File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Sadie Hunter

In The Loop

HUNTER: Entering 2023 with cautious optimism

Jan 3, 2023 | 3:06 PM

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW YEAR is a natural time for people to reflect on the last year and on what they may want to leave behind, change, or keep going forward. Reflection is a good practice in general, but I do think having a temporal marker to set aside time for reflection is important, it’s really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day before you know it *poof* a year has passed.

I personally found 2022 to be a challenging year, maybe even more so than 2020 or 2021. I think this is because there’s a delay in responding to two years of disruption and isolation, changing mandates, the loss of social gatherings, economic upheaval, and extreme weather events to name a few things. These experiences are hard to process while they’re happening. Our tendency is to shift into survival mode and push off processing until the “threat” has passed. Living in this reactive and survivalistic mode for so long has left us drained and with little bandwidth left to absorb normal life stressors.

But, to outline this with a silver lining, the data suggests this fatigue and strain is being felt collectively. According to a December 15, 2022 Ipsos survey, on average across all 36 countries, 56 per cent of the close to 25,000 surveyed, describe 2022 as a bad year for themselves and their family. It’s important to remember this is a global average and not the same for every country – in fact, some countries felt 2022 was better than the preceding two years. That said, of the questions asked about how people are feeling going into 2023, more than half were answered pessimistically, with the economy, political uncertainty, and climate-related disasters topping some of the concerns. I don’t think we’re immune from any of these in Kamloops either.

In fact, I think those same three concerns are also the top local concerns. To explain why, let’s explore each one in a bit more detail and how it might impact our city.

1. Economic turmoil:

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The International Monetary Fund projected in October that global growth will fall to 2.7 per cent in 2023. Excluding the global financial crisis and the worst stage of the pandemic, this will mean the weakest year for the world economy since 2001. Many sources predict recession, persistent inflation, and rising unemployment will impact everyone this year to some degree.

What will that look like here? As a corporation, the city isn’t immune from economic pressures and uncertainty and is impacted the same as any other business. The city’s 2023 budget page on Let’s Talk Kamloops notes this:

“As the City prepares the 2023 budget, it faces many of the same challenges that local businesses and members of the community are facing. There are some lingering effects as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased competition for skilled employees, ongoing supply chain issues, and the high level of inflation in the market all continue to be unpredictable and impact many of the operations and services the City provides.”

This will translate directly into the decisions around the five-year financial plan, the supplementary budget, and the 2023 tax rate. That said, the city is also in a very strong financial position with a 2021 surplus of $23,024,951 and net financial assets totalling $30,143,969. What does this mean? It’s possible to pull some funds from general reserves to offset some of the tax increase or use some of the surplus to fund some much-needed infrastructure, which will help our economic growth in the long run. Adding things like a Centre for the Arts, more ice sheets, and another pool will increase livability and ultimately attract more residents, professionals, and employers. More facilities also leads to increased visitor-related revenue, supporting our existing businesses which are almost locally all owned, meaning those dollars stay in Kamloops and contribute to our economy and community. The 2023 budget will be tremendously important for Kamloops and I encourage you to look for ways to have input before the final tax rate is set. Currently, the provisional budget includes a property tax funding requirement increase of 5.6 per cent (approx. $7 million).

2. Extreme weather and climate-related events:

This year we experienced a 70-degree swing in temperature between extreme heat and extreme cold. We also experienced high water levels and extended dry periods. Thankfully, there were no repeats in terms of wildfires and flooding of 2021, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. Events like this in other areas can still impact Kamloops – just ask anyone who tried to travel over the holidays.

These variations in climate-related events are expected to continue to be more frequent and intense. We need to be considering how we can be more resilient and resistant to the impacts of these events. A lot of this can be tied to planning and resourcing, ensuring we have the financial and human capacity to absorb the impact of these events without them impeding the progress of other projects or operations. This is a tricky balance, but a critical one. If we experience another year like 2021, the slowing or halting of projects and operations is all but guaranteed without surge capacity being built into the emergency response planning. As a hub for emergency response in the region, this planning also needs to consider the city’s role in supporting our neighbours, and how we can do so while maintaining our own capacity. Good news is we have very capable individuals in charge of our emergency response and we are lucky to have them.

3. Political uncertainty:

There’s a lot of uncertainty in the global geopolitical landscape, a few minutes spent watching, reading or listening to the news makes this fairly clear. The landscape impacts the economy, supply chains and government priorities. Against this global backdrop, we also have federal and provincial governments with their own agendas. How this plays out can be seen in the inability for the provinces and the federal government to come to an agreement over health care. In a failed meeting in November 2022, Canadian premiers asked the federal government to increase the Canadian Health Transfer so its share of provincial and territorial health care costs rises from 22 per cent to 35 per cent. The federal government agreed to an increase of an unspecified amount, but only if certain conditions were accepted – which the premiers pushed back against doing.

Health care impacts all of us and the inability to come to an agreement and move forward to address the issues in our healthcare system should concern everyone. These two orders of government are playing political hockey with people’s lives and they need to either find a phased approach or make some concessions to get things moving. There’s no question the issues plaguing the health care system have negatively impacted health care in Kamloops and the TNRD.

Which brings me to local political unrest. I hope 2023 will bring with it some resolutions to resolve differences and move forward. For city council to come together resolute in their shared duty to make decisions beneficial to the entire community. One of the most important vehicles for this to happen is the city council’s strategic plan, which will set the policy and direction for the next four years. This is a guiding document used by staff to create strategic priorities and actions and the creation of this plan is absolutely contingent on council coming together united, being willing to listen, to make concessions, and to move forward together. I know many of the current council members are all in and are committed to doing their part. This makes me hopeful for our community and our future.

All the above said, I don’t want to leave on a pessimistic note. Heading into 2023 with financial strain, political uncertainty and climate change all threatening to dampen anyone’s good mood, focusing on the lighter side of life may be beneficial.

HealthLinkBC, the province’s online health resource, says humour therapy – the use of smiles and laughter to aid healing – allows the release of fear, anger and stress. Ways to do this include being more playful, telling jokes, finding humour in everyday life and laughing. I would also offer a suggestion to find small things that bring you joy and to find ways to have your say in what matters to you – if this makes you happy.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.