A veritable buffet of data has been released highlighting the West Coast’s key issues.
The Clayoquot Biosphere Trust recently published its 2023 Vital Signs report.
The thoroughly statistic-filled, 28-page, document is the fifth Vital Signs report the CBT has produced since its first in 2012. The report is intended to be produced every two years, but lagging census data and the COVID-19 pandemic led to this being the first in five years.
Two new additions to the 2023 Vital Signs report are a section on Truth and Reconciliation as well as Infrastructure and Sustainably.
CBT executive director Rebecca Hurwitz explained that the report is a critical tool for identifying regional priorities and helping the CBT direct its granting and programming towards those priorities, but also offers a myriad of benefits for the community.
“Having the data is one thing, what we do with it is what matters,” Hurwitz said.
The report includes the region’s living wage calculation, which is up to $26.51 an hour, up from $20.11 in 2018’s Vital Signs report.
The report states that 51 per cent of the region’s residents earned less than the living wage in 2021.
Hurwitz explained that more issue-specific conversations about the report are on the horizon, including vital conversations around the living wage expected to begin in early 2024.
“Within the CBT we also have plans to share the report and the data in different ways and will focus around the living wage in the new year and convening folks who are working in all of those different areas that contribute to a living wage to see how we can help implement policies and support families,” she said.
The report also highlights a significant wage discrepancy across the region.
“One thing that is surprising and is a call to action is the range in income between communities and just the inequity that shows us that exists within the region…The median income per person varies between communities from the low end of $22,400 to the high end of $42,800. That’s a huge difference when we’re looking at what is the living wage for a family and what a family needs to get by on the west coast,” Hurwitz said.
“If the range is that great between communities it really shows that the challenges, the barriers are different in each community as are the opportunities, and that’s concerning.”
Another concern highlighted in the report is access to transportation, with 21 per cent of youth surveyed having missed school because of the lack of regional transportation, up from 14 per cent in 2018.
“It’s astounding the number of local youth that are missing programs and work because there isn’t local transportation, so that data helps us to advocate for increased services and we’re hoping those are coming in the new year,” Hurwitz said.
Data coordinator Erika Goldt added that the West Coast communities have a higher-than-average representation of youth from 13-18 years old in the workforce compared to other regions.
Goldt added that hammering down specific population numbers provides one of the reports’ hardest challenges as census data is not always accurate.
The report includes environmental information including a concerning drop in amphibian populations, particularly red legged tree frogs which are at a 10-year low.
“Amphibians live on both land and water and are indicator species sensitive to pollution, climate change, habitat loss, and road mortality. Egg mass counts help determine the overall health of a species. Annual counts of northern red-legged frog egg masses at Swan Lake have fluctuated over the past 10 years and reached the lowest point in 2023,” the report reads. “Logging, road and trail construction, and summer drought have all contributed to the loss of their habitat.”
Goldt noted environmental information is added to the vital signs report because it provides “a whole bunch of the different indicators that are collectively trying to tell the story about the health of our ecosystem.”
“That’s important to the people who live here. The health of our communities and people is really so intertwined with the health of our ecosystem and the impacts of climate change, so that’s why we do things a little differently than maybe other communities’ Vital Signs reports,” Goldt said.
“Climate change is a critical influence on biodiversity,” added Hurwitz.
The report can be found online at clayoquotbiosphere.org and hard copies are available at the CBT’s office, 316 Main St, Tofino, as well as the Ucluelet Community Centre at 500 Matterson Drive.
“It’s our hope that people will share the report with friends, family, employers and colleagues and invite the CBT to be part of those conversation on how we address the issues within the report,” Hurwitz said.
“There are organizations that are targeting many of these issues and have a specific focus on addressing the challenges that we’re seeing in the report so we hope that this helps them to advocate for services and programs and funding…We want folks to act on the report and really use it in their own planning and programs and help us achieve greater sustainability through the use of the data.”
The CBT is now preparing a campaign around the living wage as well as vital conversations on climate change, community health and other specific issues raised in the report.
“This information is coming from the communities and from local organizations. It’s empowering them to move beyond some of the institutional government data and take action themselves,” Goldt said.
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