An agreement signed with the provincial government will support the City of Cranbrook’s future economic development, it was announced yesterday.

The City signed a Communities First Agreement through the Ministry of Community and Rural Development, a pilot project to develop community economic development agreements with select local governments.

“Communities First Agreements are a new approach that we are piloting in various areas across B.C.," said Ben Stewart, Minister of Community and Rural Development. "Each of the communities identify their priorities for increasing their economic resilience and sustainability, as Cranbrook has done, so that we can work together to help achieve its vision through targeted resource allocation and partnerships.”

Kevin Weaver, the City’s economic development officer, said Cranbrook was fortunate to be chosen for the program.

“I think we’re very fortunate to have this opportunity and it’s a great way of working with the Province,” he said. “The big thing this agreement is doing is it’s getting us additional support from the provincial government to take on aspects of our Economic Development Strategy that we would otherwise have difficulty moving forward.”

Weaver said there are issues regarding provincial regulations and policy that, in the absence of having somebody in government working with the City on them, it would be a struggle to move forward.

“We have a dedicated person within the Ministry of Community and Rural Development we can call upon and is actually developing a substantial amount of time and effort towards assisting us with the suite of projects we’re looking at undertaking,” he said.

Thanks to the fact Cranbrook has an Economic Development Strategy, the City was able to identify seven priority projects to address through the agreement. The projects are: strengthening fibre optic infrastructure; enhancing air services and developing City-owned industrial lands for an industrial park near the airport; examining the prospect of micro-energy generation; looking at possibilities for a new industrial sector in clean energy development; attracting investment; growth and development of the local agricultural industry; business retention and expansion.

“We’re very fortunate to get into the program with them but one of the reasons we were able to was the fact we had and economic development strategy that laid out what our priorities were, which made it a lot easier for them to figure out how they would be able to play a role in assisting us,” Weaver said. “With the exception of the attracting investment and the business retention and expansion, pretty much all the other projects are in some level of implementation to a greater or lesser extent. A lot of it is very early in the works.”

The agreement is for one year with the ability to extend.

“I want to thank Minister Stewart and our MLA Bill Bennett for selecting Cranbrook as a pilot city for this community economic development initiative," said Scott Manjak, Cranbrook Mayor. "This agreement will support and complement our Economic Development Strategy, as well as improving our ability to act quickly on priority activities to support our overall economic development vision, which is to encourage growth and investment in our community and surrounding area.”

"Economic diversification is key to the long-term prosperity of Cranbrook and the entire East Kootenays," said Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett. "The priority projects identified in this initiative will go a long way to securing a stable economic future for the region."