A Local Health Area Profile was conducted for Lake Cowichan by the Planning and Community Engagement Vancouver Island Health Authority in July 2011. The report was presented to Town Council for their review. It contained some interesting facts on the local area as well as some concerns regarding Lake Cowichan’s economic health as a whole.
Overall, Lake Cowichan scores poorly on almost all of the economic well being indicators. The report states that Lake Cowichan had a higher percentage of people receiving Income assistance (8.4 per cent) over BC at (3.8 per cent) or VIHA (4.6 per cent), and a higher percentage of the population on Employment Insurance than VIHA or BC. Lake Cowichan also has a much higher unemployment rate (9.6 per cent) than B.C. (5.1 per cent) or VIHA (4.8 per cent).
Although Lake Cowichan did not fare well in many categories, Coun. Bob Day says that the numbers in the report should be kept in perspective. As an example, Lake Cowichan alcohol sales were 50 per cent higher than anywhere else in B.C. and 25 per cent higher than anywhere else on the island, but Lake Cowichan is a tourism hot spot in the summer which could account for these statistics. Cpl. Krista Hobday concurs with this perspective saying that from summer to winter, the population of Lake Cowichan is not the same. Hobday says that alcohol related issues the RCMP deal with are related to people coming from out of town, which may be due in part to the fact that the circle route is now paved. Both Mayor Forrest and Coun. Day point to summer population numbers to account for this rise as well. Day adds that that alcohol consumption goes up when there are ball tournaments hosted by the town. Town Council has requested a breakdown of sales during the summer months as they compare to B.C. and VIHA.
Another example can be seen when comparing the low numbers the report gives for students 18 years of age graduating from Lake Cowichan Secondary School [LCSS]––49.6 per cent between 2006 and 2009––to the data that can be found on the B.C. Education website, K-12 reporting: bced.gov.bc.ca/reports/. Peter Jory, the school’s principal, says that he watches this data carefully and compares it with his own. The site shows that for 2011, there was a 98 per cent eligible graduation rate (those who are eligible to grad as of Sept. 30). Jory admits that LCSS did struggle for a long time, but says that there has been a lot of progress over the last couple of years. As a way of illustrating this, he talked about what is called a 6 year graduation rate (a number the province and districts pay close attention to), which shows that the province sits at 80–81 per cent. Four years ago, when Jory first started, LCSS was around 65 per cent, but since then the school has gone through many transitions, and though he doesn’t know what the 6 year grad rate is anymore (due to lack of funding), he would expect that it has been bumped up. “The numbers [in the report] don’t make sense to me.”
The report also states that the number of women smoking during pregnancy in Lake Cowichan is nearly double than elsewhere in B.C. The community had a lower rate of child hospitalization for respiratory disease, but that child hospitalization due to poisoning and injury is elevated. In housing, Lake Cowichan had a much lower gross rent ($567) compared to B.C. ($828) or VIHA ($769), but that many residents spend more than 30 per cent of income on rent. And though Lake Cowichan Community Services couldn’t speak directly to these numbers, they did say that the community has a very transient population with high numbers of unemployed or underemployed. Community Services says they deal with a lot of people on an annual basis and that many of these people are not able to rent; they are living out of their cars or couch surfing. In the winter these numbers decrease, and in the spring they creep back up again. This report will be put forth on a future Town Council agenda to discuss solutions and methods to create a better awareness amongst the citizens in the community. Anyone interested in the report can view them on the VIHA website at viha.ca/mho/stats/lha_profiles.htm . It should be noted that as the Cowichan Lake area has quite a small population, there can be a noticeable variation in several of these indicators from year to year.
Forrest says that council has yet to discuss the findings of the report and talk with VIHA to find out if there is a relationship between unemployment and health numbers. He acknowledges that there is a need for affordable housing within Lake Cowichan, but “without a developer there is not much we can do about it.” There is one developer who has come forward with a plan for affordable housing for seniors but he is not sure yet of other requirements for such a development that may need to be met.
