The Comox Valley is ranked low when it comes to potential disruptions to trade with the United States, according to a report by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
The census area is ranked 265 out of 293 in Canada when it comes to exposure to U.S. trade, the report says. The institute initially set up its methodology to show how likely a local workforce is to be affected by the global energy transition, however they adapted their work in light of the trade dispute with the United States.
"With the emergence of an escalating trade battle with our largest trading partner, we adapted our methodology to look at community susceptibility to workforce disruption from tariffs. U.S. tariffs could have significant impacts on workers in communities with high proportions of employment in sectors dependent on exports to the U.S," the report says. "While uncertainty looms over tariff levels and the goods to which they could apply, our dashboards allow users to identify communities with concentrations of employment in the targeted sectors. Governments can use this information to inform programs that soften the blow of tariffs and to help communities diversify their economies and reduce their exposure."
The report comes with two interactive dashboards, one showing a map of all census areas in Canada with colour-coded exposure ratings, and one searchable by community.
The Comox Valley has a workforce exposure of 1.9 per cent, with 3,570 people working in goods-exporting industries, of a total 31,405 workers (11.4 per cent). Factoring in the average industry exposure of 17 per cent, that puts the workforce exposure at 1.9 per cent.
Breaking the workforce down into the top exporting industries shows that most workers who will be potentially affected by tariffs work in farms (1,000, or 3.2 per cent). Next is wholesale trade, which has 535 workers (1.7 per cent), followed by oil and gas extraction (150, or 0.5 per cent) and finally miscellaneous manufacturing (90 workers, or 0.3 per cent).
The Strathcona Regional District has slightly higher exposure to U.S. tariffs, with 2.6 per cent workforce exposure. This is due to a larger proportion of the workforce being employed in seafood production and wood product manufacturing. The Mount Waddington census division is higher still, with 3.7 per cent workforce exposure. This is also due to higher seafood and wood product manufacturing, but also more fishing and hunting, as well as the mineral extraction industry.
The Strathcona census division is ranked 246 out of 293, and the Mt. Waddington division is ranked 192 of 293 in Canada.
The most exposed census division is Wood Buffalo in Alberta, due to a large proportion of workers in the oil and gas extraction industry. The least exposed is the North West Territory census division, due to both a small population and few workers in exposed industries.
The IRPP acknowledges that its methodology, like all similar research, has limitations.
"Our industry exposure metric is based on national averages, which don鈥檛 necessarily reflect actual trade in census divisions. Some communities may have a lot of employment in highly exposed industries at the national level, but these same industries may not be as exposed at the local level," the report says. "Census data also has its limitations. Some census divisions are too large and sparse to be good proxies for communities, and employment counts for certain industries are not available in disaggregated form (like crop and animal production)."
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