BCBusiness

28 INVEST in BC 2 0 2 4 DE HAVILLAND CANADA; SIDNEY WHALE WATCHING goals—the City of Victoria, South Island Prosperity Partnership, Capital Regional District and, in 2023, the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce—joined the effort to create the South Island Indigenous Business Directory. The partners' original goal of listing 50 suppliers was soon surpassed and the directory now hosts more than 100 companies self-identified as Indigenous owned and operated. The online directory itself—indigenousbusinessdirectoryvi. com—was built by Animikii, a local Indigenous IT firm. The effort won the Economic Reconciliation Award for communities with greater than 20,000 population in 2024 from BCEDA. • VA N C O U V E R I S L A N D / C O A S T This growth adds a layer on top of an already diversified and stable economy focused on public administration (Victoria is British Columbia's capital city), tourism, higher education and research, the forest industry, fishing, farming, manufacturing and advanced technology. New-economy employers can find a skilled and experi- enced workforce here: 13,685 people work in advanced manufacturing as it is; 9,132 in information and communication technol- ogy; 3,206 in life sciences; 974 in cleantech; 492 in digital media and entertainment; and 465 in aerospace. Aircraft manufacturer De Havilland Canada is expanding production of DHC-515 firefighting planes at its facility in North Saanich to meet a surge in new orders from Europe, which has seen a series of bad wildfire seasons. The company has doubled its local payroll to 300 over the past year and honed those employees' skills with an in-house training academy. Nearby, the Tsawout First Nation has embarked on a series of economic development initiatives aimed at benefiting members with jobs and training. In 2021, it granted a licence to Cascadia Seaweed to grow kelp and other edible marine plants in the Tsawout territorial waters off James Island. This year it acquired a whale-watching tour company in Sidney and formed a construction joint venture with Surrey-based Industra Construction Corp. Further up-Island, New Times Energy Discovery Park in Campbell River signed a memorandum of understanding this year with hydrogen company Quantum Technology to build a green hydrogen plant in the community to produce low-carbon fuel for ferries, buses and trucks. Hydrogen is increasingly seen as a way for companies and public-sector entities to meet their net-zero commitments with respect to transportation. Also in Campbell River, Poseidon Ocean Systems this year received $28 million in venture capital financing to expand production of its patented sustainable sea cages and life support systems for fish farms that have been deployed in the United Kingdom, Chile, New Zealand and Australia as well as B.C. RECONCILIATION IN ACTION In 2019, the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority began compiling a list of local Indigenous businesses as a way to promote socially responsible procurement and serve the cause of economic reconciliation. Three years later more organizations that had been working towards the same CAPITAL GROWTH: Victoria's Inner Harbour (top) is the at the core of B.C.'s capital city; De Havilland Canada has been hiring at its plant producing firefighting planes in nearby North Saanich REPURPOSED: The Tsawout First Nation acquired a whale-watching company in Sidney (above left); New Times Energy has plans for a green hydrogen facility in Campbell River (rendering above) Official Publication of the BC Economic Development Association in special partnership with BCBusiness.

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