The Cariboo Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition (CCBAC) is winding down by the end of this year. CCBAC funding, provided specifically to deal with pine beetle devastation, is coming to an end. Going forward, applicants will be able to apply to the new Rural Dividend Fund (RDF), which has a larger pool of money and is available to all rural communities, not just those affected by pine beetle.
CCBAC Chair Jim Rivett says the regional group sees no point in continuing as it will no longer have the ability to directly administer funding for local projects.
“We still have some funding and will accept applications for funding. However, the money has to be out the door by the end of 2017.”
Some recent dollars have been allocated to the Cariboo Regional District’s Cariboo Strong projects, as well as $133,000 going to each of that groups north, central and south Cariboo subregions for their choice of where best to use that money, he explains.
Rivett says the remaining CCBAC funds can be still applied for based upon the criteria on the coalition’s website at www.c-cbac.com, providing it has time to review and approve funding by the end of this year.
While the CCBAC board has foreseen this coming since the province announced the RDF in 2015, a roundtable discussion held at its annual general meeting on Nov. 21, 2016 resulted in its renewed commitment to close down at the end of 2017, he explains.
Rivett adds while the RDF is “basically replacing CCBAC,” its board recognizes the current political and funding realities in the province.
After one of the other two provincial Beetle Action Coalition (BAC) groups applied for RDF funding and failed, the local coalition members decided it was best to close down, he explains.
The CCBAC chair says with its former funding now dried up, except for the remaining money it has now, including the 10 per cent holdback it keeps in trust for any approved project’s completion, the board doesn’t see how it can continue to serve the community as project funding administrators, he adds.
Rivett explains that provincial funding will now be going to all the rural regions across British Columbia, not just the areas affected by pine beetle, which shifts the spotlight away from those areas with economies dependent on forestry that were hit hard by the pine beetles.
He says with this change in rural regional funding it seems as if “to say that the [BACs] didn’t serve a good purpose, and have become redundant. I’m a little disappointed in that approach, but it is what it is.
There’s not a lot of sense in having a bunch of people sit around and discuss things with no real ability to help with funding, Rivett adds.
“The BACs have done a good job … but by the end of 2017 we will have no money, and there will be no [CCBAC].”
Originally established in 2006 by community leaders to mitigate the devastating ecological, social and economic effects of the mountain pine beetle, CCBAC has been actively serving the economic interests of the Cariboo Chilcotin Region for more than a decade.
Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett was a founding director on CCBAC back then, when she was still mayor of the District of 100 Mile House, and acknowledges ever since the group’s inception its society members “have done a great job, they got the message out, and they’ve helped a lot of people”.
“When I was there, we did a lot of studies on every sector, and what that sector could do to help economic growth in a region that has the mountain pine beetle.”
Noting that as a society, it’s a decision of its current members if they choose to shut down, she says they could continue if they wanted to apply to RDF for project funding, as long as it is for generating economic development.
However, Barnett says the RDF will not take money away from beetle devastated regions, including the South Cariboo and any other communities in her constituency.
“The Cariboo-Chilcotin will be eligible for more funding. There’s $25-million a year for three years, and basically, there have been lots of applications.”
The second influx of RDF funding is due to be announced sometime this week (by March 3), and there are some “great projects and initiatives” that are going to be seen as a result, she adds.
“Beetle-hit communities won’t be any less qualified, and there’s a bigger pot of money there. The opportunities will be greater.
“Communities, non-profits and First Nations that put in applications for projects that generate economic development and meet the criteria for will be funded.”
A CCBAC release states the board has also decided to use any unallocated funds remaining at the end of 2017 to further support the Cariboo Strong Process.
Jim Rivett has also served as mayor of the Village of Clinton since 2011.
