When the Cortes Island Foundation released Cortes Island’s Vital Signs Report last month, Executive Director Manda Aufochs Gillespie said she’d like to go into specific sections in more detail.
“One of the things that really stood out to me is the information around income and work and economy. This area starts around page 13 in this document and I’m going to be using a lot of words to talk about this, but when you look at the report there’s graphs, little quotes and etc. that make it easier to read.”
She suggested inviting Kate Maddigan, from the Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA), to get another perspective.
“I think the CCEDA has done a lot to show us that economy actually is just another way of talking about community, what is working and how we can help build up each other within the community.”
Maddigan explained, “CCEDA’s mandate is around community economic development, and then there’s economic development. Community development is all about making the community a better place to live and work. Quality of life and that type of development occurs primarily in the public sector. Economic development is about creating wealth from which many community benefits are created secondarily.”
“Here on Cortes, there’s a lot of things that our local economy relies on. We rely on people having an affordable place to live, good transportation, all sorts of things that we like to try and create. That’s community development, trying to make our community a really good place to live and work. The local economy benefits from those things. That’s why it’s called community economic development.”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Everything on Cortes is interrelated because we are such a small, relatively stand alone place, but we are also not entirely alone. The forces of the world are coming and influencing us. The prices of ferry, the prices of gas, the prices of housing, the fact that some people make millions and billions of dollars and other people make $20 an hour, etc. All of that plays out right here on our little island.”
“I really appreciate that in the Vital Signs so many people took the time to tell the stories of what it means to live in the economy of Cortes and whether that means that they’re doing super well because they feel very supported by their neighbours and very appreciated in the work that they do. Or whether it means they’re struggling to be able to afford to feed their families, or to find housing, etc.”
”What we’re seeing, by and large, is that our rural and remote communities are struggling even more than our urban areas with income and with wages. The Strathcona Regional District tends to be a relatively lower income district than much of British Columbia.”
Kate Maddigan: “We know from the 2021 census, the median family income in BC was almost $100,000, and the average annual employment income among Cortes Island recipients was $29,000. That’s quite a difference.”
“You also asked, ‘do we have fewer upper middle class families?’ In Canada, the income for the upper middle class was considered between $106,000 to $235,000. Only 18% of the incomes on Cortes are $100,000 or more and that compares to 34% in the Strathcona Regional District and 42% percent in Canada.”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Currently Cortes Island earns less than any other community in the Strathcona Regional District. We are closely followed by Zeballos. We have twice as many households earning less than $40,000. Cortes Islanders not only earn less on average than the rest of the district, we have only half as many households earning $100,000 or more. So, at least in that upper middle class area, there’s only half as many that call Cortes Island home than there are in the rest of the Strathcona Regional District.”
“Comparing a person on Quadra to someone on Cortes, you are less well off than your counterpart who is just like you.”
Kate Maddigan: “We know that for occupations on Cortes, 24.5% of the workforce are in trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations. So that’s 24.5% compared to the B. C. average of 17.7%. We have more of those types of occupations on Cortes compared to the B. C. average.”
“Then sales and service slash accommodations, we have 18.4% of that on Cortes compared with a BC average of 25%. In the business finance and administration occupations for Cortes Island, these are about 13% for Cortes and the BC average is about 16%.”
“So most of the occupations on Cortes are with trades, transport, and equipment operators.”
“I’m focusing on those sectors that are struggling right now. The shellfish industry, for example, has got amazing potential that’s not being realized. Tourism is not as strong on Cortes as it is with the rest of the province.”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “There’s a lot of other stuff that came out in the work and economy numbers. We don’t really know what the primary employment sectors are on Cortes because all we have access to is the census data. What I know is that the nonprofit sector on Cortes is a big employer, especially seasonally, but that’s not one of the answers that we could just look at from the census data.”
Cortes Currents: I thought the three big employers would be Hollyhock, QXMC, and aquaculture?
Kate Maddigan: “I think you’ve nailed it, Hollyhock, QXMC, aquaculture and then the social profits and services, but does that include entrepreneurs like body workers who are self employed and so on?”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “The employers that you mentioned are more or less hiring seasonally and that corresponds with what we saw in our survey. Quite a few people want or need more employment than they have. They consider themselves to be underemployed and simply cannot find work that pays enough, or that is year round or that is in their skillset.”
“According to our survey data, only 27% of Cortes island’s workers are working full time, year round.”
Cortes Currents: The 2021 census says 140 people worked full-time.
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Yes, the census data suggests that it’s a little bit less than that percentage. We have both of those numbers.”
“As we know on Cortes, two in five people are self employed and one in five work from home. Quite a few people on Cortes say that they’re underemployed. About 41% of our population work just part year and or part time while just under 15% work full time, full year.”
“The gender wage gap on Cortes is shocking, women earn 32% less than men and we could guess that by extension, those who identify as gender queer in some way earn 32% less than men. So that means that the gender wage gap on Cortes is twice that of the Canadian average.”
