Vancouver, BC - The BC Progress Board tabled its Sixth Annual Benchmarking Report, "Building on Our Progress: Striving for Excellence" today with the provincial government. Volume II of the comprehensive two volume report benchmarks British Columbia's performance regionally (urban versus rural) and inter-regionally. Indicators within Volume II reflect final outcome data, usually for 2005. The report also provides further inter-regional benchmarking by Development Region and Health Authority.

Vancouver CMA continues to outperform Regional BC on 8 of 10 comparable indicators covering economy, innovation, and education, unchanged since 2004. The indicators include: employment rate (2005), taxfilers' employment income (2004), housing starts (2005), non-residential building permits (2005), secondary school graduates (2005), university completion (2005), scientists and engineers employed (2005), and net new business formation (2005). Regional BC performed better than Vancouver CMA on manufacturing shipments (2003), and retail sales (2005).

"Regional BC has generally lagged behind the province's urban areas since we began our benchmarking in 2001", noted David Black, BC Progress Board Chair and President of Victoria-based Black Press Ltd. "Though absolute levels lag, employment growth, housing starts and net new business formation continue to improve at a faster rate in Regional BC than the Vancouver CMA", Black continued. "These trends underpin the return of the regions to economic vitality since 2004", Black noted.

This year's report contains an update on changing demographics in BC over the coming decades. "As BC continues to grow, there will be significant changes in the make-up of the provincial population, with the Lower Mainland projected to become home to an increasing proportion of the overall provincial population", Black stated. "BC - similar to all other North America jurisdictions - is faced with population ageing, which will result in corresponding increases in the demand for, and in the cost of, health care", Black continued.

BC's overall secondary school completion rate held steady at 79% in 2004/05, ranging from a high of 93% in Richmond school district to a low of 59% in Vancouver Island West. Meanwhile, for university completion (ages 25-54), Vancouver CMA's rate of 31.0% was above Victoria CMA (26.8%), Abbotsford CMA (14.7%), and Regional BC at 13.8%.

"Addressing regional variations in high school completion rates is the subject of a special discussion paper released earlier this month by the Progress Board ", noted Tim McEwan, Executive Director of the Progress Board. "Further progress in high school completion rates will require efforts to provide more pathways to graduation for the 21 percent of students who don't graduate within six years of beginning Grade 8", McEwan continued. "Another critical dimension of efforts to increase high school completion will be to take steps to close the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal student completion, which currently stands at 48% versus 82% respectively", McEwan stated.

On measures of environment, health and society, Vancouver CMA outperforms Regional BC on 5 of 8 measures including: air quality (2005), cancer mortality (2005), life expectancy at birth (2005), employment insurance recipients (2005), and income assistance (2005). Regional BC performs better on 2 indicators - low birth weight newborns (2004) and the incidence of low income (2003). There is no significant difference in personal and property crime rates (2005) between Vancouver CMA and Regional BC.

The report examines air quality in 11 communities around the province. Powell River had the lowest concentration of particulate matter in 2005 (3.0 PM2.5 ug/m3), followed by Nanaimo (4.4), Chilliwack (4.6) and Kelowna (4.6), while Prince George (7.9) had the highest concentration of the communities examined. Vancouver (6.0), Victoria (5.4), Abbotsford (5.2) were middling performers.

"Overall air quality trends around are essentially flat over the 11 communities that are covered in this year's regional benchmarking analysis, with about half improving and half slightly deteriorating", McEwan noted.

Turning to health outcomes:

• Overall life expectancy at birth is the same or higher in all regions of the province on a year over year basis in 2005, except for a slight decrease in the Victoria CMA, while there was absolute improvement in all regions between 1996 and 2005;
  

• Cardiovascular disease mortality rates decreased in all Health Authorities between 2004 and 2005; and,
  

• Cancer mortality rates decreased in all Health Authorities for 2004 to 2005.

"Health outcomes have shown continuous overall improvement across the province during the last ten years", McEwan noted. "The one exception is the incidence of low birth weight newborns which showed a slight increase over the last ten years", McEwan commented. "The broader context of overall leading performance - BC ranks 3rd best among the 61 provinces, US states and the District of Columbia - should be kept in mind", McEwan continued.

BC's personal and property crime rate showed improvement between 2004 and 2005 across all areas examined. Between 1996 and 2005, crime rates fell by 35.3% in Vancouver CMA, 20.9% in Victoria CMA, by 14.3% in Regional BC, and by 2.9% in Abbotsford CMA. Crime rates were highest in the Abbotsford CMA, at 8.3 incidents per 100 residents in 2005, compared to 7.6 in Vancouver CMA, 6.5 for Victoria CMA and 7.4 incidents per 100 residents in Regional BC.

"The continued trajectory of improving crime rates in all regions of the province is promising", David Black stated. "As expert work commissioned by the Progress Board this year underscores, further efforts to tackle the primary causes of crime and criminality - substance abuse, defective childhood development practices, mental disorder, and impoverished and unstable lifestyles - must be a public priority in British Columbia", Black concluded.

The Sixth Annual Benchmarking Report, "Building on Our Progress: Striving for Excellence", is available on the Progress Board's website: www.bcprogressboard.com www.bcprogressboard.com

Other recent discussion papers - The Social Condition in British Columbia; Working Together to Improve Performance: Preparing BC's Public Education System for the Future; and, Reducing Crime and Criminality in British Columbia - are also available on the BC Progress Board's website: www.bcprogressboard.com www.bcprogressboard.com

The BC Progress Board is an independent Panel of 18 business and academic leaders which benchmark BC's economic, innovation, education, environment, health and social condition. The Board also advises on ways to improve provincial performance.

Contact:

Tim McEwan Executive Director B.C. Progress Board 604 775-1664