There were some really good ideas at a recent meeting exploring community-based economic development in Smithers, Stikine MLA Doug Donaldson said.
His office partnered with Nadina Community Futures, the Bulkley Valley Credit Union and the BV Storytellers Foundation.
Community-based economic development, CED, is different from broad-based economic development because it’s looking at what people in each community can do that’s unique to them to get ahead.
“The people most impacted by the development have the greatest say in how it occurs,” Donaldson said. “So it’s inclusive, the people that you wouldn’t normally see being involved in decision-making around economic development are decision makers.”
It works well for regions like ours where we have a large rural population, he said. The dialogue at the meeting was looking at what provincial policies could be altered to promote CED. A great example of CED in practice is the Grendel Group, Donaldson said, who provides employment opportunities to the disadvantaged with all monies made going back to help that group as well.
The credit union is another, he said, where the members have a say in how the proceeds are spent and how they want to see branches run.
Melanie Sondergaard, Director of the Learning Shop with the Storytellers Foundation, was pleased with the wide variety of people who attended the event.
Some of the big themes of the day-long event were around poverty reduction, promoting a living wage, promoting locally-owned businesses, or encouraging capital development in the region.
“So how do we encourage local investment?” Sondergaard asked. “How can we set that up so it’s practical to do?”
Two initiatives rose to the top from this meeting, Sondergaard said. The strongest was the need to develop a local investment vehicle. It could be a mutual fund, or something similar to the Bulkley Valley Credit Union’s Community Builder RRSP, where monies invested go towards developing a local initiative.
The second was finding ways to reduce poverty. Initiatives there include developing a living wage analysis for Smithers as well as looking at affordable housing and transportation initiatives.
There are some very good reasons to explore CED even more, Donaldson said, who noted that Manitoba has had CED objectives for a number of years and, while still suffering in the economic downturn, managed to control their situation just that little bit more.
For example, instead of offering a contract based on price alone, the Manitoban government also considers the social outcomes of that particular business. So, if a disadvantaged group were to offer the supply or service for a nominally higher price, the government would award them the contract, thereby keeping those funds in the community where it’s needed the most.
They help their own community members, Donaldson said, which is something the province of B.C., as well as its residents, need to start doing.
The meeting was set up not only to discuss CED, but to organize a group who would be willing to move forward and try and push some of the ideas into practice.