Forty-nine per cent of Canadians have to travel outside their community to access common business services.
The Bank of Montreal often surveys consumers on various topics and this one caught my eye last week, for obvious reasons.
People in our communities are quick to point out that lack of essential services force them to travel to larger centres, so it was interesting to see that nearly half the country (or at least, half those surveyed) say they’re in the same canoe.
Everyone has a different bone to pick, however, and the survey’s findings don’t really jive with the problems we face here.
The survey found that hospitality services (hotels/motels) were the least likely to be available (75 per cent), while banking and financial services are the most widely available (94 per cent).
Too bad they didn’t ask about medical services, but this is a bank doing the survey.
Eighteen per cent of the respondents indicated that they would never need to travel outside their community to access common services.
Lucky them. They must either live in the middle of Vancouver (or Toronto), or they have someone run their errands for them.
Living in the middle of a city is like standing in line at Costco - just too many people in too small a space!
Access to grocery businesses is highest in BC at 99 per cent, and lowest in the Atlantic at 90 per cent. Makes sense since we grow more variety of food on the west coast.
Only 9 per cent of respondents from BC say they frequently have to travel outside their communities to access business services - now, if anyone from Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton or Lytton took this survey, I’d like to hear how they answered that question.
And BC residents are the most likely (91 per cent) to say they have access to trade services in their communities. And our towns are lucky in having our skilled trades people here.
Wendy Coomber is editor of the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal