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Vitals report identifies Bow Valley concerns

BOW VALLEY – Listening to the pulse of the Bow Valley, the Banff Canmore Community Foundation released the inaugural Vital Signs report earlier this month noting key areas of focus and highlighting improvement priorities.
Sunshine Road Wolf
Wildlife corridors was one of the key concerns Bow Valley reisdents identified in the inaugural Vital Signs report, proudced by the Banff Canmore Community Foundation.

BOW VALLEY – Listening to the pulse of the Bow Valley, the Banff Canmore Community Foundation released the inaugural Vital Signs report earlier this month noting key areas of focus and highlighting improvement priorities.

“It was really time for us as a foundation to think how objectively as possible to assess the vitality of the community and we’ve been at it for almost 20 years and I think we do have a pretty good pulse on sort of what the issues and interests are in the community,” said Bill Fisher, executive director with the Banff Canmore Community Foundation.

After a year of identifying which areas to focus on, surveying, compiling data and designing the Vital Signs report, the main areas of focus needing improvement were identified as the ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ and ‘Business and Economy’ – both scored the lowest grade on the scaling index.

“The one thing that was troubling from an issue point of view was the social well being index and the difference of the index scores for communities like Banff and Canmore compared to the Stoney Nakoda reserve – there is quite a large gap between those and to think that we’re only 45 minutes to an hour between those communities is troubling,” Fisher explained.

According to the survey data, which netted 341 respondents in an estimated 28,188 population in the valley, 31 per cent of residents are unfamiliar with the Truth and Reconciliation and its Calls to Action and 87 per cent of valley residents responded as having “some degree of familiarity” with the Indigenous communities.

“I feel like the opening of the Vital Signs was very instrumental in having discussions start with inequality with Indigenous people and I feel like I was always aware of that for so long but other Canadians here in this region are not aware of the vast, vast amount of inequalities,” said Tasina Pope, Stoney Nakoda resident and veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Truth and Reconciliation recommendations arising from the report included, improve transit infrastructure to provide access to popular sport and recreation locations, provide more opportunity for cross cultural learning between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, create programs to increase awareness and foster learning about the shared history of the Bow Valley, and improve employment opportunities for Indigenous people in the valley.

Business and Economy also scored poorly on the report with respondents noting they want to grow and diversify the economic base, increase the share of locally-owned and operated businesses in the community, increase supply of affordable housing and improve the affordability of rental units.

“There’s probably more opportunity to diversify in a place like Canmore than say Banff or Lake Louise where the communities are established as a visitors centre for residents and tourists,” Fisher said.

Recommendations included foster an environmentally sustainable, locally-owned living wage economy that serves all, diversify the economy and enhance affordability and food security.

“Canmore could be a place where types of businesses that haven’t been considered in the past, especially ones that might deal with more high tech opportunity for development and stuff – it’s quite a bit different than how we’ve seen the Bow Valley in the last hundred years.”

Wildlife corridors also came up as a reoccurring concern with residents wanting respect for the importance of wildlife corridors and people also asked how to address climate change, both from a ecological integrity point of view and “how do we ensure the environment here remains sustainable.”

“How do we mitigate impacts of climate change, not just in Banff National Park or K-Country but in the entire stretch of the Bow Valley,” Fisher said.

“But on the flip side, how do we do that and there was not a lot of, I guess I would call consensus or thinking, around what we can do at a local scale to make improvement?”

Recommendations included support the protection, restoration and management of our natural environment, specifically addressing resilience and mitigation in a time of climate change.

Other areas of focus included ‘Health and Wellness’ and ‘Education’ which both were rated as “good” and ‘Sports and Recreation’ and ‘Arts and Culture’ were rated as the highest area of focus with ‘excellent’ scores.

“I don’t think other areas are necessarily surprising but it was nice to see that by and large, people in the valley feel a social wellbeing and connective-ness and a social belonging in the valley, whether it’s a neighbourhood level, community level or regional level in the Bow Valley,” Fisher said.

“I think that is quite heartening because that often speaks to how positive and proud people are where they live.”

For more information on the report or to grab a copy, visit the Banff Canmore Community Foundation at 214 Banff Ave in Banff or read it online at banffcanmorecf.org/vitalsigns.

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