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Time to take economic development into our own hands

Send your letters to news@hopestandard.com.
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Send your letters to news@hopestandard.com.

If there has ever been a time for a community to rally together, it is now. With political uncertainty, failing trade agreements, record deficits, and the elephant in the room next door, being the USA. It’s time for regions, towns, and everyday citizens, to get off our high horses, and begin to take charge of our own destinies.

We can longer afford to rely on governments, whether federal, provincial, or even civic to chart our courses. If you haven’t yet noticed, there are no new ideas out there. In a town like Hope, which is a geographical Shangri-La, we’re still having problems attracting businesses of all flavours, to come here and set up shop. Other than our mainstay tourist industry, which doesn’t exactly create a lot of high paying jobs, we are slowly sliding down the ladder.

I believe it’s time we started thinking outside the box, when it comes to economic development and job creation. The days of resource mining, forestry, and energy extraction are slowing dramatically. Innovation and technology are becoming the modern day go-tos. If we’re going to survive as a thriving community, these are the modes that we should be looking to. Our education system has never been more important. As we become more and more innovated, the jobs of the past will fade quickly, and already have begun to do so. We need our next generation to move forward with the new technology economy, especially as our population begins to age out of the production cycle.

As innovation increases, more and more citizens will begin to lose their employment, and unless we start the process towards a guaranteed income, will have increased production, but not enough wages in the system to purchase the increased productivity.

We do have an opportunity here, because of our proximity to metro, international airports, and large accommodation venues, we’re ripe for motion picture production, though we do lack a film stage.

So I’ve begun the process of starting a Hope and Lower Fraser Canyon Film Commission. These will create hundreds of high paying jobs, and hopefully expand our tax base in Hope as well. If anyone is interested in joining our group, please feel free to do so.

You can reach us at: Art Green, PO Box 641, artgreen33@gmail.com, (604)795-1524.

Art Green

Hope