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Jun 20, 2022 at 2:27 pm
City Councillor Mayor
Kamloops and District Labour Council asks:
What can local governments do to attract and create green jobs and businesses in their community?
Candidate Answers
This is a tough one because it would require capital investment and we know how difficult those can be to pull off, but I do have ideas. Community or impact investment co-operatives are being developed across our province and funds could be used to start green energy projects such as wind turbines, solar panel fields or even a recycling facility that captures more than just the existing waste products we can currently recycle. I have been in many conversations with folks who are working to extend the parameters of these investment funds to allow for larger pools of investment.
A community investment co-operative allows a group of people to pool their funds to lend to a project the group decides upon. These are legal entities with strict rules and governance to ensure a safe investment environment, but it also allows local people to inject capital into their local communities to help bring a project to life while they earn a return on their investment. I had a speaker discuss these at a Co-op Cafe I presented just before COVID, if you'd like to see the slides from his presentation, please let me know.
In Kamloops, business attraction is done at arm's length from council through Venture Kamloops and Community Futures Thompson-Nicola. Council's role is to establish priorities supporting these industries, which we have through our climate-action plan, and co-ordinate those priorities with the two organizations.
The best thing we can do is MANDATE green policies, for example I have proposals to:
1) Fix public transport in Kamloops: https://dlk.ca/transport/
2) Require local employers (and the City) to allow telecommuting when it is feasible to do so. The process to allow this has already begun in the Netherlands. This can be accomplished by:
-> Requiring employers to pay "back-office" employees for time spent commuting and pay a (per kilometer) mileage rate for commuting.
-> Applying a surtax to employers who elect not to comply.
3) Require all new (or significantly renovated) buildings to have geothermal or solar heating (or heat pumps). This requirement would be (temporarily) relaxed in order to increase affordability (in residential buildings).
Green policies attract talent!
There is a wide range of things local governments can do and are doing to foster green jobs, in Kamloops we have three key opportunities:
1) Venture Kamloops - which is the City's economic development arm, and among other things, is focused on investment and business attraction. Based on the BC government's own projects we will see a fundamental shift in the provincial economy over the next decade. We need to target those green opportunities that have a bright future to locate in Kamloops.
2) Business retention and expansion (BRE) - BRE is fundamental to economic development and we need to ensure we understand the changes that the green economy will bring and support our local business to be leaders in the transition. Among others, already the Kruger pulp mill here in Kamloops is a leader in alternative energy generator.
3) City Climate Action Plan - the City recently completed its climate action plan, many of the bold moves in this plan lend themselves well to fostering new business activities. Instead of seeing just the costs associated with the Climate Action Plan we need to apply a business lens to this plan ensuring that it is also a catalyst for new revenue and wealth creation for and in the City.
To my understanding, Venture Kamloops is the primary implementer of these kinds of economic and environmental drivers as they relate to employment and business opportunities.
I recently met with the ED and we discussed how the role of that organization and Council intersect to create priorities around the key plans (ie. the City's Climate Action Plan) created to prioritize and meet the outlined objectives of the larger strategy.
In Kamloops, we could do a few things:
- implement our ambitious and achievable climate action plan, which will spur on more green jobs and business practices.
- work with the KDLC to help implement initiatives based on the BC Feds Green Jobs campaign.
- work with TNRD and Venture Kamloops to encourage the building of a large film studio in Kamloops
- work with Venture Kamloops to create a strategy to focus on green business practices and jobs.
In order to attract opportunities to our community we need to make it accessible, cost effective and easy to adopt. I would support policies that incentivize green initiatives. I would also want to ensure a minimum standard as to what a "green" job is so that the jobs being created are truly positively impactful for our community and not just fancy marketing.
Our council recently approved .05 of a tax increase, to go directly into a climate change initiative fund. This fund will be built up to over $5M in a few years, which will enable us to invest in low to no carbon city fleet vehicles, upgrade our older civic buildings, without having to impact our residents with a one time increase in taxes. With these changes, we will require qualified staff to purchase, program and operate these new green opportunities.
We would have to work hand in hand with the major stakeholders in our city to provide more green initiatives. Working with Venture Kamloops would be an ideal start to expand on the programs that they have initiated.
There is a much bigger issue in Kamloops in just attracting any kind of new jobseekers and businesses here. We have to first essentially "open Kamloops for business" and let prospective investors and businesses know that our city is willing to work with new businesses. It has been very difficult for individuals that were attempting to enter our market in the past and we have often been overlooked - many times for Kelowna - for new investments and businesses. Cutting through the red tape of opening new ventures and promoting growth will be a huge priority for our city moving forward, as will fighting nepotism and providing equal opportunities for everyone, whether they're newcomers or have been established in city.
The city's primary economic development activities take place via Venture Kamloops. Through VK, we can develop a targeted recruitment initiative to attract and create green jobs and businesses. There's also a lot of opportunity in this to work with stakeholders like TRU and Kamloops Innovation to support green business ventures and ideas which help existing businesses transition to greener practices and/or technologies. We have a real opportunity in this space to leverage existing knowledge capital.
One thing that is often missed is understanding that green entrepreneurs are interested in living healthy, outdoor lifestyles. Dedicated bike lanes that are physically separated from traffic are a must for a business to be able to locate and recruit talent to live here. Creating vibrant neighborhood cores, with apartment/condo living so folks can travel and not have a yard to look after, but also access to amenities like parks and urban nature. An example of what may become a good center for green businesses is the North Shore, where we see the Kamloops Innovation Centre and TRU's space within The XChange purposefully locating in a neighborhood with large parks, the beach, brew pubs.
Besides creating the general vibe that will attract these jobs and businesses through planning, we can create demand through the investments we are making in our Community Climate Action Plan and partner with Venture Kamloops to attract businesses to fill those needs. We can also leverage our home grown talent at TRU and incubate new companies right here, through partnerships like I mentioned above, which will then grow and attract additional jobs.
To my understanding venture Kamloops deals with promoting jobs and investments in Kamloops. Green jobs are a big part of the future of our economy. We have to invest heavily in greener jobs. The climate action plan for the city promised a 30% reduction by 2030 and 80% by 2050, and we are nowhere near those targets. Venture Kamloops needs to attract employers who promote green jobs, but we have been surpassed by Kelowna as a destination for all sorts of investments, including green jobs because of the red tape, bureaucracy, and opposition to change at the local level.
TRU has to be made a stakeholder with other organizations that promote green jobs/technology.
Local Governments can lead the Green Movement by implementing policies that the City abides by and lead by example. Creating Buildings that are green and self sustaining , from solar power to green roofs that gardens are grown on is a start, this will create employment from business that will start up to install and maintain these Buildings, thereby creating employment.