Douglas knows you can’t get enough local business news and features. Neither can we. We’re committed to enhancing your experience with Douglas magazine — both in print and online — so when you visit douglasmagazine.com/extra, you’ll find an exclusive selection of bonus content related to the current issue, as well as original and late-breaking material. You can find the Jan/Feb issue of Douglas at any of the following locations: Munro's Books, Chapters Indigo, The Market on Yates, Bolen Books, and Tanner's Books.
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Bruce Carter FROM "IN CONVERSATION" BY DAVID LENNAM, DOUGLAS JAN/FEB
What makes Victoria a good place to do business?
We’re well connected from a technology perspective. We have a strong market, a stable economy, access to knowledge-based workers, and a tremendous quality of life. Oh, and some of the shortest commutes in Canada.
(According to the Greater Victoria Development Agency, more than 52 per cent of Greater Victoria residents commute less than five kilometres to their workplace and over 77 per cent of residents live within 10 kilometres of their workplace.)
What turns business owners off?
Transportation costs. We live on an island. And if you talk to developers, fractured regional government.
"We are challenged as a region with the difficulty in planning, particularly with regard to transportation. Municipalities are charged with best managing the affairs within their borders,
yet their decisions frequently impact neighbouring communities. In addition, no clear municipal champion arises for projects such as the expansion of the runway at Victoria International Airport,
a project which would have an economic impact on the entire region."
That quote comes from the Chamber's November "Business Matters" publication.
More conversations with some of Victoria's business leaders:
Geoff Dickson, |
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2012 Preview FROM "2012: IT'S GOING TO BE A WILD RIDE" BY BRIAN HARTZ, DOUGLAS JAN/FEB
Bank of Montreal’s December 2011 Provincial Monitor, released just as Douglas went to press, contains some sobering predictions for British Columbia. The bank’s Capital Markets division predicts 2.4 per cent real GDP growth for the province when all’s said and done for 2011, down from 3.0 per cent in 2010. Growth will continue to moderate in 2012, says BMO, as GDP grow by only 2.3 per cent.
The bank blames the slowdown on uncertainty over the transition back to the PST/GST tax system, which is rippling through the province’s economic bedrock, particularly the new housing market. “Housing starts should moderate to a pace of slightly above 23,000 units in 2012, down from an expected 26,500 in 2011,” BMO predicts.
There are some bright spots, however.
“The B.C. labour market is carrying some decent momentum into the end of the year, with the jobless rate falling sharply to 7 per cent from a high of 8.8 per cent in February,” the bank reports. “Construction employment has seen strong growth of more than 27,300 jobs this year, offsetting weakness in manufacturing.”
At the municipal level, the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) offers a rosier outlook. It’s calling for a “stable” level of new housing construction in 2012, as well as some improvement in the employment rate.
“The significant number of residential developments in either the planning or approvals stages suggests that 2,000 housing starts will be recorded in 2011 and 2,200 in 2012,” says CMHC.
Those figures are slightly above Victoria’s 10-year average. CMHC attributes the demand for new homes to “growth in employment and the shift to full-time jobs from part-time jobs, continued positive net migration, mortgage rates that remain low compared to historic levels, and an anticipated rebound in the demand for existing homes.”
CMHC forecasts Greater Victoria’s unemployment rate will drop from 5.8 per cent this year to 5.4 per cent in 2012.
