In a visit to Ladysmith, Diana Gibson, minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation, addressed the Chamber of Commerce, highlighting issues such as U.S. tariffs, trade, and job creation.
In the past few months Ladysmith-Oceanside MLA Stephanie Higginson has had the minister of Forests and the minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, and Sport stop in the community to chat with local business and municipal leaders.
Roberta Bowman, executive director of the Chamber, welcomed Higginson and Gibson and thanked them for offering local businesses the opportunity to express concerns. Gibson spent the first segment of the session describing her department’s mandate.
According to the government’s website, “The Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation manages government services that help support and maintain the strong and diverse economy that British Columbians need for long-term prosperity. It supports the growth of B.C.’s tech sector, champions innovation across the economy, nurtures small businesses, supports economic development throughout the province, and promotes B.C. internationally as a preferred place to invest and do business.”
“By helping fund impactful projects throughout the province, we’re supporting people and helping their communities to flourish,” Gibson added at the event.
Local business members as well as representatives of local service sectors and Town of Ladysmith council were all in attendance. The minister updated what the provincial government is doing in times of tariffs and increased costs.
“There's been response such as pulling American liquor off the shelves and things like Bill 7, which was enabling us to do things like put tolls on trucks that are coming, transiting through from Alaska to the U.S.,” Gibson said. “We have a trade diversification strategy that's been in place since 2023, and that's partly why we're less impacted than some of the other provinces. B.C.'s 56 per cent of exports are sent to America while other provinces are 75 and 80. So B.C.'s done a good job of prioritizing. So many of us still are reliant on American products and also exports. So certainly lots more to do, but our trade diversification strategy has been a really good piece of insuring we were ready to hit the ground running.
"We have those export navigator programs on the ground. We have our trade accelerator programs on the ground, and then we have 50 trade investor officers, over 50 positions, in 14 different markets, internationally, that are engaging with businesses here all the time around bringing them over for events, profiling their products, building relationships in markets in the Euoropean Union, South Asia, the Pacific Region and the United Kingdom.”
The minister touched on the subject of inter-provincial trade and how the province is spearheading the elimination of those barriers.
After the explanation of the various programs that the provincial government is putting forward Gibson took some questions from those at the gathering. The questions focused frequently around the forest industry and the province not recognizing the need to have a realistic annual allowable cut for the forest companies and also discussed the exporting of raw logs.
The minister did her best to address other issues, such as poverty, drug use and homelessness and touched on the high cost of housing.
"We know post secondary education and future skills are at the table around things like what's happening in the forest sector, what's happening in mining and what's happening in the electricity grid," the minister said in closing. "How can we make sure we've got workers, that are being laid off in one area, are trained and upskilled into the next and so that we're creating an ecosystem approach, particularly in our rural communities, where you're disproportionately reliant upon some of these resource sectors so that there is some planning around how we create jobs and and procurement opportunities for businesses in these communities as we're building the transmission lines and the mining sector and some of that stuff.
"So it's all part of that conversation around skills, jobs, construction, skilled labour shortages, now making making sure we're really not leaving people on the sidelines. Those are my concerns and the people in my ministry, and looking down the road at the bigger picture when it all becomes normal.”
