Access to wood is being reduced, the cost of wood is high because of regulation, and access to our largest market is under serious threat. Mills will be forced to close. But those communities are at ground zero. Other issues include the uncertainty surrounding the ownership and use of land, which impacts on tourism, on forestry, on mining and on agriculture. We also have a communications infrastructure that is so poor that some people still have party lines, they can't access cell phones, and equipment is so outdated that downloading information from the net takes longer than getting it through Canada Post.
Services are an issue.
It is inconvenient, expensive and time consuming to travel to a major centre to get access to services and facilities that most BC citizens take for granted. These all pose barriers to development and discourage people from moving here. Greater diversification is often cited as a solution. To diversify regional economies our province needs to address the physical and technical infrastructure challenges that run throughout the province. We need to remove the moratoriums that hold up off shore oil and gas exploration and the development of salmon farms.