B.C. a 'middling' jurisdiction for prosperity: report
Credit to Author: Matt Robinson| Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2019 13:00:42 +0000
When it comes to societal well-being, B.C. ranks fairly high against a group of peers. But the province’s economic well-being and particularly its business environment leaves much to be desired.
Those are among the findings of a new report from the Business Council of B.C. that ranked the province “in the middle of the pack” at 11th overall in a prosperity index of 21 national and subnational jurisdictions.
Greg D’Avignon, the president and CEO of the business council, said that given the talent and assets the province can boast, B.C.’s position on the list is “just not good enough.”
“We’re not meeting our full potential as a society. And it comes at a time when we’re going through this profound and accelerating transformation that is driven by demographics and technological disruption and geopolitical uncertainty.”
For D’Avignon, the findings related to B.C.’s relatively poor business environment, as “the engine that creates the means to have higher wages and a better quality of life and social safety net,” were particularly important.
Despite having the fourth-highest education ranking in the index, B.C.’s business environment ranked below average. It came in 15th, narrowly besting only the United Kingdom, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Zealand, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Beyond education, the index also considered labour productivity, investment and innovation, all “important elements that help to shape the general operating conditions for business,” as the report put it.
D’Avignon said B.C. lagging in labour productivity was not a function of its residents not working hard enough. Rather, he said, “people in the rest of the world are working smarter. They’re investing capital in technology and software (and) they’re growing businesses so they get larger.”
The province placed 10th in economic well-being, which was measured by its GDP per capita, household income, unemployment rate and housing affordability. On the latter indicator, B.C. ranked particularly poorly, coming in 18th of 21, with only Ontario, the U.K. and New Zealand coming in lower.
B.C. placed seventh overall in societal well-being, which considered life expectancy, the poverty rate, income inequality and the quality of its environment — as measured by air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions per person.
D’Avignon said the idea behind the index was to put people on the same page ahead of a conversation about how we as a province can start to meet our full potential.
Overall, California, Washington and Oregon took spots one through three on the prosperity index. Measured solely against its provincial peers, B.C. ranked third, just behind first-place Alberta and second-place Newfoundland and Labrador.
Rounding out the list of jurisdictions in the index were the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Australia, Saskatchewan and Quebec.
The index relied on data from 2017, the most recent year for which comparable data across jurisdictions could be found, according to the report. Its authors included Andrew Sharpe, the head of the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards, and Ken Peacock, David Williams and Jock Finlayson, all with the business council.
Societal and economic well-being as well as business environment were given equal weighting in the index, according to the report.
The business council includes roughly 250 member companies that are collectively responsible for about a quarter of the jobs in the province.