acknowledging there are serious problems in rural communities such as Sicamous, Malakwa, or even Salmon Arm, is a positive first step. Presenting well-thought out and researched solutions should make the next steps easier.
I hope the B.C. government comes to embrace and act on the Rural B.C. Project. The primary industries of rural B.C.’s communities have supported the province for a very long time. No one should be forced to leave.