The Union of British Columbia Municipalities offers an annual province-wide award that honours communities that have been leaders in reducing small business regulatory barriers and enhancing small business competitiveness. A community from each of BC’s economic regions is selected by BC’s Small Business Roundtable to receive the honour. The award description starts like this: “If your community goes out of its way to welcome small businesses growth, creating jobs for local families, then it’s time you got some recognition.” It is time the Saanich Peninsula municipalities started working towards winning this award.
Why is it that “Business Friendliness” is so important to a community?
Forward thinking municipal leaders know that the health of a community’s local businesses and the community’s overall Quality of Life are closely interrelated. Businesses bring wealth into the region, which not only creates jobs; it gets reinvested in the community in the form of taxes and local spending (which leads to more tax revenue). The issue that many elected officials face, however, is that since businesses do not vote, there really is no political incentive to meet their needs. It is only the work of true visionaries who not only “get it”, but implement policies and programs that have positive impacts on local businesses.
As the champion for the Saanich Peninsula business community, the Chamber of Commerce outlines below some of the essential policy areas that we would like to see addressed in next month’s municipal elections in Central Saanich, North Saanich, and Sidney.
We know that the job of elected officials is not an easy one. It’s nearly impossible to please everyone. The best that municipal leaders can hope for is that their decisions make the overall quality of life in their community better than it was before they were elected—and preferably in a fiscally responsible manner.
The Chamber, as the representative of local business, seeks initiatives from municipal leaders that will increase community vitality in the following four areas.
1- Implement business enhancement initiatives for local businesses
There are a number of incentives that local businesses would welcome to help their businesses prosper and remain in the community. These include tax breaks for local firms that expand, reduction of red tape and easier permitting. Mostly it will require municipal politicians to be business friendly which translates into being community friendly.
2 – Develop proactive policies to enhance the region’s workforce
Many young families and working singles cannot afford to live on the Peninsula. Many workers commute from Langford, Colwood and other parts of the Island, which creates traffic congestion and is just plain bad for the environment and local air quality. Policies that provide incentives to local developers to create more housing for the much-needed workforce are necessary. This may require re-zoning of existing residential neighbourhoods and or multi-use developments. Most of all it will require innovative thinking.
3 – Modernize the Government processes through initiatives to improve efficiency, accountability and transparency of government operations.
Many local business owners can offer examples of their interactions with local municipal administrations where a bylaw does not seem sensible or where an enormous fee is assessed by the administration for a seemingly small task. Examples include $1000 fees to put signs up, denied applications for simple signage (when the neighbouring business has a similar sign already erected), parking bylaws that state number of stall required by a business with not enough patrons to even fill the lot on a busy day (note: how many $2.00 coffees does it take to pay off a large asphalt parking lot?).
A common trend in other parts of Canada is the focus on effective and modernized community consultative processes. We encourage candidates to address how they would create and implement a fully consultative process in the upcoming debates.
4 – Make a formal investment in the economic vitality of the Saanich Peninsula
While there is no doubt that the municipalities on the Peninsula make investments in infrastructure and offer some funding for local economic initiatives, the importance of economic development as an investment in grossly misunderstood.
First of all, economic development does not mean that big-box stores are brought in to create jobs and push the little guys out-of-town. What it does mean is to encourage the diversification of the economic base so that 1) the local region is less affected by potential slow-down of cyclical and/or commodity-based sectors of the economy (like Tourism or Agriculture for example), and 2) to ensure that the needs of local businesses are met so that they can reinvest profits in the form of job creation and shared tax burden.
We would like to see the formal recognition of a community economic development model through the creation of a regional development initiative with the participation and partnership amongst all three municipalities and the Chamber of Commerce.
Last, but certainly not least, we encourage municipal politicians to understand and appreciate the importance of business in our communities. Local businesses take risks, create local jobs and pay taxes. Our municipal councils must develop and implement policies that encourages and celebrates our local companies, rather than punishes them. Just because the business owner cannot vote, certainly does not mean that they should not be offered the excuse of “that’s the way we’ve always done it”, or “a previous council adopted that bylaw and it’s too late to change it”.
The Saanich Peninsula Chamber of Commerce is committed to working with the three municipalities on the Saanich Peninsula to enhance, promote and continue to develop a vibrant business community.
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