March 2017 | Business View Magazine

182 183 pend upon federal and provincial infrastructure dollars, which are hit and miss and at the whim and fancy of those senior levels of government. By 2018, we will be able to self-finance our infrastructure into the future. “And then the other reason for raising resi- dential taxes was to wean ourselves off of our dependence on industry. So by 2018-19, we’ll have reduced from a historic dependency of about 72 percent down to about 53 percent. At the end of the day, though, we will still be one of the lowest residential tax regimes in the province of British Columbia. And we will have raised residential taxes by 22-23 percent over four years.” Simpson says that improving the town’s fiscal sustainability gave the populace a psycholog- ical lift. “Now that we believe we can sustain the community into the future, even if we lose a mill, we can adapt and adjust,” he avers. “So, our challenge going forward was: what do we need to do to build a truly sustainable, resilient community that will attract new residents, re- Quesnel, British Columbia tain the ones that we have; attract investment and retain the businesses that we have; and attract visitors to drive our tourism economy, and, hopefully, turn some of those visitors into investors and residents?” Simpson answers his own query by stating that many things needed to happen simulta- neously. “You have to work on multiple fronts,” he explains. “The first challenge that we were immediately presented with was on the health- care side. As we were trying to work on our fiscal sustainability, nine doctors in our com- munity gave indication they were going to be leaving town. Based on our demographics, our health authority believes we should have about 32 doctors; we were operating with 23 and we were going to lose nine. So, rather than doing what other communities have done, which was go to the press, wring their hands, blame the province, blame recruiting, blame the health authority, etc., we mapped the system that was causing us to have problems recruiting and retaining doctors, and, with the health author- ity in a very proactive relationship, changed the whole model of primary care delivery in a rural community. Rather than going public, we worked behind the scenes to reconfigure the whole model. “We unburdened the doctors for emergency coverage and hospital rounds; we addressed issues around anesthesiology and specialist Phone: 250-992-9033 Fax: 250 992-6030 quesnelpaving@ycs.bc.ca n Paving Contractor for Road Construction and Resurfacing n Commercial, Industrial, Residential Projects done in a timely and professional manner Diamond Achievement Commendation for Excellence in Hot Mix Asphalt Plant/Site Operation 2016 National Asphalt Pavement Association