A Spotlight on British Columbia
Welcome to the 16th issue of the Digital Policy Salon briefing.
This week, we depart from our usual structure with a series of features on and from the province of British Columbia. In partnership with the Vancouver Economic Commission, we’re highlighting the work that Canada’s westernmost province is doing to fight COVID-19, maintain and create jobs, and advocate for equitable access to infrastructure and services during the pandemic. We hope you enjoy this week’s issue, offered along with our partners and contributors.
- Tyler and Faun
Our Perspective
BC’s Pre- and Post-COVID Economy
Canada’s Pacific melting pot province of British Columbia is rich in natural beauty, resources, and talent. In recent years, British Columbia’s economy has outperformed most other Canadian provinces. BC’s inflation-adjusted GDP expanded at a very impressive annual rate of 3.3% between 2014 and 2017. Indeed, from 2010 to 2018, inflation-adjusted GDP per person grew by 11%, faster than any other province. Compared to other regions of Canada, British Columbians have been creating considerably more economic output per person over the past decade, which is intimately connected to prosperity.
COVID-19 is likely the largest shock to British Columbia’s economy since the end of the Second World War. While the province has been relatively successful in preventing the spread of the virus, certain large and vulnerable sectors, such as food and accommodation, tourism, and film sectors, have been impacted. The province’s robust real estate and construction industry has also slowed considerably. March and April were both the largest one-month drops in official employment figures since the start of the modern version of Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey in 1976. Combining the drops of March and April, a total drop of 15% in total jobs occurred.
Despite these negative impacts, the data discussed in this blog illustrates that the digital economy has not been adversely affected by COVID-19 or the resulting lockdowns of the economy. This is likely because demand for digital economy services has heightened during the pandemic (online entertainment, ecommerce). The digital economy production process is also less affected by lockdowns, as most digital economy workers are able to perform their jobs remotely. Therefore, the digital economy is likely to offer a path forward for BC’s economy as the COVID crisis gradually resolves. Resiliency to shock, high wages, and growing employment mean that BC’s digital economy will likely remain a bullish sector for the near future.
Guest Posts
Saving Lives from the “Other Crisis” During the COVID-19 Pandemic at Lifeguard Digital Health
By Dr Chandana Unnithan
The field of digital health is growing exponentially in the post-COVID world. As physical distancing becomes a necessity to sustain lives and governments lock down countries into quarantines, convergence of digital technologies has enabled health care services online. Services that are often cited include telemedicine, mobile applications, wearable devices, remote monitoring sensors, and even the use simple text messages via mobile phones that sends alerts to public.
Digital health integrates technologies and people. However, digitization in health also makes the world apprehensive about security and privacy. Will my personal medical data be available publicly? Will it compromise my security? Will my data be used for “other” purposes? The questions relate to the collection, aggregation, and use of data amongst communities and across regions. Inevitably, all questions are regarding civil liberties that should not be compromised. The key to unlocking the digital transformation productively in the health domain is to incorporate privacy-preserving approaches in the design and implementation of technologies while also keeping the public informed about “how” this is being accomplished.
Interviews in the Field
Sheltering in Place and Offline
Recent news cycles have turned to the durability of remote work and life: as of June 2020, one in five remote workers in Canada expect that they’ll be working from home indefinitely. Telework, however, is an opportunity afforded by broadband access, and the CRTC suggests that less than half of rural and remote households have access to high-speed internet. In June 2020, First Nations Technology Council (“Technology Council”) CEO Denise Williams sat down remotely with ICTC’s analyst Faun Rice to talk about the impact COVID-19 has had on Indigenous peoples living in BC. Immediate impacts on First Nations communities extend far beyond the ability to work remotely and include access to education, healthcare, and benefits.
Faun:
What kind of policy response or support from British Columbians would you like to see in response to these challenges? Any measures that people in BC should be taking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to Indigenous communities or offer support in another way?
Denise:
I think that a lot of communities have closed, and it’s important to be mindful of community safety. At the Technology Council, we’ve stopped all travel into communities for a year and will likely continue to do so until there’s a vaccine, just because of the population density on reserves, crowded homes, numerous generations of individuals who may have underlying health concerns, and healthcare access issues. It’s important to support communities’ right to manage who comes in and out.
Beyond that, we’d like to see immediate access to cellular coverage across the province. We’d like to see the cost of internet go down, especially during this period and during recovery. We recognize that infrastructure-building takes time and money, but something that can happen immediately is better affordability, and more subsidization for all British Columbians and specifically for First Nations communities. I also think that the data caps that are in place — for example, a connected community may only be able to buy a certain amount of bandwidth — should be removed. I’d like to see communities being given full access to whatever internet access they can get, and for that to be subsidized. Those are some things that can be done today.
Read the full interview here 🎙
BC’s Creative Tech Sector Drives Economic Growth and Jobs in Canada
Creative tech has flourished in Canada from its roots in BC, and the sector continues to punch above its weight, showing promise even amid an uncertain economic reality. An already booming industry, video gaming saw an unprecedented surge in consumption with the onset of COVID-19. Similarly, lockdowns and stay-at-home orders have led to a growing demand for animated content, and changes to live-action film are opening new doors for visual effects. Recently, ICTC’s Senior Director of Research & Policy, Alexandra Cutean sat down with Brenda Bailey, Executive Director of DigiBC to learn about this thriving sector.
Alexandra:
What would you say are the biggest challenges and successes that the creative tech sector in BC has experienced during COVID?
Brenda:
In terms of challenges, it’s really about the impact on the small and medium-sized enterprises: they are struggling a bit, and again, it’s tied to the business model. The business model is capable people who can make product looking for a product to build. A lot of people create their video game studios because they want to build their own IP, but it’s very difficult to get funding. Particularly in BC, the most common way is to establish a work-for-hire studio, then try to put aside some of the earnings from each project, so you can develop your own IP. The business model is problematic. We’re dependent on foreign entities for these contracts, and connections with those entities are usually forged by in-person business development opportunities at trade fairs, events, and conferences. That’s not possible right now. For established studios that already have those relationships, they’re probably okay, but for smaller ones trying to enter the market, it’s going to be tough. I can tell you that so much of my career, when I was making video games, was talking to people at trade show events, getting to know them, and building relationships. You can’t do that online, and we have to figure out how to solve that. It’s a big worry because these small studios don’t have a ton of runway. There was some research done at the beginning of April, which found that the average runway for a small studio was about four months. We’re getting close to that now, and it worries me. It’ll be a real loss for the ecosystem if those studios can’t survive this period. DigiBC is working on helping studios in that situation.
Read the full interview here 🎙
Research Visualized
The figure above shows employment in the digital economy as a percent of the general economy since the mid-1980s. The figure clearly shows the two periods of rapid growth in the technology and innovation sectors in British Columbia — once from 1993 to 2000, and again from 2012 to 2020. Indeed, so far, the impact of COVID-19 has been to increase the relative share of the digital economy in British Columbia. It now stands above 11%. - Ryan McLaughlin | email
Twitter Highlights
Talk to Us 💬
Send your comments, questions, and tech policy insights to:
- Tyler Farmer 🚀 t.farmer@ictc-ctic.ca
- Faun Rice 🦌 f.rice@ictc-ctic.ca
