It is commonplace to hear that Vancouver Island is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, blessed with wonderful amenities and a high standard of living. True. But that is only part of the story.
The aboriginal peoples who live here endure a degree of want and deprivation unmatched in any other region of British Columbia.
Sadly, poverty is all too common in First Nations communities throughout the province and across Canada. But it is a sobering fact that on this Island of ours, quality of life in native families has reached its lowest point.
On core measures of aboriginal health and well-being, here is how Vancouver Island stacks up:
— Infant mortality levels among status Indians exceed those of any other region in B.C. — 37 per cent above the provincial average, and on a par with Libya.
— Teenage pregnancy rates also lead the province, while the percentage of underweight newborns is second highest. Our teen pregnancy levels approach those of Third World countries with arranged childhood marriages.
— School attendance levels for aboriginal kids aged 15 to 19 (61 per cent) are the lowest of any region. The completion rate for academic or vocational credentials is about 50 per cent.
— Aboriginal incomes, both on and off reserves, are the lowest in B.C. And there are more one-parent families dependent on welfare than anywhere in the province.
Care must be taken with these numbers. Definitions vary between sources, and some of the statistics date back to 2007 because later figures aren’t available.
Yet there is no question that First Nations families on Vancouver Island face challenges unique in our province. The infant mortality and teen pregnancy rates, in particular, are scarcely believable.
What explains such poverty, in the midst of apparent plenty?
It’s not geography. Some of the aboriginal settlements along our outer coast are certainly remote, but no more so than many parts of the B.C. Interior. And our Island has fewer native kids in rural areas than other regions of the province.
The cause, at least in part, is economics. In recent times, our resource sector has taken a hammering.
Fifteen years ago, the forest industry employed 24,600 people in the northern half of the Island. By 2009, that number had fallen to 8,900, and is still declining. The fishery has likewise suffered, as have jobs in the service sectors associated with these industries.
Losses on this scale created a double-barrelled impact. The wage economy in the upper half of the Island, where many First Nations communities cluster, has been hollowed out.
And the capital region is now the main centre of growth. Half of all the jobs left on Vancouver Island are in this region.
But Victoria is a difficult place for native families to find work. A very high percentage of jobs are in government, education or health care.
Careers in these fields usually require a post-secondary diploma or higher. But provincewide, fewer than one in 10 aboriginal adults has a university degree.
In effect, Vancouver Island has undergone a kind of economic gentrification. Blue-collar work is slowly being replaced with white-collar work.
And that has proved destructive for the First Nations population, whose traditional lifestyle is much closer to the land and sea than it is to office buildings.
There is a further problem. The clearest route forward is through better education. But the residential-schools trauma poisoned that option for many aboriginal families. The classroom is far from a welcoming place.
Our Island is indeed a place of exceptional beauty. But so far at least, its bounty has not been shared by those who came here first. Hard thinking and heavy work are required to turn around this shameful situation.