“We can guess that some of that has to do with our lack of full time childcare on Cortes, making it really hard, particularly for single parent families to access work. Some of that also has to do with the types of jobs that tend to be available and pay well on Cortes, which often are related to the trades etc.”
Cortes Currents: I don’t know the answer to this question, but is this gender wage gap a question of sex or sector?
Kate Maddigan: “We don’t have a lot of data for Cortes on the differences between men’s annual incomes and women’s net annual incomes, but when you look at the sectors, there’s sectors that definitely make better wages than other sectors. For example, construction and trades, women represented only 5% of the trades people in BC employed in the industry in 2023. The Indigenous population is also underrepresented in terms of recruitment opportunities in the B. C. construction industry. In 2021, Indigenous workers accounted for only 6.2% of the province’s construction labor force, which is just a slight increase from 2016. So it’s trending in the right direction, but it’s very slow.”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Cortes is just like the rest of the world in some ways like that. It’s often been more women who go into jobs like child care workers, teaching, nurses, nonprofits, etc and throughout Canada these jobs have tended to be paid less. Work that is for the community’s good does pay poorly.”
“There are a lot of people on Cortes working in the nonprofits, the charities and that space. Hollyhock, which is a nonprofit, is one of the largest seasonal employers. Look at the SCCA, Manson’s Hall, the WCC, the CCHA – all these different organizations, it really adds up. Again, there tend to be more women than men in those jobs. Many of them are not being paid particularly well per hour and many of them don’t have extended health benefits, vacation, etc.”
“Look how quickly life could change if you’re paying that person in childcare enough that they can afford extended health benefits, then they can afford to also go get a massage when their back hurts from lifting up those kids. All of a sudden we have someone who’s working in the massage on Cortes, we have a person running the nonprofit who’s running the childcare facility and they can now afford to send their kid to college after they graduate.”
“I definitely feel like on Cortes, people are really willing to give women and gender queer folks a chance but if we look at the vital signs, what is standing in the way are three main reasons that show up again and again. 35% of the people said that their barriers to finding enough work were around finding a job that pays adequately for their needs. 25% said that there just weren’t jobs in their skill or that met their training levels and almost 20% said they couldn’t find year round work. So back to some of the things that you’ve already said, most of our big employers are seasonal. That doesn’t mean all of our jobs are seasonal, but many of them are.”
Kate Maddigan: I like to work with the foundation to try and improve the social conditions, such as working conditions for underrepresented groups. They’re doing an awesome job trying to get the data on this and, the first place you start with is you try and get data. You need to know what’s going on. I so appreciate the Vital Signs Report because it does really inform what the picture is and then we can measure it.”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: ”Another thing that the survey starts going into is our access to food affordability. This is something that’s getting an increased attention all over BC right now, probably all over Canada. Many people are struggling to regularly afford access to good foods. That can be a challenge for some people, particularly on Cortes, because we have very high food costs and at a time when food costs are going up for everybody. When asked if they can afford to purchase local foods, only 37% say they can always afford that. Over half the population can between ‘always or often,’ but a third of the population can ‘never, or only sometimes’ afford to buy food locally.”
“What that means to not be able to afford to buy food locally, is a day or two days, a hundred dollars, ferry costs and gas etc to get somewhere to be able to afford food. That’s dramatic when you live on a little island. Without the food bank at this point in our community, we would have a lot of people who were not regularly able to access well balanced meals. Thank goodness for the food bank.”
Cortes Currents: When you were referring to groceries, you automatically mentioned buying groceries in Campbell River. What about the stores on Cortes?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “This was a question that we were looking at in partnership with the Cortes Island Food Bank and a full third of people on the island say they cannot regularly afford local food.”
Cortes Currents: So they have to shop off island?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Or they have to go hungry, or they supplement with the food bank etc.”
“It’s scary to know that our neighbors are struggling in that way. One of the things that came out in our giving well project this year, was those daily essentials, such as accessing public education, regular food, just basic debt servicing etc represented the third highest need for the applicants. The applicants in that program represent almost a third of the community. So it’s not just a small problem on Cortes. “
“Our economy is quite vulnerable on Cortes, with lower wages, a higher gender wage gap, a lot fewer folks in the over $100,000 bracket and not enough child care. You also can’t get training on Cortes for most things. There’s no college here, there’s no university. Getting the kind of skills training that one needs often requires leaving the island, being able to live somewhere off island, and then choosing to come back.”
“However, it’s not just bad news because it’s a place that people find welcoming: welcoming for entrepreneurs, welcoming for those who are gender queer, who are diverse, who are different, who are single parent families, etc. There’s lots of good neighbourliness that is happening. Many people in Cortes are self employed and almost 69% of the respondents perceive Cortes to be a welcoming environment for entrepreneurs and self employed individuals. It’s just under 13% who disagree.”
Links of Interest:
- Cortes Islands 2924 Vital Signs Report
- 2021 Census for Cortes Island
- The 2024 Vital Signs Report for Cortes Island – Cortes Currents
Top image credit: Looking across from Smelt Bay to Quadra and Campbell River – Photo courtesy CCEDA website; all graphs taken from the Cortes Island 2024 Vital Signs Report
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